Argob

A district mentioned in Dt 3*- '^- ", 1 K 4", and de- scribed as situated on the E. of Jordan, in Bashan, in the kingdom of 'Og, and as containing three- score cities, all strongly fortified, ' with high walls, gates, and bars, besides very many cities of the country folk ' (i.e. unwalled cities : see Kzk 3S"). The particular district intended is uncertain. The Targuras of Onk. and Jon. represent Argob by njidid (Pseud. -Jon. njuib), i.e.

the Trachonitis, oroTpaxui", of Greek writers (see Schiirer, HJP I. ii. lOif.j G. A. Smith, Geogr. 543), some 25 miles S. of Damascus, a remarkable volcanic formation, in shape resembling roughly a pear, about 25 miles from N. to S., and 19 miles from E. to W., the rur;ged surface of which consists of innumer- able rocks or boulders of black basalt, inter- sected by fissures and crevices in every direction (see Trachonitis).

This formation, which owes its origin to the streams of lava emitted from the Jebel Hauran, on the S.E., rises some 20-30 ft. above the surroimding plain ; and ' its border is as clearly defined as a rocky coast, which it very much resembles.' It forms a natural fortress, which a small body of defenders could hold even against a determined invader ; and hence its modern name the Leja (i.e. laja'ah, refuge, retreat). Some modern writers have accepted the identifica- tion thus suggested by Onk.

and Jon., supporting it further, partly by the fact that the Leja contains the remains of several ancient cities, partly by the philological arguments that Argob signifies • stony,' and that the term Van (AV ' region '), used regularly in connexion with it in the OT, is in- tended as a designation of its rocky boundary spoken of above. The identification is, however, extremely doubtful, and has been abandoned by the best recent authorities.

To take the latter point first, the philological arguments appealed to are exceedingly precarious. Argob can be inter- preted stony only upon the questionable assump- tion that the root 3:i is cognate with c:-; : to judge, however, from ap, clods of earth (Job 21'' SS'*), it would denote naturally a rich and earthy soil rather than a stony one, and so (Smith, Gengr. 551) is 'probably equivalent to our word "glebe."' And San is a cord (Jos 2"), or men.turing-line (Mic 2'), fig.

a measured portion or allotment (Jos l"* 19'), applied to a particular district or ' region ' (RVm), Zeph 2'- '• ' : there is consequently no ground for supposing it to have been used sjieci- ally on account of the rocky border of the Leja. Secondly, the remains of ancient cities in (or about) what must have been the biblical Bashan are by no means confined to the Leja ; on the con- trary, they are much more numerous on the sloping siUesof the Jebel Hauran (S.E.

of the Leja), which, covered by a rich and loamy soil, sinks down gradu- ally, especially on the S. and W., to tlie level of the surrounding plain. The whole of this region is studded with deserted towns and villages — accord- ing to Wetzstein, who has described it most fully (Beiiebericht iiber Haurnn u. die Trachonen , 180(5, p. 42), the E. and S. slopes of the Jebel Hauran alone contain the remains of some 300 such ancient sites ; they are also numerous on the W. and S.W. slopes (cf.

Porter, Five Years in Danuisctcs', pp. 229, 239, 251, 253). The dwellings in these deserted localities are of a remarkable character. Wetzslein distinguishes four kinds — (1) some are the habitations of Troglodytes, being caverns hollowed out in the side of a hill, or of a Wady, in the soft volcanic rock, and so arranged as to form separate chambers : these are chiefly on the E. 01 Jebel Hauran (Wetzstein, pp. 22, 44 f., who names three, viz. Umm DubSb, Aj6la, and Shibikke).

* (2) Others are on a larger scale, bein^ subterranean chambers entered oy shafts invisible from above, and capable of forming a secure retreat from an invader ; these are frequent on the W. of the Zumleh range (ib. p. 46 f. ; cf. Oliphant, Land of Gilead, pp. 103, 108 f. [about Irbid]) ; an extensive underground city of this kind at Edre'i (at the N.E. foot of the same range) was explored by Wetzstein (p. 47 f.) and Schu- macher (p. 121 itf.)

(3) A third kind, of which Wetzstein saw but one example, at Hibikke, on the E. of J. Hauran, about 8 miles N.lE. of Salchad, consists of chambers cut out in an elevated plateau of rock, and covered with a solid stone vault, producing outside the appearance of a cellar or tunnel. Hibikke was originally surrounded with a wall, in the manner of a fortress (p. 48 f.)

