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Whether he built himself a new palace is not related; but as the royal residence of later times was situated on the southern shore, which was one of Hiram's additions to his capital, it is perhaps most probable that the construction of this new palace was due to him. The chief material which he used in his buildings was, as in Jerusalem, cedar. The substructions alone were of stone.
This theory has kept me from entering the discussion, whether the substructions in the cliff under the Poggio Syracuse, a royal villa, are temples of the Sirens, or caves of Ulysses.
Two out of the eight courses are of the nature of substructions, being supplemental to the rock, which supplies their place in part; and it is only recently that they have been brought to light by means of excavation. Hence the earlier travellers speak of the monument as having no more than six courses. The present height above the soil is a little short of twenty-five feet.
The proprietor of the villa and the little colony of monks are now the only inhabitants of the Palatine. In walking over it, you stumble upon blocks of marble, remains of terraces, vaults still retaining their frescoes, arches, porticos, and vast substructions of brickwork, all crushed and blended into one common ruin.
These temples are built upon massive substructions that might support a world, almost; the materials used are blocks of stone as large as an omnibus very few, if any of them, are smaller than a carpenter's tool chest and these substructions are traversed by tunnels of masonry through which a train of cars might pass.
These temples are built upon massive substructions that might support a world, almost; the materials used are blocks of stone as large as an omnibus very few, if any of them, are smaller than a carpenter's tool chest and these substructions are traversed by tunnels of masonry through which a train of cars might pass.
There are the massive walls of a great square building that was once the citadel; there are many ponderous old arches that are so smothered with debris that they barely project above the ground; there are heavy-walled sewers through which the crystal brook of which Jordan is born still runs; in the hill-side are the substructions of a costly marble temple that Herod the Great built here patches of its handsome mosaic floors still remain; there is a quaint old stone bridge that was here before Herod's time, may be; scattered every where, in the paths and in the woods, are Corinthian capitals, broken porphyry pillars, and little fragments of sculpture; and up yonder in the precipice where the fountain gushes out, are well-worn Greek inscriptions over niches in the rock where in ancient times the Greeks, and after them the Romans, worshipped the sylvan god Pan.
There are the massive walls of a great square building that was once the citadel; there are many ponderous old arches that are so smothered with debris that they barely project above the ground; there are heavy-walled sewers through which the crystal brook of which Jordan is born still runs; in the hill-side are the substructions of a costly marble temple that Herod the Great built here patches of its handsome mosaic floors still remain; there is a quaint old stone bridge that was here before Herod's time, may be; scattered every where, in the paths and in the woods, are Corinthian capitals, broken porphyry pillars, and little fragments of sculpture; and up yonder in the precipice where the fountain gushes out, are well-worn Greek inscriptions over niches in the rock where in ancient times the Greeks, and after them the Romans, worshipped the sylvan god Pan.
Such massive arches, such ponderous substructions as support these towering broad-winged edifices, we have seldom seen before; and surely the great blocks of stone of which these edifices are built can never decay; walls that are as thick as an ordinary American doorway is high cannot crumble. The republics of Genoa and Pisa were very powerful in the Middle Ages.
Within, it had a great, cool, gray cortile, with high, light arches around it, heavily-corniced doors, of majestic altitude, opening out of it, and a beautiful mediaeval well on one side of it. Mrs. Hudson's rooms opened into a small garden supported on immense substructions, which were planted on the farther side of the hill, as it sloped steeply away. This garden was a charming place.
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