Geography

​For this is natural and is common to both the Greeks and the barbarians. For being political beings, they live by a common decree; for otherwise it is impossible for the multitude to do one and the same thing in harmony with one another, which is what constituting a state means, and otherwise to share a common life. And the decree is twofold, for it is either from gods or from men; and the ancients, at least, respected and revered more that which came from the gods, and for this reason those who consulted oracles were numerous at that time, running on the one hand to Dodona, so that “from the high-foliaged oak he might hear the will of Zeus,” employing Zeus as an adviser, and on the other hand to Delphi, “seeking to learn of the exposed child, whether he was no more,” while the child himself “journeyed to the house of Phoebus, wishing to find out his parents.” And Minos among the Cretans “ruled for nine years, a companion of great Zeus,” ascending every nine years, as Plato says, to the cave of Zeus, receiving decrees from him, and bringing them to the people. And Lycurgus, his imitator, did similar things; for, as it seems, by frequently traveling abroad, he inquired of the Pythia what he ought to command the Lacedaemonians.

​For however these things may stand in respect of truth, they were at least believed and established among men; and for this reason even prophets were so honored as to be deemed worthy of kingship, as bringing out to us commands and corrections from the gods, both while living and after they died. Such was Amphiaraus, and Trophonius, and Orpheus, and Musaeus, and the god among the Getae, in ancient times Zalmoxis, a certain Pythagorean, and in our time Decaeneus, who gave oracles to Burebista; and among the Bosporani, Achaicarus; and among the Indians, the Gymnosophists; and among the Persians, the Magi and necromancers, and also those called lecanomancers and hydromancers; and among the Assyrians, the Chaldaeans; and among the Romans, the Tyrrhenian augurs. Such a person also was Moses and his successors, who, though they took beginnings that were not bad, turned aside to the worse.

​At any rate, when Judaea was now openly ruled by tyrants, Alexander was the first to declare himself king instead of priest; and his sons were Hyrcanus and Aristobulus; but as they were at variance about the sovereignty, Pompey came upon them, deposed them, and tore down their strongholds, having taken Jerusalem itself first by force; for it was a rocky and well-fortified stronghold, well-watered within but utterly dry outside, having a quarried trench sixty feet deep and two hundred and fifty feet wide; and from the stone which had been quarried, the wall of the temple was built up with towers. And he captured it, as they say, by watching for the day of fasting, when the Jews abstained from all work, having filled up the trench and thrown up the scaling-ladders; at all events, he ordered all the walls to be torn down, and destroyed as far as possible the robber-bands and the treasuries of the tyrants. Now there were two which commanded the passes of Jericho, Threx and Taurus, and others were Alexandrium, Hyrcanium, Machaerus, Lysias, and those around Philadelphia, and Scythopolis near Galilee.

​Jericho is a plain surrounded by a mountainous country which, in a way, slopes down towards it like a theater; here is the palm grove, which contains also other cultivated and fruitful trees mixed with it, but abounds in the palm tree, extending for a length of one hundred stadia, all well-watered and full of dwellings; and in it is both a royal palace and the balsam garden; and the plant is a shrub, resembling cytisus and terebinth, and is aromatic; they make incisions in its bark and catch in vessels the juice, which is very like sticky milk; and when it is gathered into small shells, it solidifies; and it cures headaches wonderfully, and incipient cataracts, and dimness of sight; it is therefore highly valued, both because of this and because it is produced here alone; and the palm grove also is of this kind, having the caryotic palm tree here alone, except for the Babylonian one and that beyond towards the east; great, therefore, is the revenue from them. And they use also the wood of the balsam tree as an aromatic.