CHAPTER 3.

A Description Op Galilee, Samaria, And Judea.

1. Now Phoenicia and Syria encompass about the Galilees, which are two,
and called the Upper Galilee and the Lower. They are bounded toward the
sun-setting, with the borders of the territory belonging to Ptolemais,
and by Carmel; which mountain had formerly belonged to the Galileans,
but now belonged to the Tyrians; to which mountain adjoins Gaba,
which is called the City of Horsemen, because those horsemen that were
dismissed by Herod the king dwelt therein; they are bounded on the south
with Samaria and Scythopolis, as far as the river Jordan; on the east
with Hippeae and Gadaris, and also with Ganlonitis, and the borders of
the kingdom of Agrippa; its northern parts are hounded by Tyre, and the
country of the Tyrians. As for that Galilee which is called the Lower,
it, extends in length from Tiberias to Zabulon, and of the maritime
places Ptolemais is its neighbor; its breadth is from the village called
Xaloth, which lies in the great plain, as far as Bersabe, from which
beginning also is taken the breadth of the Upper Galilee, as far as the
village Baca, which divides the land of the Tyrians from it; its length
is also from Meloth to Thella, a village near to Jordan.

2. These two Galilees, of so great largeness, and encompassed with
so many nations of foreigners, have been always able to make a strong
resistance on all occasions of war; for the Galileans are inured to war
from their infancy, and have been always very numerous; nor hath the
country been ever destitute of men of courage, or wanted a numerous set
of them; for their soil is universally rich and fruitful, and full of
the plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the
most slothful to take pains in its cultivation, by its fruitfulness;
accordingly, it is all cultivated by its inhabitants, and no part of it
lies idle. Moreover, the cities lie here very thick, and the very
many villages there are here are every where so full of people, by
the richness of their soil, that the very least of them contain above
fifteen thousand inhabitants.

3. In short, if any one will suppose that Galilee is inferior to Perea
in magnitude, he will be obliged to prefer it before it in its strength;
for this is all capable of cultivation, and is every where fruitful; but
for Perea, which is indeed much larger in extent, the greater part of
it is desert and rough, and much less disposed for th