In this way he so enlarged the town that he was able to lay out a "wide space" (Eurychorus)[1482] as a public square, which, like the Piazza di San Marco at Venice, became the great resort of the inhabitants for business and pleasure.

Having thus provided for utility and convenience, he next proceeded to embellishment and ornamentation.
The old temples did not seem to him worthy of the renovated capital; he therefore pulled them down and built new ones in their place.

In the most central part of the city[1483] he erected a fane for the worship of Melkarth and Ashtoreth, probably retaining the old site, but constructing an entirely new building--the building which Herodotus visited,[1484] and in which Alexander insisted on sacrificing.[1485] Towards the south-west,[1486] on what had been a separate islet, he raised a temple to Baal, and adorned it with a lofty pillar of gold,[1487] or at any rate plated with gold.

Whether he built himself a new palace is not related; but as the royal residence of later times was situated on the southern shore,[1488] which was one of Hiram's additions to his capital, it is perhaps most probable that the construction of this new palace was due to him.

The chief material which he used in his buildings was, as in Jerusalem, cedar.