BASHAN

country frequently cited in the Old Testament and later important in the Roman Empire; it is located in what is now Syria. Bashan was the northernmost of the three ancient divisions of eastern Palestine, and in the Old Testament it was proverbial for its rich pastures and thick forests. In New Testament times, Bashan numbered as one of the great granaries of the Roman Empire. Ashtaroth, Edrei, Golan, and Salchah were important Old Testament towns of Bashan. Bozrah (Roman Bostra) was an important Nabataean and Roman city. The Israelites defeated Og, king of Bashan, at his frontier city Edrei (Numbers 21:33 ff.) and assigned his land to half the tribe of Manasseh. From 84 to 81 BC Bashan was ruled by Alexander Jannaeus of Judaea, but the land to the east belonged to the Nabataeans. The Romans drove the Nabataeans southward (64 BC), and Bozrah and Salchah became the northernmost Nabataean towns. The Roman emperor Augustus made Herod the Great ruler of Bashan. In AD 106 Trajan brought the whole Nabataean kingdom under the empire in creating the province of Arabia with Bostra (Bozrah) as its capital. Bostra eventually became the ecclesiastical capital of the Hauran and a trading centre second only to Damascus. By AD 635 Damascus had fallen to the Muslims, and thereafter Bashan's prosperity declined.