The extent, the masonry, the inscriptions, and the architecture of Herod’s Temple at Jerusalem have thus been considered without reference to literary statements, on the evidence of existing remains, and by comparison with the style, the arrangement, and the Aramaic and Greek texts, of a contemporary building. That Greek texts also existed in the Jerusalem Temple is proved by M. Clermont-Ganneau’s discovery of one of the very stones mentioned by Josephus.[253] It reads, in fine Greek lettering and in the Greek language: “No foreigner is to approach within the balustrade [_truphaktos_] round the temple and the peribolos. Whosoever is caught will be guilty of his own death which will follow.” The Jewish historian says that “when you went through these cloisters to the second temple there was a balustrade [_druphaktos_], made of stone, all round, the height of which was 3 cubits. Upon it stood _stelai_ at equal distances from one another declaring the law of purity, some in Greek and some in Roman letters, that ‘no foreigner may go within the sanctuary.’”[253] This comparison serves to increase our confidence in Josephus. He is also evidently correct in saying that the pillars of the Royal Cloister were of the Corinthian order, and the great shafts (3 feet in diameter) re-used--as will appear later--in the Aḳṣa Mosque, by the Byzantines, may once have belonged to this cloister. Josephus appears to have supposed that the courts of Solomon’s Temple extended 400 cubits in length. He says that “Herod took away the old foundations and laid others,” and that “the cloisters were rebuilt by Herod from the foundations.” He “encompassed a piece of land about [the Temple] with a wall, which land was twice as large as that before enclosed.” This increase, however, may refer to the flat ground, which was largely increased by banking up earth over vaults within the ramparts; for in these later times “the people added new banks, and the hill became a larger plain.” The compass of Herod’s enclosure Josephus estimates at 4 furlongs (or 600 feet each side), and again, including Antonia, at 6 furlongs. The increase on the north side, where was taken in an area apparently as large as that of the inner courts of the Temple, must have occurred when Baris or Antonia was first built.[254] If Josephus means by the “four furlongs” the space inside the dividing balustrade he is not far out, though the measurement of 500 cubits square, given in the Mishnah,[255] and representing about 666 feet, may be more exact. The Temple itself did not stand--according to the rabbis--exactly in the middle of this space. There was most distance on the south, secondly on the east, thirdly on the north, and least naturally on the west, where the Priests’ Court was narrow behind the Holy House, and where the rock slope was most abrupt. A mediæval Talmudic commentary even gives us the exact measurements, which are quite possibly correct, but the authority is not stated.[256] It is,