Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/13



IABA′DIUS (, Ptol. vii. 2. § 29, viii. 27. § 10), an island off the lower half of the Golden Chersonesus. It is said by Ptolemy to mean the "Island of Barley," to have been very fertile in grain and gold, and to have had a metropolis called. There can be little doubt that it is the same as the present Java, which also signifies "barley." Humboldt, on the other hand, considers it to be Sumatra (Kritische Unters. i. p. 64); and Mannert, the small island of Banca, on the SE. side of Suviutra.

 JABBOK (, Joseph.;, LXX.), a stream on the east of Jordan, mentioned first in the history of Jacob (Gen. xxxii. 22). It formed, according to Josephus, the northern border of the Amorites, whose country he describes as isolated by the Jordan on the west, the Amon on the south, and the Jabbok on the north. (Ant. iv. 5. § 2.) He further describes it as the division between the dominions of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, whom he calls king of Galadene and Gaulonitis (§ 3) — the Bashan of Scripture. In the division of the land among the tribes, the river Jabbok was assigned as the northern limit of Gad and Reuben. (Deut. iii. 16.) To the north of the river, in the country of Bashan, the half tribe of Manasseh had their possession (13, 14.) [; .] It is correctly placed by Eusebius (Onomast. s.v.) between Ammon, or Philadelphia, and Gerasa (Gerash); to which S. Jerome adds, with equal truth, that it is 4 miles from the latter. It flows into the Jordan. It is now called El-Zerka, and "divides the district of Moerad from the country called El-Belka." (Burckhardt's Syria, p. 347.) It was crossed in its upper part by Irby and Mangles, an hour and twenty minutes (exactly 4 miles) SW. of Gerash, on their way to Es-Szalt. (Travels, p. 319, comp. p. 475.)

 JABESH (, LXX.;, , , Joseph.), a city of Gilead, the inhabitants of which were exterminated, during the early times of the Judges (see xx. 28), for not having joined in the national league against the men of Gibeah (xxi. 9, &c.). Three centuries later, it was besieged by the Ammonite king, Nahash, when the hard terms offered to the inhabitants by the invaders roused the indignation of Saul, and resulted in the relief of the town and the rout of the Ammonites. (1 Sam. xi.) It was probably in requital for this deliverance that the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead, having heard of the indignity offered to the bodies of Saul and his sons after the battle of Gilboa, "arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, from the wall of Beth-shan, and came to Jabesh and burnt them there; and they took their bones and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days." (1 Sam. xxxi. 11—13; 2 Sam. ii. 4—7.) It was situated, according to Eusebius, in the hills, 6 miles from Pella, on the road to Gerash; and its site was marked in his time by a large village (s.vv. and ). The writer was unsuccessful in his endeavours to recover its site in 1842; but a tradition of the city is still retained in the name of the valley that runs into the plain of the Jordan, one hour and a quarter south of Wady Mus, in which Pella is situated. This valley is still called Wadi Yabes, and the ruins of the city doubtless exist, and will probably be recovered in the mountains in the vicinity of this valley.

 JABNEH. [.]

 JACCA. [; .]

 JACCETA′NI, the most important of the small tribes at the S. foot of the Pyrenees, in Hispania Tarraconensis, E. of the , and N. of the. Their country,, lay in the N. of Arragon, below the central portion of the Pyrenaean chain, whence it extended towards the Iberus as far as the neighbourhood of Ilerda and Osca; and it formed a part of the theatre of war in the contests between Sertorius and Pompey, and between Julius Caesar and Pompey's legates, Afranius and Petreius. (Strab. iii. p. 161; Caes. B. C. i. 60: concerning the reading, see ; Ptol. ii. 6. § 72.) None of their cities were of any consequence. The capital, (Jaca, in Biscaya), from which they derived their name, belonged, in the time of Ptolemy, to the, among whom indeed Pliny appears to include the Jaccetani altogether (iii. 3. s. 4). Their other cities, as enumerated by Ptolemy, and identified, though with no great certainty, by Ukert (vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 42.5), are the following:— (, Igualeda); (, S. Columba de Ceralto);  (, Tarrega);  (, Manresa, the district round which is still called Bages);  (, Martorell);  (, Sagarra);  (, Cardona);  or  (, near Manresa);  (, Solsona);  (, near Guisona), perhaps the same place as the  of Livy (xxi. 60, where the MSS. have Scissis, Stissum, Sisa), and the  of 