Coele-Syria
Coele-Syria, Coele Syria, Coelesyria, also rendered as Coelosyria and Celesyria, otherwise Hollow Syria, was a region of Syria in classical antiquity. It probably derived from the Aramaic word for all of the region of Syria, but it was most often applied to the Beqaa Valley between the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon mountain ranges. The area is now part of the modern-day Syria and Lebanon.
Name
It is widely accepted that the term Coele is a transcription of Aramaic kul, meaning "all, the entire", such that the term originally identified all of Syria. The word "Coele", which literally means "hollow" in Koine Greek, is thought to have come about via a folk etymology referring to the "hollow" Beqaa Valley between Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon mountains. However, the term Coele-Syria was also used in a wider sense to indicate "all Syria" or "all Syria except Phoenicia", by the writers; Pliny, Arrian, Ptolemy and also Diodorus Siculus, who indicated Coele-Syria to at least stretch as far south as Joppa, while Polybius stated that the border between Egypt and Coele-Syria lay between the towns of Rhinocolara and Rhaphia.The first and only official use of the term was during the period of Seleucid rule of the region, between c. 200 BCE and 64 BCE. During this period, the term "Coele Syria and Phoenicia" or "Coele Syria" was also used in a narrower sense to refer to the former Ptolemaic territory which the Seleucids now controlled, being the area south of the river Eleutherus. This usage was adopted by Strabo and the Books of the Maccabees. However, Greek writers such as Agatharchides and Polemon of Athens used the term Palestine to refer to the region during this period, which was a term originally given circa 450 BCE by Herodotus. Later during the Roman Period c.350 CE, Eunapius wrote that the capital of Coele-Syria was the Seleucid city of Antioch, north of the Eleutherus.
Official usage
According to Polybius, a former officer of the Ptolemaic Empire named Ptolemy Thrasea, having fought in the 217 BCE Battle of Raphia, defected to the Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great. Antiochus gave him the title "Strategos and Archiereus of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia". Some scholars speculate that this title may have been used previously by the Ptolemies, but no direct evidence exists to support this.Syrian Wars
The region was disputed between the Seleucid dynasty and the Ptolemaic dynasty during the Syrian Wars. Alexander the Great's general Ptolemy first occupied Coele-Syria in 318 BC. However, when Ptolemy joined the coalition against Antigonus I Monophthalmus in 313 BC, he quickly withdrew from Coele-Syria. In 312 BC Seleucus I Nicator, defeated Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, in the Battle of Gaza which again allowed Ptolemy to occupy Coele-Syria. Though he was again to pull out after only a few months, after Demetrius had won a battle over his general and Antigonus entered Syria in force up to Antigonuses, this brief success had enabled Seleucus to make a dash for Babylonia which Seleucus secured. In 302 BC, Ptolemy joined a new coalition against Antigonus and reoccupied Coele-Syria, but quickly withdrew on hearing a false report that Antigonus had won a victory. He was only to return when Antigonus had been defeated at Ipsus in 301 BC. Coele-Syria was assigned to Seleucus, by the victors of Ipsus, as Ptolemy had added nothing to the victory. Though, given Ptolemy's track record, he was unlikely to organize a serious defense of Coele-Syria, Seleucus acquiesced in Ptolemy's occupation, probably because Seleucus remembered how it had been with Ptolemy's help he had reestablished himself in Babylonia.The later Seleucids were not to be so understanding, resulting in the century of Syrian Wars between the Ptolemies and Seleucids. The Battle of Panium in 200 BC, during the Fifth Syrian War, was the final decisive battle between the two sides in ending Ptolemaic control over the region. The 171-168 BC conflicts over Coele-Syria, between Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Ptolemy VI Philometor, are discussed in Livy’s The History of Rome from its Foundation.
Seleucid control over the area of Judea began diminishing with the eruption of the Maccabean Revolt in 165 BC. With Seleucid troops being involved in warfare on the Parthian front, Judea succeeded in securing its independence by 140 BC. Despite attempts of Seleucid rulers to regain territories, the conquests of Pompey in 64 BC were a decisive blow to them, and Syria became part of the Roman Republic.
Upper Syria
Under the Macedonian kings, Upper Syria was divided into four parts which were named after their capitals. Later in the Roman Pompeian era, the province was divided into nine districts.Nomenclatures of Syria
Judging from Arrian and The Anabasis of Alexander, the historians of Alexander the Great, as well as more ancient authors, gave the name of Syria to all the country comprehended between the Tigris and the Mediterranean. The part to the east of the Euphrates, afterwards named Mesopotamia was called "Syria between the rivers;" that to the west was called by the general name Coele-Syria, and although Phoenicia and Palestine were sometimes separated from it. Yet, it was often comprehended as the whole country as far as Egypt.- Circa 323 BCE Laomedon of Mytilene takes control of Coele-Syria.
