Note 3613 — BOOK V. AN ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS, SEAS, TOWNS, HAVENS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, DISTANCES, AND PEOPLES WHO NOW EXIST OR FORMERLY EXISTED.

Or the “Hollow” Syria. This was properly the name given, after the Macedonian conquest, to the great valley between the two great ranges of Mount Lebanon, in the south of Syria, bordering upon Phœnicia on the west, and Palestine on the south. In the wars between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ, the name was applied to the whole of the southern portion of Syria, which became subject for some time to the kings of Egypt; but under the Romans, it was confined to Cœlesyria proper with the district east of Anti-Libanus, about Damascus, and a portion of Palestine east of Jordan.