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TKACHOXITIS
TRADE AND COMMERCE
that the sites of these cities were occupied at a very early historical period ; and the visitor to those in Bashan itself (as the present wrilu* recently verified) may still note rude fortiiicatious (uniier or near the obviously later city walls) which resemble the Amorite remains recognized in other parts of Palestine. But, on the other hand, the peculiar architecture in the Leja and surrounding countrj' (whether above or under ground), in which I'orter claimed to have dis- covered the ' Giant Cities of Bashan,' bears no proofs of an origin earlier than the eve of the Chris- tian era ; that is, after the Greeks settled east of tlie Jordan.
Practically, therefore, the history of the Leja opens with the apjiearance of its Greek name, Trachon. The Greeks, who began to settle on the E. of Jordan soon after Alexander the Great's Syrian campaign, seem to have made no impres- sion on the Leja, which was occupied by Nabattean Arabs down to the arrival of Pompey's legions at Damascus, in B.C. 65 and 64. The Itomans, coming to the aid of the Greek cities, crushed all the Semitic powers in Qauran, whether Jewish or Arab, but do not appear to have occupied ^auran itself. In B.C. 25 one Zenodorus is said to have ruled over part of the Ituriean territory on the slopes of Hermon, Auranitis ( = l^auran, Jos. A tit. XV. X. 2), and Traehonitis, i.e. the Trachon along with some territory round it (Jos. Ant. XV. x. 1 1pax'-iy II BJ XVll. 11. 1, etc. T/jaxwrnj). Joaephus and Ptolemy enal^ile us to define aiiproximately the then limits of this territory. Aeeordin" to Ant. XV. X. 3 it touched in the N.W. tlie districts of Ulatha and Paneas, about the sources of Jordan at the S. foot of Hermon ; according to Ant. xvn. ii. 1, 2 it aiarched with Batana?a ; and accord- ing to Ptolemy, v 15. 4, it extended towards Mons Alsadt-n-j, ,,ue present Jebel Druz. Ptolemy speaks of the Tpoxwiroi 'Apa/3es ' under ' that mountain. About B.C. 25 these Arabs raided tlie Greeks of 5auran, and the Greeks complained to Varro, governor of Syria. Varro appears to have himself inflicted some chastisement upon them (Jos. BJ 1. XX. 4). But subsequently orders came from Au^stus that Varro should replace Zeno- dorus by Herod, who had already (from his towns Gadara and Hippos eastward : Ant. XV. vii. 3 ; BJ I. XX. 3) some experience of fighting with the Trachonite Arabs {Ant. XV. v. 1 ; BJ I. xix. 2). Herod subdued them for a time {Ant, XV. x. 1 ; BJ I. XX. 4) ; but they, apparently unable to live upon the meagre crops of the Leja itself, again, during Herod's absence in Rome, raided the fertile lands to the W. of them {Ant. xvi. ix. 1). Herod's soldiers defeated them and drove them into Nabatiiea (to the S. of Hauran), with the exception of a few, who remained in the Leja, and the most of whom Herod himself, when he returned, slew. The remainder, in alliance with the Nabatieans, kept up a series of attacks on Herod's borders. He put a force of 3000 Iduiiueans into Traehonitis, and placed the command in the hands of Zamaris, a Jew from Babylonia, for whom he built forts in Batansea and at Bathyra, perhaps the present Busr (el-Hariri), on the S. border of the Leja {Ant. xvn. ii. 1-3). Zamaris — it is not mentioned that he conquered the Leja itself — quieted the sur- rounding country, and Herod built a temple near Kanatha, in the ruins of which an inscription still records the erection of a statue to him (le Bas-Waddington, 2364). By Herod's testament, his son Philip in B.C. 4 received ' Traehonitis,' along with the rest of the country between the Yarniuk and Hermon, as his tetrarcliy {Ant, XVII. viii. 1, xi. 4, xvill. iv. 6; BJ n. vi. 3). Strabo (xvi. 2. 20) describes, about A.u. 2.j, the general security of the country under Philip.
PhUo {Legal, ad Gaium, 41) gives the name Traehonitis to the whole of Philip's tetrarcliy. When the latter died, in 34, Traehonitis and the rest of his tetrarcliy was comprised in the province of Syria until 37, when Caligula gave it to Agrippa, wlio held the country as far as the eastern slopes of the Jebel Druz (cf. his inscrip- tion, still extant at el-Mushennef [Wadd. 2211]). It was from Agrippa's reign onward that the architecture of the district increased, according to the numerous inscriptions ; though the Roman road through the Leja itself may be as early aa the time of Varro (see above). From A.D. 44, when Agrippa died, the whole of Palestine was directly governed by Roman officials tUl 50, when Chalcis, and 53, when the tetrarchies of Philip and Lysanias, were given to Agrippa XL, whose in- scriptions are numerous throughout Traehonitis. In A.D. 100, on Agrippa's death, the direct Roman administration seems to have been resumed ; and in 106, by the creation of the further province of Arabia, Traehonitis became part of the inner province of Syria. The bulk of the remains of its ancient civUizatiou date from the subsequent period. The road just mentioned and others through the province may be wholly or mainly the work of the Antonines. In 295 'Traehonitis was joined to the province of Arabia.