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[422]
And when he had built so much, he showed the greatness of his soul
to no small number of foreign cities. He built palaces for exercise at
Tripoli, and Damascus, and Ptolemais; he built a wall about Byblus, as
also large rooms, and cloisters, and temples, and market-places at Berytus
and Tyre, with theatres at Sidon and Damascus. He also built aqueducts
for those Laodiceans who lived by the sea-side; and for those of Ascalon
he built baths and costly fountains, as also cloisters round a court, that
were admirable both for their workmanship and largeness. Moreover, he dedicated
groves and meadows to some people; nay, not a few cities there were who
had lands of his donation, as if they were parts of his own kingdom. He
also bestowed annual revenues, and those for ever also, on the settlements
for exercises, and appointed for them, as well as for the people of Cos,
that such rewards should never be wanting. He also gave corn to all such
as wanted it, and conferred upon Rhodes large sums of money for building
ships; and this he did in many places, and frequently also. And when Apollo's
temple had been burnt down, he rebuilt it at his own charges, after a better
manner than it was before. What need I speak of the presents he made to
the Lycians and Samnians? or of his great liberality through all Ionia?
and that according to every body's wants of them. And are not the Athenians,
and Lacedemonians, and Nicopolitans, and that Pergamus which is in Mysia,
full of donations that Herod presented them withal? And as for that large
open place belonging to Antioch in Syria, did not he pave it with polished
marble, though it were twenty furlongs long? and this when it was shunned
by all men before, because it was full of dirt and filthiness, when he
besides adorned the same place with a cloister of the same length.
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