While the Sanctuary had been left to the care of the priests, Herod exhausted all his taste on this Court of the Gentiles. “Cloisters ran round the wall on the inner side, sustained on rows of columns exquisitely wrought, the capitals being ornamented with the acanthus and waterleaf, as in the famous Tower of the Winds. West, north, and east these columns were in three rows; on the south they were in four. The floor made a shaded walk, like the colonnade in Venice, and the roof an open walk like the gallery of Genoa. The pavement was inlaid with marbles of many colours. Leading into this Court from the city and the country were many noble gates; one of these on the Eastern side, facing the Mount of Olives, was called _Solomon’s Porch_, and a second near by it was called the _Beautiful Gate_[117].” Immediately after the completion of the Sanctuary, which was commemorated with lavish sacrifices and splendid feasts[118], Herod set out for Rome, to bring back his sons Alexander and Aristobulus. On his arrival in the imperial city[119], he was received by Augustus with every mark of regard, and returned with his two sons apparently in the spring of the year B.C. 15. During the autumn his friend Agrippa visited Judæa[120], and Herod shewed him his new cities, Sebaste and Cæsarea, and the fortresses of Alexandrium, Herodium, and Hyrcania. Then conducting him to Jerusalem, he entertained him at a sumptuous banquet, while the people welcomed the great minister of Augustus with acclamations, and Agrippa offered a sacrifice of 100 oxen in the Temple, and feasted the subjects of the Jewish king at a splendid entertainment. CHAPTER VI. _HEROD, KING OF JUDÆA._ B.C. 15–4. BUT the return of the young princes, Alexander and Aristobulus, from Rome was the signal for a scene of bloodshed, still more awful than that which had darkened the beginning of Herod’s reign. The monarch married them, Alexander to Glaphyra, daughter of Archelaus, king of Cappadocia; Aristobulus to Berenice, the daughter of his sister Salome[121]. The grace and beauty of the young men, added to their descent through their mother from the great Asmonean house, made them objects of the utmost interest to the people, and they were regarded as the future rulers of Palestine.