climate. All the plants and trees mentioned grow and are cultivated still, and it is only the area of cultivation, and in some parts of woods and forests, that has diminished. Yet Palestine, which was fully cultivated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries A.D., is regarded by many as a stony desert without crops, trees, or flowers.
XV.—Geography.
The Talmudic Geography has been studied so fully by Dr. Neubauer that little remains to be said on the subject; but the greater number of places mentioned by him are noticed in Jewish writings of the fourth and later centuries A.D. There is not much of geographical interest in the Mishnah, but a few words may be devoted to its foreign and its home geography.
Among the foreign countries that we find noticed are Egypt, especially Alexandria,[1] whence ships came to Palestine (Oheloth, viii, 3), Greece (Gittin, viii), and Italy (Sanhedrin, viii, 1), whence wine was brought, with Rome as visited by the Jews (Aboda Zara, iv, 7). Further East there are frequent references to Babylonia, and to Media, with the Chaldean cities of Nehardea, Tel Arza, and Beth Dely (Yebamoth, xvi, 7). The most westerly country is Spain (Baba Bathra, iii, 2), whence the small fish in bottles were brought. These names bear witness to a trade which extended throughout the Mediterranean, and eastwards to the Tigris and the Caspian, while communication with India was also established (Yoma, iii, 7), as it is well known to have been, through the accounts of Greek and Eonian writers.
The divisions of the native land of the Jews included—(1) Judea, of which the southern border was near Rekem or Petra and Elath, and the northern (Menakhoth, viii, 6) near Beth Eima, Beth Laban, and Antipatris, which were on the Samaritan border; (2) Samaria, which included Caphar Outheni (Kefr Adhan), south of Carmel, with Cæsarea and Bethshean; (3) Perea or Gilead; (4) Galilee; (5) Syria, including Phoenicia. Special information as to the districts into which Judea and Galilee were divided is given in two passages which require notice. In the first we read that the Land of Israel extended to Chezib (Ez Zib), north of Accho (Shebiith, vi, 1); and the region beyond, to Amanus and the Euphrates, was not cultivated by Jews during the seventh year, though the fruits cultivated there by others might be eaten—a law which existed already in the time of Herod the Great (15 Ant., ix, 2).[2] This region is called Syria (Shebiith, vi, 2-6).
- ↑ Pelusiac robes of Egyptian linen are noticed (Yoma, iii, 7). The temple of Onias, in Egypt, is also noticed (Menakhoth, xiii, 11). Caphutkia (Kethubim, xiii, 11) is said by Neubauer to be Cappadocia. The early commentators make it Caphtor in Egypt.
- ↑ The year of the famine, 23 b.c., was a Sabbatic year, when Palestine itself
