According to his promise, Solomon, in the fourth year of his accession, commenced the building of the temple on Moriah, after the model of the tabernacle, wherein he was aided by Hiram, who not only sent him timber, but architects and cunning Phenician artists in wood and stone and metals. In the eleventh year of his reign it was completed, and solemnly inaugurated iu the following year—at which occasion prodigious numbers of sacrifices were slaughtered. Thirteen years more having been spent iu the construc tion of the "house of die. forest of Lebanon" (the royal palace), other buildings and forti them that of Falmyra—are recorded to have been undertaken by the king, who. far from wishing further to extend his dominions, was only bent upon keep ing his frontiers safe from the raids of the neighboring hordes, and for that purpose alone kept up an uapreeedentedly large army.
The fame of Solomon could not but spread far and near. The splendor of his-court and reign, heightened by his personal qualities, his wisdom and erudition—for he was not only the wisest hut also the most learned.of men—brought embassies from all parts to Jerusalem to witness his magnificence, and to lay gifts of tribute at his feet. The queen of Sheba's expedition and presents are well known; and as many Arab kings made him annual presents of a no less splendid nature, his income from different sources was calculated, in round numbers, at the enormous sum of C66 golden talents. That people of Moses, which was to know no other wealth than flocks and the fruits of the soil, bad suddenly become a people of wealthy merchants, of soldiers, and of courtiers —and it did not profit by the change, chiefly through the bad influence of the king him self and his court. The army and the public buildings absorbed the resources of the proviuces. In the Temple, erected for the purpose of the true worship of Jehovah, Solomon sacrificed three times a year; but nevertheless, to please his concubines, he allowed, and perhaps himself indulged in, the rites of polytheism on the heights, thereby setting the worst example to his subjects, sufficiently eager already to worship foreign deities. His exaggerated polygamy fostered immorality and licentiousness among the people; and, worst of all, the wise and gentle monarch, as his treasure got exhausted, began, toward the end of his reign. to lay the yoke, which hitherto had lain only on his Canaanite subjects, upon the Israelites themselves. And he thus became, to all intents
and purpa-es, an eastern despot—selling part of his dominion to raise money, and trying to break the spirit of the nation by forced services and corporal chastisements.
Left by the "prophets," probably since his and revolting infidelity with regard to the national worship, his advisers were chiefly insolent young courtiers, who awed even his aged counselors into silence, and from that time forth a storm began to gather over the land. The priests were on the side of she malcontents, and a vague talk of a general rising, which aetually found utterance by a "prophet" in the face of Solomon, was heard the country. Ahijah of Shiloh predicted, as Samuel had done to David, the partial dominion to the Ephraimite Jaroboam, who had to flee for his life to Egypt. But notwithstanding these internal mutterings, and the open revolts of one or two subject chiefs, such was the prestige both of David's and Solomon's name, that the king was allowed to die in peace.
Solomon has been supposed to be the author of Canticles (q.v.), Ecclesiastes (q.v.), Proverbs( q.v.). besides works ou science which are said to be lost. But he is also to be considered the prime cause of the final and decisive downfall of the Jewish common wealth for all historical times. His wisdom turned Into folly, his justice into tyranny, raised a smoldering discontent which only awaited his death to break out into open flames of revolt and internal wars. His character presents the lamentable spectacle of genius gone astray; and many have been the discussions on the part of learned theolo gians in old and late times as to whether or rot there was any hope of his "salvation." His name and his glory, however, will, notwithstanding the shadows that fall over his latter days, remain immortal, whether we look at the striking picture of him given in Scripture, or to the more gorgeous kaleidoscope of eastern legends revolving round the golden name of Suleiman: the lord and master of all animate and inanimate beings un der the sun, the most beautiful, the most wealthy of all created men, and whose wisdom was as much without limits as were his riches and power.—See for such legendary ac counts of Solomon, Weirs Biblical "'Agenda, the Tatpums, the Koran, Lane's Arabian D'Herhelot. Ginsburg. Furst's Perlenschnure Suleiman-21'antell in 70 books, as feribed to a Turkish poet, Firdusi, etc.