[Sidenote:  Jos.  Ant.  XV, 11:3f-l] Herod also built very large colonnades all around the temple, making them in proportion.  He exceeded all who had gone before him in his lavish expenditure of money.  There was a large wall about the colonnades.  The hill, on which the temple stood, was rocky, ascending gradually toward the east of the city to its highest point.  At the bottom, which was surrounded by a deep valley, he laid rocks that were bound together with lead.  He also cut away some of the inner parts, carrying the wall to a great height, until the size and height of the square construction was immense, and until the great size of the stones in front were visible on the outside.  The inward parts were fastened together with iron and the joints were preserved immovable for all time.  When this work was joined together to the very top of the hill, he finished off its upper surface and filled up the hollow places about the wall and made it level and smooth on top.  Within this wall, on the very top, was another wall of stone that had on the east a double colonnade of the same length as the wall.  Inside was the temple itself.  This colonnade faced the door of the temple and had been decorated by many kings before.  Around about the entire temple were fixed the spoils taken from the barbarous nations.  All these were dedicated to the temple by Herod, who added those that had been taken from the Arabians.

[Sidenote:  Jos.  Ant.  XV, 11:4a, d] Now in an angle on the north side of the temple was built a citadel, well fortified and of extraordinary strength.  This citadel had been built before Herod by the kings and high priests of the Hasmonean race, and they called it the Tower.  In it were deposited the garments of the high priest, which he put on only at the time when he was to offer sacrifice.  Herod fortified this tower more strongly than before, in order to guard the temple securely, and gave the tower the name of Antonia to gratify Antony, who was his friend and a Roman ruler.

[Sidenote:  Jos.  Ant.  XV, 11:5a-g] In the western side of the temple enclosure were four gates; one led to the king’s palace, two others led to the suburbs of the city, and the fourth led by many steps down into the valley and up on the other side to the entrance to the other part of the city.  The fourth front of the temple, that on the south, had gates in the middle; before this front were the three royal colonnades, which reached from the valley on the east to that on the west.  These colonnades were especially remarkable for their great height, which seemed more because the hill at their base dropped abruptly into a very deep valley.  There were four rows of pillars, placed side by side.  The fourth was built into the stone wall.  Each pillar was about twenty-seven feet high, with a double spiral at the base, and was so thick that three men joining hands could just reach around it.  The number of the pillars was one hundred and sixty-two.