rTfi^nrjrit «A< nu yp. T#w iifuu).
The clerk contrasts the confused assembly in the theatre with the (fn/ios iKuXtiala, i.e. the people legally and properly .-u-i-sembled in the exercise of its powers. Sutrli meetings were either ordinary on hxcd days (ci/u^oi in an Ephesian inscription), or extr.iorJinary, specially summoned at an un- usual time (tailed aOyKX-qroi at Athens) ; but the latter class of meetings required special authoriza- tion from the Koiiian governor of the province, and certainly were rarely permitted by the jealousy of Roman policy. The term fwo/ios iKK\rj(ria has not hitherto been found at Ephesus, but occurs at Ter- messos (see Lanckoronski, Stddte Pamphyl. ii. p. 33).
Literature. — Hicks, Greek Inacr. of the Brit. Mugeitm, iii. p. 82; Liebcnam, Stddfetjertcaltuwj imrom. Kaiserreiche, p.'J&sl.; L<ivy in lievue dcjj Etudes Grecuwev, ISO.'), p. 216ff. ; Ramsay in Expotitor, Feb. 1896, p. 13711., and in Cities and llish. oj Phnjgia, i. 66 ; Svoboda, Griech. Volksbrschliitise, p. 206 f.
\V. M. RAM.SAY.
TRACHONITIS — In the Bible only in Lk 3', in defining Philip's tetrarcliy : t^s Irovpalai aal TpaxiortriSof x^P"'- Traelionitis was pro])crly the country of, or round, the Trachon or Traclions (6 Tpdxuii', ol Tpdxwvfs), the name given by the (jreeks (7-pdxw<' = ' rough, rocky ground') to tho.se areas of split and shattered deposits of lava which form 80 characteristic a feature of the volcanic country S.E. of Damascus, and are known to the Arabs of to-day by the name of wa'ar ( = ' stony waste '). IVn'ar is the equivalent of the Hebrew IV'. The latter is wrongly rendered ' forest ' in AV and RV ; at the most it can mean only 'wood,' and generally seems to be no more than ' junj;le.' Wetz-stein (Relicbencht iihr.r I/iiurati u, die Tr'irhonrn, 15, n. 3) gives good grounds for the opinion that iy" originally meant the same as the Arab, wa'ar (cf. especially Is 21 '■'"•), and that ita association with wood, for which he supplies a modern Arabic analogy, is only secondary. Strabo (xvi. 2. 20) speaks of ' the two so-called Trachones behind Dama.scus.' These are, without doubt, the two largest lava areas in the region, the Safii and the Lcja. Their edges are well delined, and visible from far on the bUiToundin;j plain — split banks of bl.ick rock with a sheen on it : about 30 ft. high. W ithin such borders the surfaces are amongst the most waste and broken upon earth. The lava in cooling has assumed the wildest shapes. Its surface has bren likened to ' a petri- fied ocean' (cf. Merrill, E. uf Jordan, p. U) and to an ' ebony glacier with irregular crevasses ' (IKUIL* 616). Wetzstein gives a vivid descrip- tion (with sketches) of the tossed and br<d<en formation, with the volcanic vents from which it burst. ' The Safft is still, as on the day of its origin, a gush of lava, black and of a dull sheen, VOL. IV. — i;i
full of countless streams, bridged over by thin vaults, of iietrilied black, often also bright red, waves, winch roll ciown the slopes from the craters over the high plateau' (op. cit. p. 7). The Safa, ' the empty or naked,' has no water or vegetation : 'no human being can exist upon it': it lies, too, far east in the desert. The Leja, ' the refuge,' on the other hand, lies on the fertile plain of IJauran, and appears alwaj's to have been inhabited. It is 370 square miles in extent, almost bridging the plain between Jebel Druz (from now extinct vol- canoes at the N. end of wliich, the Ghaiarat el- l^ibliyeh and Tell Sliihan, it issued) and the ranges to the E. of Hermon and S. of Damascus. It contains few springs, but with winter rains these form occasional small lakes. Soil has gathered in many of the hollows, and there are cultivated lields. Flocks can be pastured : there are en- closures of dry stone walls, which jirove the ancient herding of cattle ; and remains of vineyards, and cisterns. The ruins of Ullages, and well-preserved ancient towns, — Musmieh, Nejrftn, Dania, Kubab, Juren, and others, — the remains of defences against the easier entrances, and numerous traces of cut- tings for roads, point to a considerable population in ancient times. The region is still partly in- habited and cultivated. While, therefore, Strabo, as a geographer, sjioke of two Traclions, the Safa and the Leja, the former, uninhabited and lying far from the ways of men, was ignored by history, and the latter was to history the Trachon (car' i^oxriv. So an inscription in Musmieh (le Bas- Waddington, No. 2.')24), and another in Bereke (id. 2390), and so Josephus (Ant. XV. x. 1).
How far back the human history of the Leja extends is quite unknown to us. On the one hand, it is hard to think that so safe and habitable a 'refuge,' whether from Arab raids or the armies of the ancient powers, was unused by man, so long as the surrounding country was inhabited ; and equ.ally hard to suppose tliat a phenomenon of nature, so singular and conspicuous, was not frequently upon the lips of the surrounding peoples. On the other hand, in the OT there IS no certain reference to the Leja. Arhob in Bashan was identiliod with it by the Targums, and the identification has been repeated in our days (by Porter, Hender.son, and the maps of the Pal. Expl. Kund), on the grounds that the Leja can hardly have been omitted from the 15iblical Geo- graphy, and that the phrase by which Ar^ob is descrilied, aS-jx V;n, literally the ' rope ' or ' limit ' of Argob, exactly suits the well-delined edge of the Leja, called by the Arabs of to-day the Lohf. But 'jjT as a geographical term is properly 'dis- trict,' and applicable to any well-delined region ; and the only natural derivation of 3:nx is from 3jn, 'a clod of earth,' which no one could take as characteristic of the Leja ; while, also, Isiael's conquests very probably did not extend so far to the N.E. Argob is now generally idcntiliid with the district of Suwet, E. of tJilcad and W. of the Zumle range : to the S. of Ba.slian, but geologically connected with the latter. Again, in the Dmn of Jer 17", ' waste tracts,' it is possible to see a refer- ence to the two Traclions, but more probably the word has the much wider reference to all those stony areas of the Arabian desert to which its Arabic equivalent harra applies (Doughty, Arnhin Ijisnrta, jinjisim and Intlcx). Porter [Giant Cities (if Bashan, 1S82, p. 1211'., etc.) and others have taken the ancient buildings in the towns of the Leja and other parts of IJauran and Bashan to be the actual remains of the giant races who, according to the OT, preceded the Amorites in (he occupation of these lands, and of the Amorites themselves, i.e. the cities of Og king of Bashan. For the reasons stated above, we may well bcliev«