GAULANITIS, g8"la-n?'tis: A district to the east of the Sea of Galilee and of the upper Jordan. According to Eusebius (Onomasticon, 242), the name is derived from Gaulon, the name of a large town, the Golan in Bashan of the Old Testament and the Gaulana of Josephus (Ant. IV., vii. 4). The name is used in Josephus with varying signification. Sometimes it is the equivalent of Bashan, though again he sets off from it the regions of Trachonitis and Batanea, thus restricting it to the district immediately bordering the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan. The last is the better usage. There is a division of the district into Upper and Lower Gaulanitis. The boundaries are only in part distinguishable. The deep bed and abrupt banks of the Yarmuk are the fixed natural Names and southern limits. Equally certain is the

Extent. western boundary on the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan, except that Hippo and Paneas are not always reckoned as belonging to it. The northern and eastern limits are uncertain, except as marked on the north by the foot of Hermon. On the southeast the tributaries of the Yarmuk make a sharp demarcation in the plain, yet neither the Nahr al-Rukkad nor the Nahr al-Allan is recognized as the boundary.; From the fact that Saham al-Jaulan was once reckoned to this district, the boundaries must once have extended beyond the Nahr al-Allan, eastward, therefore, as far as the upper course of the Yarmuk. In Josephus (Life, 37) the modern Sulam (Seleima in the inscriptions; cf. Le Bas and Waddington, Inscriptions, iii. 543) at the foot of Jabal Hauran, and so the southern part of Batanea or Hauran, belonged to Gaulanitis, extending the district as far as the Lejjah, at least as a governmental province. Herod the Great drew 3,000 Idumeans and 600 Jews from Trachonitis and Batanea to check the Arab marauders.

The name enters history in the account by Josephus of the campaigns of Alexander Jannaeus (10276 B.C.), who conquered Golan, Seleucia, and Gamala from a certain Demetrius. Pompey (63 B.c.) assigned Golan to tile province of Syria and left Hippo free (Ant. XIV., iv: -4; War, I., vii. 7). Under Augustus the district belonged to Herod the Great, and after his death it went

History. to the tetrarchy of his son Philip, while Hippo was a part of the province of Syria. It belonged to the province of Syria during the period 34-37 A.D., and was then granted by Caligula to Agrippa I. (Ant. XVIII., vi. 10), after whose death (44 A.D.) it was included in the general control of Palestine until in the year 53 it was granted by Claudius to Agrippa II., whose death caused it to return to the government of Syria.

Hippo lay at an elevation of 1,500 feet above the Sea of Galilee. The Talmud gives the Aramaic name as Susita, the Susiyah of the Arabic geographers, where are extensive ruins half an hour west of Fik in the lower Jaulan, Fik being the old Aphek, not far from Hippo (Eusebius, Onomasticon, 219, 91). The site of Hippo, however, lies one hour west of Pik. The inhabitants were largely Greeks. According to Josephus (Life, 9), the district belonging to the city was so extensive that it bordered upon the districts belonging to Gadara, Scythopolis, and Tiberias. About four miles to the north, on the bank of the Wadi al-Samak are some ruins, including the remains of a wall and a tower, called by the Arabs al-Sur (connected with kursi, " a seat"), recognized by many scholars as the site of the city of the Gerasenes, Gergesenes, or Gadareneo of Matt. viii. 28 sqq., Mark v. 1 sqq., and Luke viii. 26 sqq. (see Gerasenes). The investigations of W. A. Neumann in the region lead. him to see in Jabal Kurein Jaradi, the name of a hill to the north, the traces of the old place-name, which he would read Gerada, not Gadam. Not far from the entrance of the Jordan into the sea lay the fishing

Principal village Bethsaida, built by Herod Cities. Philip into a city and named Julias in honor of Julia, daughter of Augustus. Pliny (Hist. nat., V., xv. 71) locates it on the east coast. . The fishing village is best placed at al Araj, immediately on the sea, where the fishermen still land and dry their nets. Possibly the city is to

437

be located at al-Tell, where the Arabs have their winter huts. Leading New Testament references to the place are Mark vi. 30-44; cf. Luke ix. 10 sqq.; Mark viii. 22; John i. 44, xii. 21. The question of a second Bethsaida in Galilee is to be decided in the negative, since that province was often regarded as extending eastward of the Sea of Galilee. The residents of Bethsaida were Jews. According to Mark viii. 27, Jesus led his disciples from Bethsaida to the villages of Cæsarea Philippi, on which journey Peter made his celebrated confession (verse 29). Cæsarea Philippi lay in the district of Paneas (Ba niss), named from Pan and the celebrated grotto of the source of the Jordan (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., vii. 17). Near this grotto Herod the Great erected a splendid temple, about which his son Philip built a city which he named Cæsarea after the emperor (Josephus, Ant. XVIII., ii. 1). Agrippa II. ex tended it and renamed it Neronias after Nero, a name which did not adhere, since Cæsarea Philippi, or Cæsarea Paneas, or Paneas is the usual designation. It was a favorite resort of Vespasian and Titus for rest from the exertions of war. The population was prevailingly heathen. Of the places inland from the sea little is known. The ruins now called Selukiyah doubtless mark Seleucia. The situation of the strong fortress of Gamala can not be certainly identified. Since Kalat al-Hozn has been given up, the village Jamli is regarded as a probable site, located by Schumacher on the east bank of the gorge of the Nahr al-Rukkad. Furrer and Van Kasteren place it on the Tell al-Ahdeib or Ras al-Hal, between Jamli and the Rukkad. The conjunction of the ruins and the present name (Jamb) makes this identification probable. The place was con quered by Alexander Jannaeus (Josephus, Ant. XIII., xv. 3), and by the Romans under Vespasian after a siege of a month (Josephus, Wars, IV., i. 1 sqq.). Gamala was the center of a toparehy. Another Gamala mentioned in Ant. XVIII., v. l is perhaps the Jamli discovered by Schumacher in Ajlun. The Bathyra built by Herod the Great is probably the modern Bait Ari, south from Jamli. See Trachonitis.

(H. Guthe.)

Bibliography: ;G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, London, 1897; U. J. Seetzen, Rewn, vols. i., iv., Berlin, 1854-59; J. G. Wetzstein, Reimbericht über Hau ran, Berlin, 1860; idem, Das batanuiacAe Giabelpcbirpe, Leipsic, 1884; A. Neubauer, La GEographie du Talmud, Paris, 1868; P. Le Bas and W. H. Waddington, inscriptions precquea at latines, vol. iii., Paris, 1870; C. R. Conder and H. H. Kitchener, Survey of Western Palestine, Mem oirs, vol. i., London, 1881; S. Merrill, East of the Jordan, ib. 1881; W. M. Thomson, Land and Book, Central Pales tine, ib. 1883; G. Schumacher, Across the Jordan, ib. 1886; idem, The Jaulan, ib. 1888; P. de Lsgarde, Onomastica sacra, Göttingen, 1887; W. A. Neumann, Qum Darheradi, Freiburg, 1894; F. Buhl. Geographie den alten Paldetina, Freiburg, 1896; Schürer, Geschichte, i. 427, II. 4, 12-13, Eng. transl., I. ii. 12, II. i. 2-4.