ae in upper Mesopotamia;(9)
then to the west of the Euphrates Sampsiceramus, emir of the Arabs
of Hemesa (Homs) between Damascus and Antioch, and master
of the strong fortress Arethusa; Azizus the head of another horde
roaming in the same region; Alchaudonius, the prince of the Rhambaeans,
who had already put himself into communication with Lucullus;
and several others.

Robber-Chiefs

Alongside of these Bedouin princes there had everywhere appeared
bold cavaliers, who equalled or excelled the children of the desert
in the noble trade of waylaying. Such was Ptolemaeus son
of Mennaeus, perhaps the most powerful among these Syrian robber-
chiefs and one of the richest men of this period, who ruled over
the territory of the Ityraeans--the modern Druses--in the valleys
of the Libanus as well as on the coast and over the plain
of Massyas to the northward with the cities of Heliopolis (Baalbec)
and Chalcis, and maintained 8000 horsemen at his own expense;
such were Dionysius and Cinyras, the masters of the maritime cities
Tripolis (Tarablus) and Byblus (between Tarablus and Beyrout);
such was the Jew Silas in Lysias, a fortress not far from Apamea
on the Orontes.

Jews

In the south of Syria, on the other hand, the race of the Jews
seemed as though it would about this time consolidate itself
into a political power. Through the devout and bold defence
of the primitive Jewish national worship, which was imperilled
by the levelling Hellenism of the Syrian kings, the family
of the Hasmonaeans or the Makkabi had not only attained to their
hereditary principality and gradually to kingly honours;(10)
but these princely high-priests had also spread their conquests
to the north, east, and south. When the brave Jannaeus Alexander
died (675), the Jewish kingdom stretched towards the south over
the whole Philistian territory as far as the frontier of Egypt, towards
the south-east as far as that of the Nabataean kingdom of Petra,
from which Jannaeus had wrested considerable tracts on the right
bank of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, towards the north over Samaria
and Decapolis up to the lake of Gennesareth; here he was already
making arrangements to occupy Ptolemais (Acco) and victoriously
to repel the aggressions of the Ityraeans. The coast obeyed the Jews
from Mount Carmel as far as Rhinocorura, including the important
Gaza--Ascalon alone was still free; so that the territory
of the Jews, once almost cut off from the sea, could