Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/457

 Cliap. 13.] ACCOUNT OP COUNTRIES, ETC. 423 Egypt, are called the Heroopolitic' and the JElanitic-. Be- tween the two towns of ^Elaua^ and Gaza"* upon our sea% there is a distance of 150 miles. Agrippa says that Arsiuoe^, a town on the Eed Sea, is, by way of the desert, 125 miles from Pelusium. How different the characteristics impressed by nature upon two places separated by so small a distance ! CHAP. 13. (12.) — STRIA. Next to these countries Sj-ria occupies the coast, once the greatest of lands, and distinguished by many names ; for the part which joins up to Arabia was formerly called Palaestina, Judaea, Coele^, and Phoenice. The country in the interior was called Damascena, and that further on and more to the south, Babylonia. The part that Lies between the Euphrates Idumtean mountains, where they had their capital, Petra, hewTi out of the rock. ^ Now the Bahi'-el-Soueys, or Gulf of Suez. 2 The Bahr-el-Akabah, or Gulf of Akabah. 3 Now Akabah, an Idmnsean town of Arabia Petrsea, situate at the head of the eastern gidf of the Red Sea, which was called after this town "^Ela- niticus Sinus." It was annexed to the kingdom of Judah, with the other cities of Idiunsea, by David, 2 S.am. vui. 14, and was one of the harbours on the Red Sea from which the ships of Solomon sailed for Ophir. See 1 Kings Ls. 26 and 2 Chron, viii. 17. It was a place of commercial im- portance under the Romans and the head-quarters of the Tenth Legion. A fortress now occupies its site. west frontier of Palestine, and from the earhest tunes was a strongly forti- fied place. It was taken from the Philistines by the Jews more than once, but as often retaken. It was also taken by Cyrus the Groat and Alex- ander, and afterwards by Ptolemy Lagus, who destroyed it. It after- wards recovered, and vas again destroyed by Alexander Janna^us, B.C. 96, after which, it was rebuilt by Gabinius and uUimately united to the Roman province of Syria. In a.d. 65 it was again destroyed, but was rebuilt, and finally fell into the hands of the Arabs, in a.d. (53 1. 5 Meaning the Mediterranean. ^ The present Suez. See B. vi. c. 33. ' Or the " Hollow" Syria. This was properly the name given, after the Macedonian conquest, to the great valley between the two great ranges of Mount Lebanon, in the south of Syria, bordering ujion Phoe- nicia on the west, and Palestine on the south. In the wars between the Ptolemies and the Seleucida', the name was ajtplied to the whole of the southern portion of Syria, which became subject for some time to tlxe kings of Egypt ; but under the Romans, it was confined to Ccrlesyria proper with the district east of Anti-Libanus, about Damascus, uud A portion of Palestine east of Jordan.
 * Its site is now knovn as Guzzah. It was the last city on the south-