- Circa 323 BCE The Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax lists several cities on the Palestinian coast that are incorporated into Coele-Syria.
- Circa 120 BCE In the written work, 1 Maccabees ;
And king Demetrius made Apollonius his general, who was governor of Celesyria: and he gathered together a great army, and came to Jamnia.
- Circa 100 BCE In the written work, 2 Maccabees ;
And when he could not overcome Onias, he went to Apollonius, the son of Tharseas, who at that time was governor of Celesyria, and Phenicia.
- Circa 25 BCE Livy in his written work, The History of Rome ;
Antiochus was so incensed,...He at once sent his fleet to Cyprus, and in the first days of spring set his army in motion for Egypt and advanced into Coelo-Syria. When near Rhinocolura he was met by envoys from Ptolemy, who...begged him to say clearly what he wanted rather than to attack Ptolemy as an enemy—by force of arms—after previously being his friend.
Coele-Syria Proper
- Circa 36 CE Philo of Alexandria in his written work, On the Life of Moses ;
When then he received the supreme authority, with the good will of all his subjects, God himself being the regulator and approver of all his actions, he conducted his people as a colony into Phoenicia, and into the hollow Syria, and Palestine, which was at that time called the land of the Canaanites, the borders of which country were three days' journey distant from Egypt.
- Circa 43 CE Pomponius Mela in his written work, Description of the World ;
Syria holds a broad expanse of the littoral, as well as lands that extend rather broadly into the interior, and it is designated by different names in different places. For example, it is called Coele, Mesopotamia, Judaea, Commagene, and Sophene. It is Palestine at the point where Syria abuts the Arabs, then Phoenicia, and then—where it reaches Cilicia—Antiochia. In Palestine, however, is Gaza, a mighty and well fortified city.
- Circa 70 CE Pliny the Elder in his written work, Natural History ;
Next to these countries on the coast is Syria, once the greatest of lands. It had a multitude of divisions with different names, the part adjacent to Arabia was previously known as Palestine or Judaea or Cœle.
- Circa 100 CE Josephus in his written work, Antiquities of the Jews, notes that in 46 BCE Herod the Great was appointed as the "stratēgos" of Coele Syria, by the governor of Syria, Sextus Julius Caesar. And he also writes ;
Antiochus made a friendship and league with Ptolemy, and gave him his daughter Cleopatra in marriage, and yielded up to him Cœle-Syria and Samaria and Judæa and Phœnicia by way of dowry.
- Circa 125 CE The Roman emperor Hadrian promotes the city of Damascus to "Metropolis of Coele-Syria".
- Circa 150 CE Appian in his written work, Roman History ;
Intending to write the history of the Romans, I have deemed it necessary to begin with the boundaries of the nations under their sway.... Here turning our course and passing round, we take in Palestine-Syria, and beyond it a part of Arabia. The Phoenicians hold the country next to Palestine on the sea, and beyond the Phoenician territory are Coele-Syria, and the parts stretching from the sea as far inland as the river Euphrates, namely Palmyra and the sandy country round about, extending even to the Euphrates itself.
The Decapolis was so called from its ten cities enumerated by Pliny. What Pliny calls Decapolis, Ptolomy makes his Cœle-Syria; and the Cœle-Syria of Pliny, is that part of Syria about Aleppo.
- Heliopolis
- Abila which is called Lysinia
- Saana
- Ina
- Samulis
- Abida
- Capitolias
- Adra
- Canatha
Provincia Syria Coele
- Circa 200 CE. Ulpian, On Taxes, Book I;
There is also the colony of Laodicea, in Coele Syria, to which also the divine Severus granted the Italian Law on account of its services in the Civil War.
You may delineate the Promised Land of Moses from the Book of Numbers : as bounded on the south by the desert tract called Sina, between the Dead Sea and the city of Kadesh-barnea, and continues to the west, as far as the river of Egypt, that discharges into the open sea near the city of Rhinocolara; as bounded on the west by the sea along the coasts of Palestine, Phoenicia, Coele‑Syria, and Cilicia; as bounded on the north by the circle formed by the Taurus Mountains and Zephyrium and extending to Hamath, called Epiphany‑Syria; as bounded on the east by the city of Antioch Hippos and Lake Kinneret, now called Tiberias, and then the Jordan River which discharges into the salt sea, now called the Dead Sea.
- Circa 400 CE Eunapius in his written work, Lives of Philosophers and Sophists ;
Libanius was born at Antioch, the capital of Coele Syria as it is called. This city was founded by Seleucus surnamed Nicator.