Page:Complete works of Josephus in four volumes - Volume 4.djvu/5



This tank is one of those works, still subsisting in Palestine, to which a very remote antiquity may safely be assigned. There are two pools of this sort at Hebron; the larger, and lower of the two, is represented in the vignette plate; the smaller is situated on the other side of the town, not far from the great mosque, the long roof and minarets of which are seen in this view rising above the town, directly opposite the spectator.

Several references to the Pool occur in the course of the Old Testament history. It is probable that to these pools, which, from their position, may well have been the reservoirs of pleasure grounds, the Royal Preacher refers when he narrates his own achievements — "I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees." Eccles. ii. 4-6.

A less pleasing but more distinct reference to this pool occurs in the history of David (2 Sam. iv. 12), for it was by the side of it that he hanged the assassins of Ishbosheth.