Joshua, though their king was afterwards hanged, and their city given to the Levites.

In the body of this territory of Manasseh, but somewhat nearer to Jordan than to the Mediterranean sea, were three great cities, to wit, Thersa, whose king was one of those that Joshua slew, which the kings of Israel used for their regal seat, till such time as Samaria was built. From hence the wife of Jeroboam went to Achia to inquire of her son's health; who knowing her, though she were disguised, told her of her son's death.

The second was Thebes, near Samaria, of which name there are both in Egypt and Greece, of great fame; in the assault of the tower of this town, whereinto the citizens retired, the bastard Abimelech was wounded by a weighty stone, thrown by a woman over the wall; who, despairing of his recovery, commanded his page to slay him outright, because it should not be said that he perished by the stroke of a woman. But others set this city in Ephraim, near Sichem or Neapolis.

The third is Acrabata, of which the territory adjoining is called Acrabatena, (one of the ten toparchies or governments in Judæa,) for which Jerome, 1 Macc. v. reads Arabathena, but in the Greek it is Acrabatine; Isidore calls it Agrabat. This city had one of the largest territories of all Palestine belonging to the governor thereof. Josephus remembereth it often, as in his second book of the Jews' wars, c. 11, 25, 28. and elsewhere.

The difference between a tetrarchy and a toparchy was, that the first was taken for a province, and the other for a city, with some lesser territory adjoining; and a tetrarch is the same with prases in Latin, and president in English, being commonly the fourth part of a kingdom, and thereof so called. Pliny nameth seventeen tetrarchies in Syria; the Holy Land had four, and so hath the kingdom of Ireland to this day, Lempster, Ulster, Connath, and Munster. To the south-west of Acrabata, they place the cities of y Plin. 1. 5.

* Judg. ix. 54.

z Euseb. in Chron.

Balaam, or Bilham, and Gethremmon of the Levites; but Junius out of Josh. xxi. 25. and 1 Chron. vi. 70. gathers, that these two are but one, and that Jibleham, Josh. xvi. 11. is another name of the same city.

Then is Jezrael a regal city, set at the foot of the mountains of Gilboa, towards the south-west; herein Jezabel, by a false accusation, caused Naboth to be stoned, to the end she might possess his vineyard adjoining to the city, which Naboth refused to sell, because it was his inheritance from his father.

Joram also was cast unburied into the same field, for which his mother a Jezabel murdered Naboth.

Towards the sea from Jezrael is the city which they call Gaber; in whose ascent, as Ahaziah king of Juda fled from Jehu, when he had slain Joram, he was wounded with the shot of an arrow, of which wound he died at Mageddo adjoining. The scripture calls this city of Gaber, b Gur.

Then Adadremmon, near unto which the good king Josias was slain by Necho king of Egypt, in a war unadvisedly undertaken. For Necho marched towards Assyria against the king thereof, by the commandment of God, whom Josias thought to resist in his passage; it was afterwards called Maximianopolis.

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A neighbour city to Adadremmon was © Maggeddo, often remembered in the scriptures, whose king was slain among the rest by Joshua; yet they defended their city for a long time against Manasseh. The river which passeth by the town may perhaps be the same which Ptolomy calleth Chorseus; and not that of which we have spoken in Zabulon. For because this name is not found in the scriptures, many of those that have described the Holy Land delineate no such river. Moore only sets it down in his Geography of the twelve Tribes; but the river, which passeth by Maggeddo, he understandeth to be but a branch falling thereinto. Laicstan and Schrot make a great confluence of waters in this place, agreeable to this scripture in the fifth of Judges, Then fought the kings of Canaan in Tanaac, 2 Kings ix. 25. b 2 Kings ix. 27. Judg. i. 5. d Josh. xii. 17.

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by the waters of Maggeddo. But these authors, and with them Stella, give it no other name than the torrent so called.

But seeing that ancient cosmographers stretch out the bounds of Phoenicia even to Sebaste, or Samaria, and Strabo far beyond it on the sea-coast; and Josephus calls Cæsarea Palæstinæ a city of Phoenicia; yea, Laurentius Corvinus extendeth Phoenicia as far as Gaza: seeing also Ptolomy sets down Chorseus for the partition of Phoenicia and Judæa, this river running east and west parallel with Samaria; it is very probable that this torrent called Maggeddo, after the name of the city which it watereth, is the same which Ptolomy, in his 4th table of Asia, calleth Chorseus. The later travellers of the Holy Land call Maggeddo Subimbre at this day.

§. 2.

