Comnenus issued an edict
prohibiting the Jews from residing elsewhere than in Pera,
and restricting their occupation to tanning and
shipbuilding.]

[Footnote 49: This place is mentioned by _Procopius_, p.
119, as having been fortified by Justinian. It is now known
as Rodosto.]

[Footnote 50: Ibn Ezra visited Cyprus before his arrival in
London in 1158, when he wrote the _Sabbath Epistle_. It is
not unlikely that the heterodox practices of the sect of
whom Benjamin here speaks had been put forward in certain
books to which Ibn Ezra alludes, and induced him to compose
the pamphlet in defence of the traditional mode of
observance of the Sabbath day. This supposition is not
inconsistent with Graetz's theory, vol. VI, p. 447. See also
Dr. Friedlander, _Ibn Ezra in England, J.Q.R._, VIII, p.
140, and Joseph Jacobs, _The Jews of Angevin England_, p.
35.]

[Footnote 51: See Gibbon, chaps, lviii and lix; Charles
Mills, _History of the Crusades_, I, p. 159; C.R. Conder,
_Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem_, p. 39.]

[Footnote 52: The several MSS. give different readings. The
kingdom reached to the Taurus mountains and the Sultanate of
Rum or Iconium.]

[Footnote 53: Beazley remarks that Benjamin must have passed
along this coast before 1167, when Thoros died at peace and
on terms of vassalage to the Emperor Manuel Comnenus.
Malmistras is forty-five miles from Tarsus. Both had been
recaptured by Manuel in 1155. _Josippon_, I, chap. i,
identifies Tarshish with Tarsus.]

[Footnote 54: No doubt the river Fer, otherwise Orontes, is
here referred to. Ancient Antioch lies on the slope of Mount
Silpius, and the city-wall erected by Justinian extended
from the river up to the hill-plateau. Abulfeda says: "The
river of Hamah is also called Al Urunt or the Nahr al Maklub
(the Overturned) on account of its course from south to
north; or, again, it is called Al' Asi (the Rebel), for the
reason that though most rivers water the lands on their
borders without the aid of water-wheels, the river of Hamah
will not irrigate the lands except by the aid of machines
for raising its waters." (Guy le Strange, _Palestine under
the Moslems_, p. 59.) It is strange that R. Benjamin should
call the Orontes the river Jabbok, but he always takes care