(4) The fourth and commonest kind consists of dwelling-houses built in the ordinary manner above ground, but constructed of massive well-hewn blocks of black basalt, — the regular and indeed the only building material used in the locality, — \vith heavy doors moving on pivots, outside staircases, galleries, and roofs, all of the same material : or this kind are the remains described by Porter (I.e. chs. x.-xiii.) at Burak, on the N.

edge of the Leja, Sauwarah, Hit, Heyat, Bathani- yeh, Shuka, Shuhba, east of it, Kanawat and Suweideh on the W. slopes of J. Hauran, Bosra, Salchad, and ^Cureiyeh, on its S. slope (cf. Heber- Percy, A Visit to Baslutn and Argob, 1895, pp. 40, 47, 60, 71, etc., with photographs).

Many ol these cities are in such a good state of preserva- tion, that, as Wetzstein observes, it is difficult for the traveller not to believe that they are inhabited, and to expect, as he walks along their streets, to see persons moving about the houses. The archi- tecture of these remains (which include temples, theatres, aqueducts, churches, etc.) is of the GriEco-Roman period, and is such as to show that between the first and the seventh centuries A.D.

the cities in question were the home of a thriving and wealthy population. Can, now, any of these deserted localities be identified with the ' three- score cities, with high walls, gates, and bars,' of the ancient kingdom of 'Og ?

The spectacle pre- sented by many of them is so singular and impres- sive that amongst those who visited and almost re-discovered them, in the present century, there were some who assigned them confidently to a remote antiquity, and who boasted that they had themselves traversed the cities ' built and occupied some forty centuries ago ' by the giant race of the Rephaini : so, in particular, J. L. Porter, who visited the district in 1853 (Fix'C Years in Damas- cus, 1855, ii. 206 f., ed. 2, pp.

257 f., 263 f. ; Giant Cities of Bashan, 1882, pp. 12, 13, 30, 84, etc.), and Cyril C. Graham, who visited it in 1857 (Journal of the Royal Geogr. Soc. 1868, p. 256 f., Cambridge Essays for 1858, p. 160 f.) The emphatic contra- diction which Porter's theory received from Pouglas Freshfield in The Central Caucasus and Bnshan, 1869, ch. ii., led to a somewhat heated correspondence in the Athcnrrum for 1870 (June, pp. 774, 837; July, pp. 18, 117, 148; cf.

also • The habit of dwellinjr in caves in these partfi ia illustrated by an iiiterestin^r but unfortunately nuitilated inscription (Le lias ami Waddin^^lon, Inscriptiong Grecqueg et Latintt rfruriUi).'ii rn Gri'cf et en A»ie Mineurf, iii. 1, No. 2;i29) from Kaiiatlia (Kanawat), on the W. slope of J. yauran, which seems to speak of an attempt made by kin^ Agrippa (prob. Airrippa I.) to civilize rajt (vfapAiii<r(«*Tafi. and reclaim them ft Dm theil Hv.fiiMlv.; xetrurrtLrtt (cf. Jos. Ant. XIV. XV.

6; also, of the Leja, X. 1 ; XVI. ix. 1). aKGOB ARIMATH.^A ur Porter, Damascus', Preface). There can, how- ever, be little doubt that Porter and Graham much exaggerated the antiquity of these remains.

As has ueen stated, the prevalent style of architecture is Grivco-Koman ; in many of the cities Greek in- scriiitions, dating from the time of Herod onwards, have l>een found, and, in the opinion of the best and most independent judges, the extant remains, at least in the great majority of cases, are not of a more ancient date than llie 1st cent. A.D. De Vogue, the principal authority on the architecture of tlie Hauran, in the preface (p.

4) * to his collec- tion of 150 plates, called Syrie Centrale, Architec- ture Civile et lietigieujse du i" au ni' sit'c/e (18G7), expressly states that he had found no structures of an earlier date : Burton and Drake ( Unexplored Syria, 1872, i. 191-196) declare that even a careful examination of foundations disclosed to them no specimen of ' hoar antiquity.' Wetzstein and Waddington express a similar judgment, though not quite in tlie same umiualilicd terms: the former (pp. 103 f.

, 49) agrees tbat in the main there are no edifices earlier in date than the Christian era, but allows that the Troglodj'te dwellings, and those found at Ilibikke (see above), may be of very great antiquity, and also that very ancient building materials may be ]ircserved in such places as Kosra and .SaUhat ; the latter writes {op. cit. p. 534) : ' Malgre les recherches prolongccs et minutieu.

ses 3ue j'ai faites pendant un scjour de cinq mois ans le pays, je n'ai pu dccouvrir aucun monu- ment ant^rieur au rfegne d'Hdrode. II y a sans doute des habitations grossiferement construites en pierres brutes, des cavemes ferrates par une aevantnre en pierres sfeches, qui peuvent 6tre de toutea les ipoques, et dont <juelques-unes sont peut-6tre fort anciennes, mais, je le r^pfete, il n'v a Sas trace de civilisation rdgulifcre, de temples, 'Edifices publics, avant le ri-gne d'Hiirode.'

