Listed 2 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "CAESAREA PHILIPPI Ancient city SYRIA" .
CAESAREA PHILIPPI (Ancient city) SYRIA
Caesarea Philippi, a town on the northern confines of Palestine,
in the district of Trachonitis, at the foot of Mount Paneus, and near the springs
of the Jordan. It was also called Leshem, Laish, Dan, and Paneas. The name Paneas
is supposed to have been given it by the Phoenicians. The appellation of Dan was
given to it by the tribe of that name, because the portion assigued to them was
"too little for them," and they therefore "went up to fight against
Leshem, and took it," calling it "Dan, after the name of Dan, their
father". Eusebius and Jerome distinguish Dan from Paneas as if they were
different places, though near each other; but most writers consider them as one
place, and even Jerome himself, on Ezek. xlviii., says that Dan or Leshem was
afterwards called Paneas. Philip, the tetrarch, rebuilt it, or at least embellished
and enlarged it, and named it Caesarea, in honour of the emperor Tiberius; and
afterwards Agrippa, in compliment to Nero, called it Neronias.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
City on the NW slope of Mt. Hermon on one of the tributaries of the
Jordan. Its great god was Pan, who was identified with Zeus and associated with
the Nymphs. The city was refounded under the name Caesarea by Philip the Tetrarch,
son of King Herod the Great, in 2-1 B.C., and renamed Neronias under Agrippa II.
The site has not been excavated. Remains of ramparts with towers were
visible some time ago, as well as numbers of column shafts scattered in the orchards
or incorporated in the mediaeval fortifications, and Doric frieze fragments reused
in the parapet of the bridge on the Nahr es-Saari.
The Sanctuary of Pan and the Nymphs was a grotto from which the river
emerged under an arched opening; it was set among plane trees and poplars. Niches
with shells, framed by fluted pilasters to form little chapels, were carved in
the rock face. Dedicatory inscriptions in Greek indicate that two of the niches
held statues of Hermes and the nymph Echo. Two columns in front of the grotto
may have supported a canopy. Gratings or openwork metal gates protected these
rustic sanctuaries, which date from the Roman period.
J. P. Rey-Coquais, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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