Of Cæsarea Palæstina, and some other towns. FROM Maggeddo towards the west, and near the Mediterranean sea, was that glorious city of Cæsarea Palæstinæ ; first, the tower of Straton, the same which Pliny calls Apollonia; though Ptolomy sets Apollonia elsewhere, and towards Egypt, between this city and Joppe, to which Vespasian gave the name of Flavia Colonia. It was by Herod rebuilt, who therein laboured to exceed all the works in that part of the world; for besides the edifices, which he reared within the walls, of cut and polished marbles, the theatre and amphitheatre, from whence he might look over the seas far away, with the high and stately towers and gates, he forced a harbour of great capacity, being in former times but an open bay; and the wind blowing from the sea, the merchants, haunting that port, had no other hope but in the strength of their cables and anchors. This work he performed with such charge and labour, as the like of that kind hath not been found in any kingdom, nor in any age; which, because the materials were fetched from far, and the weight of the stones was such as it exceedeth belief, I have added Josephus's own words of this work, which are these:

e Strab. 1. 16. Joseph. l. 15. c. 13. Niger.

f Hanc locorum incommoditatem correcturus, circulum portus circumduxit, quantum putaret magna classi recipiendæ sufficere: et in viginti ulnarum profundum, prægrandia saxa demisit: quorum pleraque pedum quinquaginta longitudinis, latitudinis vero octodecim, altitudine novem-pedali: fuerunt quædam etiam majora, minora alia; "To mend "this inconvenience of place," saith Josephus, "he com"passed in a bay wherein a great fleet might well ride, and "let down great stones twenty fathom deep, whereof some "were fifty foot long, eighteen foot broad, and nine foot "thick; some bigger and some lesser.” To this he added an arm or causeway of 200 foot long to break the waves; the rest he strengthened with a stone wall, with divers stately towers thereon builded; of which the most magnificent he called Drusus, after the name of Drusus the son-in-law of Cæsar, in whose honour he entitled the city itself, Cæsarea of Palæstine; all which he performed in twelve years' time. It was the first of the eastern cities that received a bishop; afterwards erected into an archbishopric, commanding twenty others under it, saith & Tyrius.

St. Jerome nameth Theophilus, Eusebius, Acacius, Euzorus, and Gelasius, to, have been bishops thereof. In this city was Cornelius the centurion baptized by St. Peter; and herein dwelt Philip the apostle. St. Paul was herein two years prisoner, under the president Felix, unto the time and government of Porcius Festus; by whom, making his appeal, he was sent to Cæsar. Here, when Herod Agrippa was passing on to celebrate the quinquennalia, taking delight to be called a god by his flatterers, he was stricken by an angel unto death, saith Josephus.

To the north of Cæsarea standeth Dora, or Naphoth Dor, as some read, Josh. i. 2. so called, saith Adrichomius, because it joineth to the sea, whose king was slain by Joshua. But Junius, for in Naphoth Dor, reads in tractibus Dor; and so the Vulgar, in regionibus Dor, although 1 Kings iv. 11. for the like speech in the Hebrew it readeth omnis Nephath Dor; the Septuagint in the place of Joshua call it Nepheth

f Joseph. 1. 15. c. 13.

8 Lib. 14. c. 12. Bell. Sacr.

Dor, and in the other of the Kings, Nepha-Dor; but the true name by other places (as Josh. xii. 23. Judg. i. 27.) may seem to be Dor. It was a strong and powerful city, and the fourth in account of those twelve principalities or sitarchies which Solomon erected. Junius upon Macc. xv. 11. placeth it between the hill Carmel and the mouth of the river Cherseus; for so some name the river Chorseus, of which we have spoken already.

Into this city, for the strength thereof, Tryphon fled from Antiochus the son of Demetrius, where he was by the same Antiochus besieged with 120,000 footmen, and 8,000 horse: the same perfidious villain that received 200 talents for the ransom of Jonathanh Macchabæus, (whom he had taken by treachery,) and then slew him; and after him slew his own master, usurping for a while the kingdom of Syria. It had also a bishop's seat of the diocese of Cæsarea.

From Cæsarea towards the south they place the cities of Capernaum, Gabe, and Galgal; for, besides that Capernaum famous in the Evangelists, they find in these parts, near the west sea, another of the same name. Of Gabe, Jerome in locis Hebraicis. The famous Galgal, or Gilgal, was in Benjamin; but this Gilgal they say it was whose king was slain by Joshua.

i

Then Antipatris, so called of Herod in honour of his father; but in the time of the k Macchabees it was called Capharsalama, in the fields whereof Judas Macchabæus overthrew a part of the army of Nicanor, lieutenant to Demetrius; an army drawn into Judæa by a traitorous Jew, called Alcimus; who contended for the priesthood, first under Bacchides, and then under Nicanor. To this was St. Paul carried prisoner from Jerusalem, conducted by 470 soldiers to defend him from the fury of the Jews. In aftertimes the army of Godfrey of Bulloign attempted it in vain ; yet was it taken by Baldwin. It was honoured in those days with a bishop's seat, but it is now a poor village, called Assur, saith Brochard. Near unto this city the prophet Jonas was three days preserved in the body of a whale.

h 1 Macc. xiii. 24. Gul. Tyr. de Bell. Sac. 1. 10. c. 6. k1 Mace. vii. 31.

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