The site of the city of Onias is to be looked for in some one of those to the northward of Heliopolis which are called Tell el-Yehud, "the Mound of the Jews," or TM el-i'ehudiyeh, "the Jewish Mound." Sir Gardner Wilkinson thinks that there is little doubt that it is one which stands in the cultivated land near Shibln, to the northward of Heliopolis, in a direction a little to the east, at a distance of twelve miles. " Its mounds are of very great height." He remarks that the distance from Memphis (29 miles) is greater than that given by Josephus ; but the inaccuracy is not extreme. Another mound of the same name, standing on the edge of the desert, a short distance to the south of Belbeis, and 24 miles front Heliopolis, would, he thinks, correspond to the Vicus Judseorum of the Itinerary of Antoninus (see Modern Egypt and Thebes, i, 297-300). During the years 1842-1849 excavations were made in the mound supposed by Sir Gardner Wilkinson to mark the site of the city of Onias. No result, however, was obtained but the discovery of portions of pavement very much resembling the Assyrian pavements now in the British Museum.
From the account of Josephus, and the name given to one of them, " the Camp of the Jews," these settle- ments appear to have been of a half military nature. The chief of them seems to have been a strong place; and the same is apparently the case with another, that just mentioned, from the circumstances of the history even more than from its name. This name, though re- calling the "Camp" where Psammetichus I established his (ireek mercenaries (Magdolus), does not prove it was a military settlement, as the " Camp of the Tyrians" in Memphis (Herod, ii, 112) was perhaps in its name a reminiscence of the Shepherd occupation, for there stood there a temple of "the Foreign Venus," of which the age seems to be shown by a tablet of Amenoph II (B.C. cir. 1400) in the quarries opposite the city in which Ashtoreth is worshipped, or else it may have been a merchant settlement. We may also compare the Cop- tic name of El-Gizeh, opposite Cairo, Persioi, which has been ingeniously conjectured to record the position of a Persian camp. The easternmost part of Lower Egypt, be it rememljered, was always chosen for great military settlements, in order to protect the country from the incursions of her enemies beyond that fron- tier. Here the tirst Shepherd king Salatis placed an enormous garrison in the stronghold Avaris, the Zoan of the Bible (Manetho, ap. Josephus, c. Ap. i, 14). Here foreign mercenaries of the Saitic kings of the 26th dy- nasty were settled; here also the greatest body of the Egyptian soldiers had the lands allotted to them, all being established in the Delta (Herod, ii, 164-166).
Probably the Jewish settlements were established for the same purpose, more especially as the hatred of their inhabitants towards the kings of Syria would promise their opposing the strongest resistance in case of an in- vasion. The history of the Jewish cities of Egypt is a very obscure portion of that of the Hebrew nation. We know little more than the story of the foundation and overthrow of one of them, though we may infer that they were populous and politically important. It seems at first sight remarkable that we have no trace of any literature of these settlements; but as it would have been preserved to us by either the Jews of Palestine or those of Alexandria, both of whom must have looked upon the worshippers at the temple of Onias as schis- matics, it could scarcely have been expected to have come down to us. See Frankel, " Zur Forschung liber den Oniastewpel," in the Monatssckr. fUr Wiss. d. Ju- dentli. i, 273 sq. See Egypt.
Oiiias ham-Magal (^Si'^Stl), an ancient rabbi, who was a contemporary of Simon ben-Shetach (q. v.) under the reign of Aristobulus II (B.C. 69-63), is espe- cially reputed for his piety and the power of his prayers. When an unusual drought threatened the land with famine, a deputation of the Sanhedrim came to Onias to bespeak his prayers. At their request he entered a circle which he had traced in the ground (hence his surname the Rut), and did not leave it till in answ^er to his pray- ers rain descended — at first in drops, but afterwards in such quantity that he had again to intercede for its ces- sation. While the Sanhedrim voted thanks to the suc- cessful rabbi, Simon ben-Shetach, the president or nasi of the Sanhedrim, wOio disapproved of the embassy, and of Onias's conduct, as divulging the secrets of the Cab- ala (q. v.), sent the following characteristic message : "If thou hadst not been Onias, I would have excommu- nicated thee ; for it would have been better for us to have suffered famine as in the days of Elias than that the name of the Lord should have been profaned by thee" (Talmud, tract Taanith, p. 23). This event is said to have taken place on the 20th of Adar, which is still marked in the Jewish calendar as a feast (comp. the art. Calesdar, under "Adar," vol. ii, p. 23). But soon after this Onias met with a violent death at the hands of his brethren. The occasion of it was the civil war in Pal- estine between the sons of king Alexander Jannaeus — Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. Aristobulus forced the weak Hyrcanus to abdicate. Antipater, the father of Herod, sensible that the exaltation of a weak prince was the surest means of promoting his own schemes, persuaded Hyrcanus after his abdication to tlee to Aretas, king of Arabia. Antipater gained Aretas for the cause of the fugitive prince, who was thus enabled to advance, at the head of a Jewish and Arab force, upon Jerusalem. Aristobulus, obliged precipitately to tlee to Jerusalem, defended himself behind the Temple walls. It was at that stage that Onias was accidentally found by the superstitious army of Hyrcanus, and urged to pronounce some magical curse against the defenders of the Temple. Unable to obey, he is recorded, instead of the desired curse, to have uttered the following prayer: " Lord God of heaven and King of the world, in whose hand are the hearts of all living, and the thoughts of the hearts of thy only people and of thy priests, direct thou their hearts, and do not hear their prayers against each other for evil, but only for good, seeing the one are thy people, the others thy priests." He had scarcely pronounced this brief and patriotic supplication before the exasperated multitude let fly at him such volleys of stones as killed him on the spot. Josephus remarks that misdeeds so heinous called for speedy punishment. An awful storm shortly after the murder of Onias de- stroyed all the fruit and grain throughout Judtea, so that a measure of wheat sold for eleven drachms of sil- ver, and all the people suffered grievously from famine. See Josephus, Aiit. xiv, 2, 1 : Otho, historia Doctorvm Misnicorum, p. 66 sq. ; Frankel, Monatsschrift, ii, 38 ;