or ally, no longer received his salaria, he departed in exteriorem limitem and made incursions against the Romans, as if they were his enemies. There is abundant evidence to support this in the classical and Syrian records.
When the Romans or Byzantines succeeded in winning over an important chief, the external limes was shifted to the border of his political influence. At the time of the chief and phylarch Amorkesos the external limes extended to the south certainly as far as the environs of al-Medîna; and the same holds good also for the time of the powerful kings of the Ghassanian tribe, who made punitive raids as far south as the oases of al-ʻEla’, Ḫajbar, and Ḥâjel. The traces of such temporary influence extending as far as the Holy Cities were preserved even in Moslem traditions. Zubejr ibn Bakkâr relates that ʻOṯmân Ḥuwêreṯ was appointed king of Mecca by the Byzantine emperor (Zobayr ibn Bakkar Sohayly, Manuscript of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, p. 161; A. Sprenger Das Leben und die Lehre des Muḥammad, Vol. 1, Berlin, 1869, p. 89). The actual permanent Byzantine influence did not extend beyond the fortified internal limes, which passed along the southern foot of aš-Šera’. This was also known to the more important Arabic authors and explains why they place the northern frontier of the Ḥeǧâz where it is indicated by the classical writers and distinguish between the physiographical and the political or administrative frontiers. We can thus easily explain why some of them refer to the Syrian Ḥeǧâz, that is the Ḥeǧâz politically dependent upon Syria, and why there is variance in their statements about the frontier. A strong ruler of Syria has often exerted and will exert influence as far as the Holy Cities of the Ḥeǧâz; but he may not shift the geographical frontiers by one inch.
APPENDIX IV
THE AMALEKITES
The Amalekites dwelt to the south of Palestine. They are mentioned as living there in Genesis, 14: 7. In this connection we are told that the Babylonian kings marched along the transport route east of the Dead Sea and through Mount Seʻîr, inhabited by the Horites, as far as Êl Pârân situated by the desert, where they turned back (Gen., 14: 7—8) and, arriving at ʻÊn Mišpaṭ, which is Ḳadeš, smote the whole of the land of the Amalekites, including also the Amorites dwelling in Ḥaṣaṣôn Tamar, and attacked the allied kings in the lowland of Siddîm.
We identify Êl Pârân with the harbor of Elath, or the modern al-ʻAḳaba, and we locate ʻÊn Mišpaṭ, or Ḳadeš, north of it in the environs of the ancient city of Petra. As the reference to the destruction of the Amalekites occurs after that to ʻÊn Mišpaṭ, it is clear from our report that the Amalekites dwelt to the west or northwest of Petra and