more exact measurements, may add to, or modify in some degree, this evidence; but I have no apprehension that the main result will ever be disturbed. Let us look now at the notices of Eleutheropolis, which have come down to us in ancient writers, and compare them with those of Betogabra. Not indeed in the hope of thus decidedly tracing the identity of the two; for the slight link which might connect them in the chain of historical evidence, a single line upon the page of history,-was unfortunately omitted or has since been lost; but in order to see whether there is any thing which militates against this identity; and if not, to see further, whether this very silence and the attendant circumstances do not tend indirectly to confirm the same hypothesis. The earliest mention of Betogabra, as we have seen, is by Ptolemy in the beginning of the second century; and again in the Peutinger Tables, probably in the reign of Alexander Severus, about A. D. 230.1 Whether the name Eleutheropolis already existed in the days of Ptolemy we do not know; but before the construction of the Tables, this name is found upon coins of the city inscribed to Julia Domna, the wife of Septimius Severus, and dated in the eighth and ninth years of the reign of that emperor, corresponding to A. D. 202 and 203. The emperor had been in Palestine about that time (A D. 202), and had conferred privileges and immunities on various cities. Among them Eleutheropolis appears to have shared his favour, and thus testified its gratitude. Another coin of the same city, struck in honour of Caracalla, the next emperor, is also extant.3 1) Ptolemaeus IV. 16, Judaea. Reland Palaest. pp. 461, 421. See Vol. III. First Appendix, pp. 3, 4. 2) Spartian. in Severo, cap. 16, 17. Belley p. 431. See the next Note. 3) See a description of these three coins, (one of which is in the The earliest writer who mentions Eleutheropolis, is Eusebius in his Onomasticon about A. D. 330 or later, followed by Jerome near the close of the same century. In their day it was an episcopal city of importance; and was so well known, that they assumed it as the central point in southern Palestine, from which to determine the position of more than twenty other places. The renown and the very name of the greater central city have long since passed away; while many of these minor places still remain, and have afforded in their turn, to strangers from a new world, the means of determining the site and re-establishing the claims of the ancient metropolis. In that age this city was indeed the metropolis of the adjacent country, which is frequently spoken of as the region of Eleutheropolis. The names of five of its bishops are found in the records and signatures of councils, from that of Nicea in A. D. 325 to that of Jerusalem in A. D. 536; besides historical notices of three others during the same period.' Epiphanius, who flourished in the latter part of the fourth century, is said to have been born at a village three miles distant from Eleutheropolis; he is thence called a native of that city, which he several times mentions in his writings. To the next following centuries belongs collection of Sir Hans Soane,) in Mionnet Médailles Antiques, Tom. V. p. 534. Haym Tesor. Brittan.. I. p. 261. Eckhel Doctr. Nummor. Tom. III. p. 448. Rasche's Lexicon art. Eleutheropolis. See also particularly the able essay of the Abbé Belley, "Sur les Médailles des Villes de Diospolis et d'Eleutheropolis," A. D. 1754, in Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Tom. XXVI. p. 429, seq.-On the reverse of these coins the city styles itself Lucia Septimia Severiana, after the name of the emperor ; the mention of Eleutheropolis as an episcopal city, in two Greek ecclesiastical Notitiae; one of which was compiled before A. D. 451, since it still speaks of Caesarea as the metropolitan see; while the other, to judge from the preamble, refers to a time not very long after the erection of Jerusalem into a patriarchate.' The same age was also the age of legends and lives of saints; and in these the name of Eleutheropolis not unfrequently occurs.2 About the close of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century, Antoninus Martyr appears to have visited this city; the name of which is corrupted in his account, to Eliotropolis and also Heliopolis.3 It is somewhat remarkable, that with the exception of the coins above mentioned, the name of Eleutheropolis occurs in profane history only in two writers; both of whom mention it incidentally, in connection with the same period of ecclesiastical renown. The first of these is Ammianus Marcellinus, the cotemporary of Jerome, in the latter part of the fourth century. From his language the conclusion has sometimes been drawn, though without sufficient ground, that Eleutheropolis was built up in the third century, and did not exist before that time. The other writer 1) See these Notitiae in Reland Palaest. pp. 214, seq. 219, seq. The last is ascribed to Nilus in A. D. 1151; but it evidently refers to a time preceding the Muhammedan conquests. Jerusalem was made an independent patriarchate at the council of Chalcedon A. D. 451-3; see above, pp. 23, 24. In both these Notitiae the name of Betogabra does not occur. 