Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/291

 1032 HAURAN Arabia Petraea and Deaerta (t. 17. § 19), the Pa- lestina Tertia of the Ecclesiastical annala (Beland, pp. 205. 212). Ptolemj, however, makes AuFanitis a district of Babylonia, coDtignoas to the Eophrates. (Id. 20.) The district is more correctly described hy Strabo, as lying to the soath of the two Tnchons (8te A67^^ffii'0i Tp^xtfi^es), consisting of inaccessible mountains, inhabited by a mixed people of Itnraeans and Arabs, a wild and predatory race of rillains, a terror to the i^icnltand inhabitants of the jdains. They dwelt in deep caves of such extent, that one could hold 4000 men, in their incursions on the Damascenes, and in their ambuscades against the caravans of merchants from Arabia Felix. But the most formidable band under the noted chief Zeno- doms, had been dispersed by the good government of the Romans, and by the security afforded by the garrisons maintained in Syria. (Strsbo, xvi. p. 756.) A comparison of this description of Itnraea by the classical geographer, with Josephus's account of Trachonitis and the doings of the robber-chief Ze- nodorus and his Arabs (^AnL xv. 10. § 1, 2), exhibits many striking points of resemblance ; and there is an amusing account given by William of Tyre of these very caves between AJdraa and Bozra, into whose narrow mouths the thirsty travellers would let down their water-skins, in the hope of finding a supply of water ; but drew back the curtailed rope, minus the skins, which had been sdzed and appropriated by the robbers concealed in the caves. (^Tut. xv. 10.) The marauding inhabitants of this wild country at the present day keep up the character of their prede- cessors ; and their daring attacks upon the caravans of pilgrims on the annual Haj, are scarcely repressed by a numerous escort of n^lar troops. The extent of the modem Haunu is thus described by Burck- hardt: " The Haounm comprises part of Tracho- nitis and Ituraea, the whole of Auranitis, and the northern districts of Batanaea. . . . The fiat country, south ciJebd Keatoue^ east of Jebel el Sheikh^ and west of the HcidJ road, as &r as Katem^ or Nowa^ is called Djedour, The greater part of Ituraea appears to be comprised within the li- mits of /yedotcr." {Travek in Syria.) The whole district abounds in ruins ; and the frequent Greek inscriptions, not only at Bozra, its ancient capital, but in numerous other towns and villages, prove it to hare been thickly inhabited in former times, and well garrisoned by Roman soldiers; thereby illustrating and confirming the remark of Strabo above cited, concerning the greater security of the country while under imperial rule. Many of the inscriptions were copied by Burckhardt. {Syria, pp. 59 — 118. 215—234.) The name Hauran (of which Auranitis is only the classical form) is supposed to be derived from the town men- tioned by the prophet Ezekiel as in the vicinity of Damascus (xlvii. 16. 18), where the LXX. write The name Ituraea is supposed to be derived from the Ishmaelite patriarch Jetur, or Ittnr (1 Ckron. i. 31); and the Alexandrine vereicNi of the LXX. reads 'IrovpoTot, in 1 Chron. v. 19, a passage which, as Reland remarks, enables us to fix the position of Ituraea to the east of the land of Israel ; for the Hagarites^ to whom Jetur be- longed, were dispossessed by the Reubenites who "dwelt in their tents tJiroughout all the east of the land of Gilead" (v. 10) *'unto the entering in of the wilderness from the river Euphrates " (v. 9). HAZOB (BeUnd, PofaerfMO, p. 106.) Faanster (^niiEi, vol. i. pp. 309 — 311) further identifiea the modem name Jedour with the patriarchal Jetur. [G. W.J HAVILAH (pfikAr), the land encompnaed hr the Pison, the first-muned of the four riven cf Eden, abounding in gold of a fine quality, in ** bde^ Hum and the onyx stone." {Genes. iL 1 1, 1 2.) Its situation is further fixed as the eastern limit of the Ishmaelite Bedeoins, as Sheer was their weiteiv limit. {Gen. xxv. 18.) Thej seem to have been subsequently dbpossessed by the AmaMrites, vfaa have the same limits assigned to them in I Sam, XV. 7. [Ajcalekitab.] It donbtleas derived in name from Havilah the son of Cosh ((Ten. x. 7% by whose descendants the district was first p<g|iled, not ^m the later Joktanite patriarch of the same name (x. 29). and there described as encompassed, or indoeed rather, by the river Pison, has been aasigiwd, by consent of the learned, as the first and dbief set- tlement of the son of Cu^, and identified with the province, on the Persian Gulf, now deoominaied Hagar or Bahrein; a district 'andentlj watered, as we gather from the coocurrent testimonies of Pliny, and the Portnguese traveller Penara, by a branch of the Euphrates, which, diveigxng from tht coune d its other channels, ran southwaid paxaDel with the gulf, and fell into it nearly opposite to the Bahrein islands. A direct proof, unnoticed bj Re- ceding writere, that thb region once bore the tame of Havilah, is furnished by the hct, that the pris- cipal of the Bahrein isUmds retuns to this day the original name of that of AvaV* (Forster. Geo^. of Arabia^ vol. i. pp. 40, 41.) Hr. Forster tlicn traces this patriarchal name through its Tariou modifications (as Dr. Wells had done before, thoagh not so fiilly) in the chusical geograpfaera, ud shows clear examples of it, under its semal idio- matic changes, from the head of the Peraian Golf ta its month, both in Ptdemy and Pliny, and in the modem geography of the oonntry; and that the great tribe or people intended nndor those denamina- tions, formed in the time of those geographers, and continue to compose at the present daj, a chief part of the population of the Havihih of Scripture, the modem province of Hagar or Bahrein, (lb. ppu 41 — 54.) He accounts fin* the modem name of the district of HaviUh, by the fact already noted, that the Ishmaelite Arabs had dispossessed the ancient Cushite race, and imposed on the conquered tenitorf the name of their mother Hagar. (VoL i. pp. 199, 200.) [G.W.] HAZEZON-TAMAR. [Enqkdi.] HAZOR ('AirflJ/>), the niyal dty of the mort powerful Canaanitish nation in the north of Pakaline at the period of the entrance of the IsraeliteB. It was the capital of king Jabin, and head of a ooolederacy against Joshna ; on which account he made an ex- ample of it, exterminating its inhalNtants, and de- stroying it alone with fire. {Jotk xi. 1 — 14.) It had recovered its independoKe and importance at the commencement of the period of the Judges, ahoat two centuries and a half later, when we ^d it still the royal residence of the Canaanite king, JaUn, — a name signifying wiee, whidi seems to ksve been the common designation of the sheikhs of Hazor, as righteous was of the Jebnsite kings. It does not appear that Hazor wss again taken on this oecasioa after the defeat of Sisera by Deborah and Bank. {Jwiges, iv. v.) Nor is it all clear that the towi
 * The Umd of Havilah mentioood in Geneue,