Syria

The Semitic or Aramaic population overspreading Syria - which name is generally applied to the country lying between the Euphrates and Arabian desert on the east, and the Mediterranean on the west had early divided itself into various independent states or kingdoms, which ultimately resolved themselves, it would appear, into three. These were Phoenicia, a narrow strip of coast-land, extending from Mount Carmel to the river Eleutheros; Palestine, or the Holy Land, including the country south of Phoenicia, between the Arabian desert and the Mediterranean, as well as the inland district lying between Mount Carmel and Mount Herman; and Syria Proper, whose capital was Damascus, and which, when the power of the Damascan kings was at its highest, included all the country except Palestine and Phoenicia. Syrian history possesses no independent importance; we pass, therefore, to the history of the Phoenician and Jewish nations.