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Between Zagros and the Arabian Desert, where the width was the greatest, it amounted to about 280 miles; between Amanus and Palmyra it was 250; between the Mons Masius and the middle Euphrates it may have been 200; in Syria and Idumsea it cannot have been more than 100 or 160.
These mountains, or at any rate Casius and Amanus, are of igneous origin, and, if carefully explored, would certainly yield gems to the investigator. At the same time it must be acknowledged that Syria had not, in antiquity, the name of a gem-producing country; and, so far, the reading of "Edom" for "Aram," which is preferred by many, may seem to be the more probable.
Closed entirely on the side of Asia by Mount Amanus, which belongs to the chain of Taurus, and extends from the Gulf of Scanderoun to the Euphrates, she is bounded on one side by the Mediterranean, and on the other by the desert. Her length from Aintab to Gaza is one hundred and fifty leagues, and the mean breadth about thirty.
But the pass was utterly undefended, and Alexander marched through unobstructed without the loss of a man. He then found himself at Tarsus, where he made a long halt, from a dangerous illness which he got by bathing in the river Cydnus. When he recovered, he sent Parmenio to secure the pass over Mount Amanus, six days’ march from Tarsus, called the Cilician Gates.
Here he erected altars and offered sacrifices to the gods, after which he received the submission of the principal Phoenician states, among which Tyre, Sidon, Byblus, and Aradus may be distinctly recognized. He then proceeded inland, and visited the mountain range of Amanus, where he cut timber, set up a sculptured memorial, and offered sacrifice.
He thus completely re-established the power of Assyria in this quarter, once more recovering to the Empire the entire tract between the coast and the desert from Mount Amanus on the north to the Red Sea and the confines of Egypt. One further expedition was led or sent by Tiglath-Pileser into Syria, probably in his last year.
By a single glance at the map we perceive the most important military points for the defence of Syria are the fortress of Saint Jean d'Acre; Tyre, which ought to be fortified; Bolbeck, as the key to several valleys; Antakea, the passage of the Beilan; Alexandretta, situated upon a tongue of land between the marshes and the sea; and lastly, Aentab and Zenyma, which command the two passages on the right side of Mount Amanus.
The Egyptian dominion was acknowledged as far north as Mount Amanus. Carchemish, soon to become a Hittite stronghold, was in Egyptian hands, and the Hittites themselves had not yet emerged from the fortresses of the Taurus. Their territory was still confined to Kataonia and Armenia Minor between Melitênê and the Saros, and they courted the favour of the Egyptian monarch by sending him gifts.
Darius, not unwisely, accepted the defeat of his best troops as the loss of the battle, and hastily retired across Amanus by the pass which had brought him to Issus, whence he hurried on through Sochi to the Euphrates, anxious to place that obstacle between himself and his victorious enemy.
The children of Ham possessed the land from Syria and Amanus, and the mountains of Libanus; seizing upon all that was on its sea-coasts, and as far as the ocean, and keeping it as their own. Some indeed of its names are utterly vanished away; others of them being changed, and another sound given them, are hardly to be discovered; yet a few there are which have kept their denominations entire.
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