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122 PICTURESQUE PALESTINE.
which appeared to her to be the cleanest and neatest in the place. Her confidence in then
hospitality of the peopl iully justified. The women of the house received me with pleasant
words of welcome, and led me to an inner room, the divan of which had been recently renovated,
and there I gladly rested until horses wore procured for us and we were enabled to proceed on
our journey to I laila.
Dor, Tfy a royal Canaanitish city (and probably the most southernly settlement of the
Phoenicians in Palestine), was "with her towns" allotted to tk the children of Manasseh," but
the)' could not expel the original inhabitants, i4 the Canaanites would dwell in the land"
(Joshua xvii. 12). However, in the time of Solomon, "the region of Dor" was compelled to
furnish provisions for the Kin- and for his household during one month in every year, under
the superintendence of Ben-Abinadab, who married the Princess Taphath, a daughter of
Solomon, and who was one of the King's twelve purveyors (1 Kings iv. 11). This was a V(
large tribute, and to provide it the region of Dor must have been rich in Hocks and herds, ami
. highly cultivated, for" Solomon's provision for one day was thirty measures of fine flour, and
thr< measures of meal, ten tat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred
sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallow A^aa\ and fatted fowl" (1 Kings iv. 22, 2;).
the hillside just opposite to Tanturah, beyond the "Vale of Dor," there is a spring called
Ain (ihu/al (the bountain of the (iaxelle), which indicates that these graceful animals were
numerous there formerly. A specimen of the- fallow deer has been recently found on Mount
Carmel When these hills were well wooded it was probably not very difficult for the people
of Dor to contribute a good supply of game to King Solomon's table. Dor was evidently a
strong and important city in the time of the Seleucidae, It is related in 1 Maccah that
Diodotus, surnamed Tryphon (the murderer of Jonathan Maccabaeus and of Antiochus VI.,
and the usurper of the throne of Syria), il being pursued by King Antiochus Y 1 I. (surnamed
Sidetes), tied to Dora, Ampat which lieth by the seaside, for he saw that trouble came upon him
all at once and that his forces had forsaken him."
" Then camped Antiochus against Dora, having with him an hundred and twenty thousand
men of war and eight thousand horsemen. And when he had compassed the city round about,
and joined ships close to the town on the seaside, he vexed the city by land and by sea ....
vaulting it constantly." Thus the city was almost destroyed about the year 139 b.c
Tryphon tied by ship to ( h'thosias," north of Tripoli (see page 9), and he soon afterwards
either committed suicide or was killed by King Antiochus, who "pursued him."
Josephus relates in his "Antiquities o( the Jews," book xiv., ch. 5, that when Gabinius
Aulus "came from Koine to Syria as commander of the Roman forces,*' he caused Dor and
man) other cities.M which had been demolished " and had " been desolate for a long time to be
rebuilt, bj . 6 |.
There are many autonomous coins of Dora in existence, but they are chiefly undated.
The imperial coinage of Dora ranges from Caligula, a.d. 39, to Heliogabalus, a.d. 222. Inc
commonest type \ are a female figure or bust veiled, with a turreted crown ; and a head 01 Jupitei |
