rocks.[1]
According to this, the statement of Josephus would at least not stand in open contradiction to the Hauranitish tradition of Job. But we go further and maintain that the Monastery of Job lies exactly in the centre of Trachonitis. This word has, viz., in Josephus and others, a double signification - a more limited and a wider one. It has the more limited where, together with Auranitis, Batanaea, Gamalitica, and Gaulonitis, it denotes the separate provinces of the ancient kingdom of Basan. Then it signifies the Trachonitis kat' exochee'n, i.e., the wildest portion of the volcanic district, viz., the Legâ, the Haurân mountain range, the Safâ and Harra of the Râgil. On the other hand, it has the wider signification when it stands alone; then it embraces the whole volcanic region of Middle Syria, therefore with the more limited Trachonitis the remaining provinces of Basan, but with the exception, as it seems, of the no longer volcanic Galadine (North Gilead). In this sense, therefore, as a geographical notion, Trachonitis is almost synonymous with Basan.
Since it is to the interest of this investigation to make the assertion advanced sure against every objection, we will not withhold the passages in support of it. Josephus says, Ant. xv. 10, 3, the district of Hûle (Οὐλαθά) lies between Galilee and Trachonitis. He might have said more accurately, “between Galilee and Gaulonitis,” but he wished to express that the great basaltic region begins on the eastern boundary of the Hûle. The word Trachonitis has therefore the wider signification. In like manner, in Bell. iii. 10 it is said the lake of Phiala lies 120 stadia east of Paneion (Bâniâs) on the way to the Trachonitis. True, the Phiala is a crater, and therefore itself belongs to Trachonitis, but between it and Bâniâs the lava alternates with the chalk formation of the Hermôn, whereas to the south and east of the Phiala it is
- ↑ Comp. Jos. Ant. xv. 10, 3; Zeitschr. für allg. Erdkunde, New Series, xiii. 213.
