John Lightfoot · 136 of 172

Chapters 6-10 · 6. The length of the land, out of Antoninus.

Thus the Itinerary of Antoninus:--

We have elsewhere measured out this space by the cords of Pliny and Strabo, less than this number by thirteen miles: where if some mistake hath crept into the computation, let Gulielmus Tyrius bear the blame, who stretched the bounds of Phoenicia four or five miles only from Tyre southward.

But what shall we say of another Itinerary? Which whether it be Antoninus' I dare not define; where it is thus,

exceeding the former computation nine-and-twenty miles. There is somewhat there also, which how to reconcile with Josephus, it is not easy to shew: for it is said,

Where from Aelia or Jerusalem to Ascalon run out only 44 miles; whereas Josephus saith of Ascalon, that it was "distant from Jerusalem 520 furlongs," or 65 miles. This breach is a little filled up by this; that New Ascalon was nearer to Jerusalem than the old by sixteen miles, as Benjamin relates.

Whether Betaron were the same with Betar, where that horrible slaughter was under Ben Cozba, we will not dispute here: there is no doubt to be made but Liamnia is illy writ for Jamnia. And now let us follow Antoninus to Pelusium:--

Which how they agree with Pliny, who numbers only sixty-five miles from Pelusium to the ending of Arabia, viz. to the Sirbon, on which Rhinocolura borders, I shall not take upon me to say. This I have said elsewhere, that it is a wonder that some maps should place the Sirbon between Cassius and Pelusium, when the contrary manifestly appears both here and in Pliny and Strabo. Perhaps they took the error from Ptolemy, or at least from his interpreter, in whom Cassius is in latitude, degree 31.15: but the breaking to of the Sirbon in 31.10.