Jupiter angusta vix totus stabat in aede.
      Ovid.  Fast. l. 1.

Altars were at first erected without Temples, and this custom continued in Persia ’till after the days of Herodotus:  in Phoenicia they had Altars with little houses for eating the sacrifices much earlier, and these they called High Places:  such was the High Place where Samuel entertained Saul; such was the House of Dagon at Ashdod, into which the Philistims brought the Ark; and the House of Baal, in which Jehu slew the Prophets of Baal; and such were the High Places of the Canaanites which Moses commanded Israel to destroy:  he [287] commanded Israel to destroy the Altars, Images, High Places, and Groves of the Canaanites, but made no mention of their Temples, as he would have done had there been any in those days.  I meet with no mention of sumptuous Temples before the days of Solomon:  new Kingdoms begun then to build Sepulchres to their Founders in the form of Sumptuous Temples; and such Temples Hiram built in Tyre, Sesac in all Egypt, and Benhadad in Damascus.

For when David [288] smote Hadad Ezer King of Zobah, and slew the Syrians of Damascus who came to assist him, Rezon the son of Eliadah_ fled from his lord Hadad-Ezer, and gathered men unto him and became Captain over a band, and Reigned in Damascus, over Syria_:  he is called Hezion, 1 King. xv. 18. and his successors mentioned in history were Tabrimon, Hadad or Ben-hadad, Benhadad II. Hazael, Benhadad III. * * and Rezin the son of Tabeah. Syria became subject to Egypt in the days of Tabrimon, and recovered her liberty under Benhadad I; and in the days of Benhadad III, until the reign of the last Rezin, they became subject to Israel:  and in the ninth year of Hoshea King of Judah, Tiglath-pileser King of Assyria captivated the Syrians, and put an end to their Kingdom:  now Josephus [289] tells us, that the Syrians_ ’till his days worshipped both Adar_, that is Hadad or Benhadad, and his successor Hazael_ as Gods, for their benefactions, and for building Temples by which they adorned the city of Damascus:  for_, saith he, they daily celebrate solemnities in honour of these Kings, and boast their antiquity, not knowing that they are novel, and lived not above eleven hundred years ago.  It seems these Kings built sumptuous Sepulchres for themselves, and were worshipped therein. Justin [290] calls the first of these two Kings Damascus, saying that the city had its name from him, and that the Syrians_ in honour of him worshipped his wife Arathes as a Goddess, using her Sepulchre for a Temple_.