2) So in the tract ascribed to Dorotheus bishop of Tyre; where Simon, one of the apostles, is said to have preached at Eleutheropolis; and Jesus surnamed Justus, to have been its first bishop; see the passages cited in Reland p. 751. So too in the legends respecting 3) Itin. 32. Reland ib. p. 752. 4) Reland p. 749. The passage of Ammianus is as follows; he is enumerating the cities of Palestine: "Caesaream... Heleutheropolim, et Neapolim, itidemque Ascalonem, Gazam, aevo superiore extructas;" lib. XIV. 8. 11. Here the last clause, "aevo superiore extructas," can obviously apply in no stronger sense to Eleutheropo is the grammarian Suidas; whose work perhaps belongs rather to ecclesiastical history. Writing not earlier than the close of the tenth century, from sources now lost, he mentions circumstances which formerly took place in Eleutheropolis. These are wholly unimportant, relating merely to the unsuccessful attempt of Eutocius, a Thracian soldier, to become a citizen and senator of the city; and also to Marianus, a late poet at Rome, whose father removed to Eleutheropolis, and who acquired honours under the reign of the emperor Anastasius, A. D. 493-518.1 This is the amount of all we know of Eleutheropolis before the Muhammedan conquest of Palestine, which was completed in A. D. 636. After that time the city is mentioned only once by a cotemporary writer; and that, in monastic annals, in order to record its fall. In the year 796, the cities of Gaza, Askelon, and Sariphaea are said to have been laid waste, and Eleutheropolis converted into a desert, during a civil war among the various tribes of Saracens in Palestine. Whether it recovered in any degree from this desolation, we are nowhere informed. During the Muhammedan dominion and the prevalence of the Arabic tongue, it would be natural to lis, than it does to Neapolis, Askelon, and Gaza; in respect to all which, if understood to imply that they were then first built, it is notoriously false. To say nothing of the antiquity of Gaza and Askelon, I need only remark of Neapolis, that this name is already mentioned by Josephus; B. J. IV. 8. 1. 1) Suidas Lexicon art. Erózios, Magiarós. Reland Palaest. pp. 753, 754. That the reign of Anastasius I. is intended, is apparent; for the short sway of the second emperor of that name (A. D. 713-15), falls nearly a century after Palestine was in the hands of the Muhammedans. 2) Διαφόρους γὰρ πολυανθρώ πους πόλεις ἠρήμωσαν : καὶ γὰρ Ἐλευθερόπολιν παντελῶς ἀεὶ ἀοίκη τον ἔθηκαν, πᾶσαν ἐκπορθήσαντες· ἀλλὰ καὶ ̓Ασκάλωνα καὶ Γάζαν καὶ Σαρεφαίαν καὶ ἑτέρας πόλεις δεινώς Eikzioarto. "Depopulati sunt frequentissimas urbes non paucas; Eleutheropolim, abductis in captivitatem universis, desertam fecere. Ascalonem, Gazam, et Sariphae. am, aliasque civitates, violenter diripuerant." So Stephen a contemporary monk of Mar Saba, Acta Sanctor. Mart. Tom. III. p. 167, seq. Reland Pal. p. 987. Le Quien Oriens Christ. III. p. 313. Comp. pp. 39, 40, above. expect, that the ancient name of Betogabra, (later Heb. Beth Gabriel or Beth Gebrin,) which had doubtless remained among the common people, would again become current; and cause the Greek name which so long had usurped its place, to be forgotten. And here, as in so many other instances, this seems actually to have been the case; the ancient name revived, and assumed the Arabic form in which we find it at the present day. In two Latin Notitiae, the date of which is uncertain, but which were obviously first compiled in reference to the centuries preceding the crusades, the name of Eleutheropolis is no longer found; but in its place appears, in one the name Beigeberin, and in the other Beit Gerbein.' Not improbably both these notices are to be referred to the eighth century, before the destruction of the city. At any rate, the crusaders found the place in ruins; and if not wholly deserted, yet at least it had long ceased to be an episcopal see. They rebuilt the fortress; and its subsequent history I have already recounted. At that time the name and position of Eleutheropolis were so thoroughly forgotten, that Cedrenus, in the last half of the eleventh century, held it to have been the same with Hebron.3 On comparing the preceding notices, it is to be observed, that, with one apparent exception hereafter to be considered, all the writers who mention Betogabra, make no allusion to Eleutheropolis; while all those who so often speak of the latter, are silent as to Betogabra. Indeed, the latter name is found only quite early in Ptolemy and the Peutinger Tables, or again quite late in the two Latin Notitiae. The Greek name, as appears from the coins, had been adopted 1) Reland ib. pp. 222, 227. The latter Notitia is found appended to the History of William of Tyre; Gesta Dei per Francos p. 1044. 2) Pages 360-362. 3) Geo. Cedreni Historiar. Compend. Paris 1647. Tom. I. p. 33, θάπτεται (ή Σαβα) ἐν Χε βρών, ἥτις νῦν Ἐλευθερόπολις και λεῖται. |