MORE ANCIENT SOURCES
Josephus, Antiquities 16.5.2 (1st cent. A.D.)
(142) Herod erected another city in the plain called Capharsaba, where he chose out a fit place, both for plenty of water and goodness of soil, and proper for the production of what was there planted, where a river encompassed the city itself, and a grove of the best trees for magnitude was round about it; (143) this he named Antipatris, from his father Antipater. He also built upon another spot of ground above Jericho, of the same name with his mother, a place of great security, and very pleasant for habitation, and called it Cyprus. (144) He also dedicated the finest monuments to his brother Phasaelus, on account of the great natural affection there had been between them, by erecting a tower in the city itself, not less than the tower of Pharos, which he named Phasaelus, which was at once a part of the strong defenses of the city, and a memorial for him that was deceased, because it bare his name. (145) He also built a city of the same name in the valley of Jericho, as you go from it northward, whereby he rendered the neighboring country more fruitful, by the cultivation its inhabitants introduced, and this also he called Phasaelus.
Iohannes Moschus, Pratum Spirituale 92 (7th cent. A.D.)
Our saintly father [George, hegumen of the monastery of Saint Theodosius], told me also this story: I was about to build the church of Saint Cyriac in Fasaelis. I had just finished the foundations of the new church, when I had a dream. An old monk, with a really ascetic appearance, appeared to me and said: "Tell me, abba George, is it right on your opinion that after so much labor and ascetic exercise I shall be left outside the church you are about to build?." ... Therefore, after the building of the church was complete, I made also a nice sepulchre for him in the right aisle of the church and put his body inside it.
