province by the Romans. other large cities, is it probable that the Romans would at once proceed to found and erect a new capital? Nowhere in the Haurân are there ruins of greater extent, and nowhere are there such manifest proofs of wealth and luxury. Nowhere is there a site more inviting, and we know that this region was as densely populated before as after the Roman occupation. Bnt we shall see that Roman writers, few and scanty though their notices of Bostra are, afford us some information on this subject which tends to confirm our previous arguments.

Where there were so many

In the year of Rome 858, being the eighth of the reign of Trajan, that emperor marched into the east, and his legions were everywhere victorious. His general Cornelius Palma entered Bashan and Peræa, and subdued the whole country east of the Jordan to the desert on the east, and to the defiles of Edom on the south. Bostra was made the seat of government, and was called on the money of the period "Nova Trajana Bostra." Ritter seems to consider the word Nova as favouring his hypothesis that the city had no previous existence. But this appears an extraordinary conclusion. He admits that, since this was called New Bostra, there must have been an old Bostra; but then he seeks the old one in another country. Is it not far more natural to suppose that the old Bostra stood upon this very spot; for, if not, why call it Bostra at all? What had it to do with Bostra? Why not call it Trajanopolis, instead of Nova Trajana Bostra ? I consider this as strong monumental evidence that an ancient city called Bozrah stood upon this site. And we 9 Paläs. und Syr. ii. 970.

have some direct evidence that such was the fact, for Damascius states that there was here, previous to the time of the Roman Conquest, a strong fortress or town, though he does not give the name.' The Romans, no doubt, adorned the city with public buildings, and strengthened it with fortifications. The theatre in the castle was probably constructed soon after Bostra became the capital of the province, and the ruined temples and baths in the city must have been founded about the same period. Damascius further states that Bostra is not an ancient city, since it was erected by Alexander Severus, who made it a Roman colony. His meaning evidently is that the emperor enlarged it, or probably erected new buildings in it, and bestowed upon it new privileges. The coins of this period bear the legends, "Severus Alexander Colonia Bostra," and and "Nova Trajana Alexandrina Colonia Bostra."2 Alexander reigned from A.D. 222 till A.D. 235, and thus lived more than a century after the time when Dion Cassius states that Bostra was made the seat of a prefect under Trajan. The city was thus growing in importance, and the tide of commerce now began to flow past it from the east to the west, so that it became for a season what Palmyra had been before the hostile armies of Persia and the rebel Palmyrenes themselves checked the commerce along the northern line. In A.D. 245, Philippus, a native of Bostra, was raised to the throne of the Cæsars, and his own city was then constituted a metropolis, as we learn from its coins, which bear the inscription "Colonia Metropolis Bostra." It is strange

I Winer, Bib. Realw. s. v. Bostra.

2 Ritter, Paläs. und Syr. ii. 970-1.

that these changes in the political history of so important a border city should have been almost entirely overlooked by the historians of that age. The leading events that occurred there, and the honours heaped upon it, we can now only learn from the scanty records on coins and monuments. These, however, are unusually abundant and full in their details.

On the coins of Bostra we find legends which illustrate many of the inscriptions found in this and other ruined towns and villages in the Haurân. It appears from them that Ayan Tux", "Good Fortune," was the tutelary goddess of Bostra, and she is represented as a woman, seated, with a mural crown on her head and the cornucopia in her hand, with the words Τυχη Βοστρων. Very many of the Greek inscriptions in this province begin with the words Ayaon Tuxn, which must be regarded as an acknowledgment of Bostra's superior privileges as capital. Wherever a date occurs on such inscriptions it must be regarded as of the Bostrian era, which commenced at the time this city became the capital of the province (A.D. 106). On other coins are figured the implements of husbandry, as a plough or a yoke of oxen; on others again are the peculiar emblems of rearing cattle and pastoral life; while on a very large number are represented the wine-press, or a bunch of grapes, with the name Dusaria, Dovragia, a deity who, like Dionysius, patronized the cultivation of the vine.3

It appears that Christianity spread widely among the inhabitants of Bostra at a very early period of the Church's history. In the days of Constantine it was acknowledged

3 Ritter, ii. 972.

to be a Christian city, and was made by him the seat of a consulate, and it was soon after raised to be the capital of an eparchite. Being of such importance in a political point of view, it was acknowledged as the metropolitan city of a very extensive ecclesiastical district. Thirtythree suffragans were at one time subject to its primate.* About the middle of the third century Bostra appears to have attained to its greatest pitch of prosperity, for then one of its own sons wielded the sceptre of the Roman empire; and from this period to the time of Constantine and Julian a brief sketch of its history is given in the pages of Ammianus Marcellinus. He represents it as one of the most populous and important cities in the whole province of Peræa. He manifestly takes it for granted that there had been a town on that site before the Roman conquest, for he remarks that Trajan showed favour to it, and gave it Roman laws, which its old inhabitants were compelled to observe. These laws were no doubt the same, as Ritter justly remarks, which were given to the ten cities called by the name Decapolis. This sameness in laws and in the form of government gave rise to the name, which they received, according to Pliny, "from the number of the cities in which the inhabitants observed the same laws." In succeeding ages these laws and privileges, which had been originally confined to ten cities, were extended to others, and gradually spread until the whole province was governed by them; and hence arises the confusion as to the names of the ten cities really included in Decapolis.

4 Rel. Pal. pp. 217, 218.

5 "A numero oppidorum, in quo omnes eadem observant."-Plin. v. 16. See also Ritter, Paläs. und Syr. ii. 974.

Bostra afterwards became the seat of a bishop under the Nestorian patriarch, while at the same time it remained a see of the eastern church. This was one of the first cities attacked by the Muslems when they invaded Syria. The people fought bravely for their liberty and their faith, but were at length betrayed by their cowardly governor Romanus. Knowing his base designs, the garrison deposed him and caused him to be confined to his house: unfortunately the house was upon the city wall, and by the help of his family he contrived to open a passage to the outside, by which he admitted a hundred men of the most courageous of the enemy. The people were surprised, the guards murdered, and the gates thrown open. Many of the inhabitants were spared; but they became the virtual slaves of their fierce conquerors. Most of the churches were converted into mosks, and ornamented and enriched by the spoils of the Christians." The features of the city also soon completely changed their character. The spacious streets of the Roman age were encumbered with wretched stalls, between which a narrow and tortuous path was left, barely sufficient to afford a passage to laden animals. The temples and monumental statues were either overthrown or concealed behind the miserable structures of the Saracens. The fortifications were in part preserved and the old castle kept in repair; but the prosperity and glory of Bostra were gone, and the city gradually and steadily declined under the withering influence of Islam until it has become utterly desolate. Though the crusaders often invaded the Haurân, yet they

6 Asseman., Bibliotheca Orientalis,' iii. part ii. cap. xii.

7 Ockley, 'Hist. of Saracens,' A.D. 633.