likeness to it was erected in another part of the precinct for the queen.  Within the porch itself was to be seen the king in state.  On a throne of ivory, brought from Africa or India, the throne of many an Arabian legend, the kings of Judah were solemnly seated on the day of their accession.  From its lofty seat, and under that high gateway, Solomon and his successors after him delivered their solemn judgments.  That ‘porch’ or ‘gate of justice’ still kept alive the likeness of the old patriarchal custom of sitting in judgment at the gate; exactly as the ‘Gate of Justice’ still recalls it to us at Granada, and the Sublime Porte—­’the Lofty Gate’—­at Constantinople.  He sate on the back of a golden bull, its head turned over its shoulder, probably the ox or bull of Ephraim; under his feet, on each side of the steps, were six golden lions, probably the lions of Judah.  This was ’the seat of Judgment.’  This was ‘the throne of the House of David.’"[1479]

We have dwelt the longer upon these matters because it is from the lengthy and elaborate descriptions which the Hebrew writers give of these Phoenician constructions at Jerusalem that we must form our conceptions, not only of the state of Phoenician art in Hiram’s time, but also of the works wherewith he adorned his own capital.  He came to the throne at the age of nineteen,[1480] on the decease of his father, and immediately set to work to improve, enlarge, and beautify the city, which in his time claimed the headship of, at any rate, all Southern Phoenicia.  He found Tyre a city built on two islands, separated the one from the other by a narrow channel, and so cramped for room that the inhabitants had no open square, or public place, on which they could meet, and were closely packed in overcrowded dwellings.[1481] The primary necessity was to increase the area of the place; and this Hiram effected, first, by filling up the channel between the two islands with stone and rubbish, and so gaining a space for new buildings, and then by constructing huge moles or embankments towards the east, and towards the south, where the sea was shallowest, and thus turning what had been water into land.  In this way he so enlarged the town that he was able to lay out a “wide space” (Eurychorus)[1482] as a public square, which, like the Piazza di San Marco at Venice, became the great resort of the inhabitants for business and pleasure.  Having thus provided for utility and convenience, he next proceeded to embellishment and ornamentation.  The old temples did not seem to him worthy of the renovated capital; he therefore pulled them down and built new ones in their place.  In the most central part of the city[1483] he erected a fane for the worship of Melkarth and Ashtoreth, probably retaining the old site, but constructing an entirely new building—­the building which Herodotus visited,[1484] and in which Alexander insisted on sacrificing.[1485] Towards the south-west,[1486] on what had been a separate islet,