page_title: Coele-Syria
section_title: Coele-Syria Proper
hierarchical_section_title: Coele-Syria / Nomenclatures of Syria / Coele-Syria Proper
caption_attribution_description: English: Heliopolis noted in Coele Syria map with yellow background, from Asia citerior. Auctore Henrico Kiepert Berolinensi. Geographische Verlagshandlung Dietrich Reimer (Ernst Vohsen) Berlin, Wilhemlstr. 29. (1903). Heliopolis was assumed to be the city of Triparadeisus, where the Partition of Triparadisus was agreed by Alexander the Great's Diadochoi.Ελληνικά: Η Ηλιόπολις σημειωμένη στο χάρτη της Κοίλης Συρίας του Heinrich Kiepert (1903). Η Ηλιόπολις θεωρείται ότι ήταν η πόλη Τριπαράδεισος στην οποία είχε γίνει η ομώνυμη, δεύτερη Συμφωνία των Διαδόχων του Αλεξάνδρου για τον διαμοιρασμό των Σατραπειών.
context_page_description: Coele-Syria alternatively Coelo-Syria or Coelosyria, was a region of Syria in classical antiquity. It probably derived from the Aramaic word for all of the region of Syria, but it was most often applied to the Beqaa Valley between the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon mountain ranges. The area is now part of the modern-day Syria and Lebanon.
context_section_description: Authors of the Roman period differ on the limits of Coele-Syria, some extending and others contracting them. The Geography of Strabo notes that Coele Syria Propria (Proper) is defined by the Libanus and Anti-libanus mountain ranges, running parallel to each other. In the wars between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ, the name Cœle (or Hollow Syria) was applied to the whole of the southern portion of Syria, but under the Romans, it was confined to "Cœlesyria Proper" and variously included the district east of Anti-Libanus, about Damascus, and a portion of Palestine east of the Jordan river (possibly of: Trans-Jordan, Perea, or the Decapolis).
  Circa 36 CE Philo of Alexandria in his written work, On the Life of Moses ; 
  When then [Moses] he received the supreme authority, with the good will of all his subjects, God himself being the regulator and approver of all his actions, he conducted his people as a colony into Phoenicia, and into the hollow Syria (Coele-syria), and Palestine, which was at that time called the land of the Canaanites, the borders of which country were three days' journey distant from Egypt.
  Circa 43 CE Pomponius Mela in his written work, Description of the World ; 
  Syria holds a broad expanse of the littoral, as well as lands that extend rather broadly into the interior, and it is designated by different names in different places. For example, it is called Coele, Mesopotamia, Judaea, Commagene, and Sophene. It is Palestine at the point where Syria abuts the Arabs, then Phoenicia, and then—where it reaches Cilicia—Antiochia. [...] In Palestine, however, is Gaza, a mighty and well fortified city.
  The name Syria comes from the ancient Greek regional name for the Levantine colonies and colonial territories which they had established and which were "formerly comprehended as part of Assyria" (see Name of Syria). Syria had an uncertain border to the northeast that Pliny the Elder describes as including from west to east; Commagene, Sophene, and Adiabene. In Pliny's time, Syria was administratively divided into a number of provinces with various degrees of autonomy under the Roman Empire, such as the Ityraei or Ituraei, who were a people of Coelo-Syria famous for shooting with a bow, [The wood of the trees called] "yews are bent into Ituraean bows".
  Circa 70 CE Pliny the Elder in his written work, Natural History ; 
  Next to these countries on the coast is Syria, once the greatest of lands. It had a multitude of divisions with different names, the part adjacent to Arabia was previously known as Palestine (who's northernmost city was Caesarea, Plin. NH 5.69: "Caesarea ..finis Palastine") or Judaea or Cœle.
  Circa 100 CE Josephus in his written work, Antiquities of the Jews, notes that in 46 BCE Herod the Great was appointed as the "stratēgos" of Coele Syria, by the governor of Syria, Sextus Julius Caesar. And he also writes ; 
  Antiochus made a friendship and league with Ptolemy, and gave him his daughter Cleopatra in marriage, and yielded up to him Cœle-Syria and Samaria and Judæa and Phœnicia by way of dowry.
  Circa 125 CE The Roman emperor Hadrian promotes the city of Damascus to "Metropolis of Coele-Syria".
  Circa 150 CE Appian in his written work, Roman History ; 
  Intending to write the history of the Romans, I have deemed it necessary to begin with the boundaries of the nations under their sway.... Here turning our course and passing round, we take in Palestine-Syria, and beyond it a part of Arabia. The Phoenicians hold the country next to Palestine on the sea, and beyond the Phoenician territory are Coele-Syria, and the parts stretching from the sea as far inland as the river Euphrates, namely Palmyra and the sandy country round about, extending even to the Euphrates itself.
  The Decapolis was so called from its ten cities enumerated by Pliny. What Pliny calls Decapolis, Ptolomy makes his Cœle-Syria; and the Cœle-Syria of Pliny, is that part of Syria about Aleppo.
  Towns in Coelesyria given by Ptolemy c. 150 CE that are distinct from Pliny's Decapolis
  Heliopolis
  Abila which is called Lysinia (Abila Lysanios)
  Saana
caption: Coele Syria. Heliopolis
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