The reason for thus detailing the characteristics of this building is that it furnishes us with a dated example of Hebrew architecture in the Greek age, in a style which continued in fashion till the last days of ancient Jerusalem. We here find the gigantic ashlar finished with a sunk draft round each block, in imitation of the Greek masonry which characterises the Acropolis at Athens. Earlier explorers, who had a very imperfect acquaintance with Palestine architecture, have spoken of this finish as a “Phœnician bevel,” which is doubly incorrect, since there is no bevel, but a sunken border or draft, while there is no evidence that in Palestine--or in Phœnicia either--such masonry was in use before the Greek age. It never occurs in the older ruins as yet excavated in Judæa, though some writers have attributed to Hebrews and Phœnicians the masonry of later ages, including that of Herod and of the Romans, which they have failed to distinguish from inferior Byzantine imitations found in the walls of churches and monasteries, and even from the drafted masonry of the Franks in the twelfth century, which is distinguishable by the rude projecting bosses, the peculiar tooling of the smooth drafts, and the mason’s marks on stones used in interiors. That Solomon or Hiram ever used drafted masonry there is no evidence at all to prove. Not only is this masonry Greek in style, but other details are equally classic, such as those of the Corinthian capitals at the north gate, the frieze with triglyphs, and the details of ornament with conventional honeysuckles and ovulæ of a cornice. We have just that combination of Greek and Asiatic ideals which we find in the Herodian architecture, and in the rock tombs of the Herodian age at Jerusalem, as will be noticed later. The palace of Hyrcanus is evidence of the rapid Hellenising of the Jews, which might have gone on without a check had not the intolerance of Antiochus IV. roused the patriotism of the Hasmonæans, and the puritanism of the Ḥasidim, or “pious,” whom they led in the great struggle for civil and religious liberty.