And the majority even of such buildings, he adds, are later than this, and belong to the period be- tween Trajan and Justinian. The caves and tunnel-like dwellings, described by Wetzstein, however, can hardly be the strongly fortilied cities mentioned in Dt. Whether the low privnte dwellings, built with ' ponderous blocks of roughly hewn stone,' on the antiquity of which Porter iDamasni.f", pp.

v, 257) insists, are identical with the ' haV)itations grossifcrement construites en pierres brutes,' which Waddington allows may be ancient, can hardly be determined by one who has not visited the country. t On the whole, it mav be safely conclu<lcd that the existinij deserted cities are not those of the ancient Argob; J though it does not seem imjirobable that some of the cities built in the Gr.

Tco-Roman period may have stood upon the sites of cities belonging to a far earlier age, and that in their construction the dwellings of the ancient cities of 'Og may have been, in some cases, utilised and preserved. Perhaps future explora- tion may prove the substructures to be of earlier date than has been hitherto suspected. § The site of Argob cannot be determined with certainty. Guthe {ZDPV, 1890, p. 237 f.), in- ferring from l»t 3'* that Argob extended to the W.

as far as Geshur and Ma'acah. places it, though not without hesitation, in the country aViout Der lit (Erfre'i), and nortliwards as far as Nuwil, in which he says that there are sullicient ruing of • Cit?d at length in .Merrill, Eiut of Jordan, p. 63. t Heber-Pcn-y. pp, fi*.J, 05, Btalfft that ftl Itoiim(E.

of ^anaw&t) he found niinii fiilTurent from anv whirh he Im'i hitherto ni-en, vit a villai;e conBinting of one-8torie<i houwH, built almost entirely of rouifh unhewn etonee ; he thought that thia had been a village of pea.'uinta. t 80 also fl. A. Smith, Gtcjr. p. 024 f. I W. Wright {Palmyra and Ztnntiia, p. 2.11) mentions that he descended some ltt-18 ft. in Hunik. anil found tlie w*11h there to consist of enormous uodressed stones, unUke lliose on the turf ace.

ancient sites to justify the biblical description. The inference based on Dt 3'* is perhaps doubtful : the verse seems to be written with a harmonistic motive (see Comin., and Jair), and hardly says distinctly that Argob reached to Geshur and Ma'acah. Dillm. suggested a site more towards the E., between Edie'i and 'Ashtaroth, and J. Hauran.

If there is rea-son in the supposition that the deserted cities referred to above stand upon the site of the ancient cities of 'Og, the part of Bashan in which they are most numerous would seem to be the W. declivities of J. Hauran, N. of Salchah (the S.E. limit of Bashan), the soil of which — a disintegrated lava — is rich and fertile (Wetzst. p. 40 f.), such as might be described by a deriva- tive of 3J^. * LrrBRATTRB.

— On the cities of Hauran, Bee further (besides the works already quot^Hj), Merrill, Eaelof Jordan, l&iil, chs. ii.-v.; and for inscriptions, Wetz-stein, AwtyewiUiUe irnt:ch. und Lat. IiigchriJUn getainmelt av/ Reigen in den Trachonen und uin da» Haurdngebirge, in the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy, 1863, pp. 255-388; Waddington, op. cU. Nos. 2071- 2o48 ; Clemionl-Ganneau, liecueU d'A rchiol. Orient, i. (1866) pp. 1-23 ; O. A. Smith, Critical Remew, 1892, p. 65 tf. ; \V.

EwinK in the PEFSt, 1895, p. 41 ff., 131 ff., 2(i5ff., 340 9. ; de Vogue, Syrie Centrale, Inscriptvmt Simitiquei, 1868, chs. ii.-iii. p. 89 ff.; the CIS II. i. fasc. 2, Nos. 162-193 (chielly repeated from de Vogue). The best map of the district is that of Fischer (ciistructed chiefly oq the basis of Stul)cr3 Sur^-ey) in the ZDPV, 1890, Heft 4. S. R. DkIVEK. ARIDAI (•i-'K Est 9»), the ninth of Haman's sons, put to dealu by the Jews. The name is prob.

Persian, perhaps hariJayas, 'delight of Hari' (Ges. Tlies. add.) ; but LXX has a diilerent text. H. A. White. ARIDATHA (koiik Est 9»), the sixth son of Hainan, put to death by the Jews. The name is perhaps from the Persian Hariil/ita, ' given by Hari ' ; but the LXX has 4>apa5d(?a, this name coming fourth. H. A. WHITE.