Palestine was enriched by Herod the Great with new cities, such as Ceesarea, and by great buildings at Jericho, Phasaelis (Fusail in the Jordan Valley), Samaria, Antipatris, Ashkelon, ete. He built the desert fortress of Masada (Sebbeh) on the south-west shores of the Dead Sea; and his tomb was in the circular fortress of Herodium, which still stands on its conical hill south of Bethlehem (Jebel Fureidis). His successors added Tiberias, Caesarea Philippi, Bethsaida, Archelais (probably Kerdwa in the Jordan Valley), and other towns ; but his dominions were divided (Jos. Ant. XVII. xi. 4), Archelaus ruling Edom, Judea, and Samaria; Philip rulin Bashan and Abilene (north of Hermon); an Antipas ruling Galilee, with Gilead and Moab (Perea); until under the Roman procurators Palestine became a province subject to the legate of Syria. During this period Damescus and the regions far east of the Jordan were subject to the Nabatzan princes of Petra from B.C. 95 to A.D. 106. Bashan was incorporated in the province of Syria in A.D. 34 after the death of Philip.
Later Geography.—Knowledge of the later to graphy of Palestine is important for a right under- standing of many questions, but the su jee can- not here be fully treated. The scattered notices in Pliny, Strabo, and other Roman writers do not add materially to our information, nor are many places noticed in the Mishna; but in the 4th cent. the Jerusalem Talmud contains many references. The conquests of Cornelius Palma
| The site of Bethphage (Mk 11) is unknown, but it | under Trajan in A.D. 105 gave to the Romans the
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whole of Gilead and Moab from Bostra (Busrah) to Petra and ‘Akabah on the Red Sea. Bostra was the capital of this oe ye of Arabia, and the quarters of the Third Legion (Cyrenaica). In A.D. 295 Auranitis, Batanza, and Trachonitis were added to this province (which was ruled by a pro- pretor and a procurator), these districts having previously belonged to Syria. The Syrian province continued to use the Seleucid era for dating texts, but the Arabian cities dated from A.D. 106, the era of Bostra. Hence (see Mr. A. G. Wright’s paper in Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly Statement, 1895, ΠΝ 67) it mes possible to draw the north
undary of Arabia in A.D. 106 on the south side of Bashan sing just north of Adraa, while after A.D. 295 the border between Arabia and Syria ran farther north by Neve (Nawa) and Aere {es-Sunamein) in the north part of Bashan. The most important ee historically in the 2nd cent. A.D. were Bether (Bittir near Jerusalem), where the great revolt of the Jews from Hadrian was suppressed, and Jamnia (Yebnah), the seat of the Sanhedrin after A.D. 70; while after A.D. 135 it sat at Shafram (Shefa ‘Amr), Oshah (Hisheh), Shaaraim (Sha'rah), and Tiberias in Lower Galilee. The eat Onomasticon of Eusebius, translated from Gr. into Latin by Jerome, is very important for a knowledge of the 4th cent. topography, but the identification of Bible sites by these writers, who were intimately acquainted with the whole country, is as often wrong as right (as may be shown in cases such as Aijalon, ete.), and it has no authority, although upon it was founded the Greek ition which all pilgrim diaries repeat down to the 12th cent., and which still survives. The crusaders further confused the topography by new and ignorant identifications, often rejecting sites fixed by the consensus of Jewish, Sam., and Gr.-Christian tradition. Before the first crusade (A.D. 1099) the Greek Church divided the country into three provinces, Palestina Prima, Palestina Secunda (Galilee and East of Jordan), and Palestina Tertia in the south, in- cluding S.E. Palestine and the southern desert— all under the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem. The crusaders had four metropolitans (at Jerusalem, Cesarea, Tyre, and Nazareth) under the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem until A.p. 1187. Under the Romans and Byzantines the boundaries of the country were guarded by Legions and native auxiliaries, established at centres like Bostra (Busrah) on the edge of the Syrian desert, and at Sinai, with posts along the plains of Moab and Damascus. The tombstones of Roman officers are commonly found in these regions with Greek (and sometimes Latin) inscriptions. The crusaders divided all Palestine (except Bashan, which was never conquered) into fifteen baronies and fiefs under the a, 8 of Jerusalem in the 12th cent. The treaty of Richard 1. and Saladin (A.D. 1192) left to the Christians all the plains of Philistia and Sharon, with Galilee and Tyre, and many new fortresses were built in these regions early in the 13th century. The last region left to the Chris- tians, after the conquest of Bibars, consisted, about A.D. 1282, of Carmel, the plains of Acre, and the hills east of Tyre, all finally lost in 1291 on the fall of Acre. Moslem accounts of Palestine are slight and, as a rule, late, excepting the geography of El Mukaddasi, which throws light on the con- dition of the country before the first crusade. A considerable Christian population continued to exist under the Moslems during the centuries following Omar’s conquest, and was found in the country by the crusaders. Soldiers from the west of Europe had already been planted in Palestine by the Romans in the 2nd cent., and a large population of European settlers occupied the land
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in the 12th; but after the 13th this element wae represented till recently only by Italian traders on the coast, and by monks at Nazareth, Carmel, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem. last twenty years the immigration of Circassians (in Bashan), of Bosnians (at Cwsarea on the coast), and of Jews at Jerusalem, with colonies near Jaffa, on Carmel, in Galilee, and in Bashan, are the most remarkable changes in the population of the country. Our knowledge of Palestine under the Franks, in the 12th and 13th cents., is singularly minute, and the remains of their churches and castles are among the most con- spicuous ruins in the country; but their influence on the native race and language seems to have been very small. Modern Palestine under the Turks is divided into four provinces,—that of Jerusalem, that of Nablus (Shechem), to which the Belka or ‘empty land’ (in Moab and Gilead) is attached, and that of Acre. Bashan is directly under the ruler of the capital at Damascus. The country still possesses fine cornlands, especially in Sharon, Lower Galilee, and Bashan; its hills are covered with vines, especially on Hermon and round Hebron; and large groves of olives cover the lower foot hills. Most of its ancient towns are now either villages of huts built of mud in the plains and of stone in the hills, or they are ruins. The only city is Damascus (250,000 in- habitants), and the chief towns are Jerusalem (per- haps 60,000), Hebron (10,000), Gaza (18,000), Jaffa (7000), Bethlehem (5000), NAblus (15,000), Jenin (3000), Nazareth (6000), Tiberias (2000), Accho (Acre, 8000), and Tyre (3000); but these are only estimates based on local information, and the numbers constantly vary, the Moslem population and the Samaritans at NAblus (140 souls) tendin to decrease, while the Jewish, Greek, German, an Maronite-Christian elements tend to increase, in numbers and in prosperity.