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See also: river of See also: Palestine and one of the most remark-able in the See also: world
.
It flows from See also: north to See also: south in a deep trough-like valley, the Aulon of the Greeks and See also: Ghor of the See also: Arabs, which is usually believed to follow the See also: line of a fault or fracture of the See also: earth's crust
.
Most geologists hold that the valley is See also: part of an old See also: sea-See also: bed, traces of which remain in numerous See also: shingle-See also: banks and See also: beach-levels
.
This, they say, once extended to the Red Sea and even over N.E
.
See also: Africa
.
Shrinkage caused the pelagic See also: limestone bottom to be upheaved in two ridges, between which occurred a long fracture, which can now be traced from Coelesyria down the See also: Wadi Araba to the Gulf of See also: Akaba
.
The See also: Jordan valley in its See also: lower part keeps about the old level of the sea-bottom and is therefore a remnant of the See also: Miocene world
.
This theory, however, is not universally accepted, some authorities preferring to assume a succession of more strictly See also: local elevations and depressions, connected with the See also: recent volcanic activity of the Jaulan and Lija districts on the See also: east See also: bank; which brought the contours finally to their actual See also: form
.
In any See also: case the number of distinct sea-beaches seems to imply a succession of convulsive changes, more recent than the See also: great Miocene upheaval, which are responsible for the shrinkage of the See also: water into the three isolated pans now found
.
For more than two-thirds of its course the Jordan lies below the level of the sea
.
It has never been navigable, no important See also: town has ever been built on its banks, and it runs into an inland sea which has no See also: port and is destitute of aquatic See also: life
.
Throughout See also: history it has exerted a separatist influence, roughly dividing the settled from the nomadic populations; and the See also: crossing of Jordan, one way or the other, was always an event in the history of Israel
.
In See also: Hebrew times its valley was regarded as a " See also: wilderness " and, except in the See also: Roman era, seems always to have been as sparsely inhabited as now
.
From its See also: sources to the Dead Sea it rushes
down a continuous inclined See also: plane, broken here and there by more than See also: half-way down the lower course
.
On the right the rapids and small falls; between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Jalud descends from 'the plain of Esdraelon to near Beisan, Sea its sinuosity is so great that in a See also: direct distance of 65 m. and the Far'a from near Nablus
.
Various See also: salt springs rise in it traverses at least 200 M
.
The mean fall is about 9 ft. in the the lower valley
.
The rest of the tributaries are wadis, dry mile
.
The Jordan has two great sources, one in Tell el-Kadi except after rains
.
(See also: Dan) whence springs the Nahr Leddan, a stream 12 ft. broad Such human life as may be found in the valley now is mainly at its See also: birth; the other at Banias (anc
.
Paneas, Caesarea-See also: Philippi), migratory
.
The Samaritan villagers use it in winter as pasture-some 4 M
.
N., where the Nahr Banias issues from a cave, about ground, and, with the Circassians and Arabs of the east bank, 30 ft. broad
.
But two longer streams with less water contest cultivate plots here and there
.
They retire on the approach of their claim, the Nahr Barrighit from Coelesyria, which rises summer . Jericho is the only considerableSee also: settlement in the near the springs of the See also: Litany, and the Nahr Hasbany from lower valley, and it lies some distance west of the stream on See also: Hermon
.
The four streams unite below the fortress of Banias, the lower slopes of the Judaean heights
.
which once held the See also: gate of the valley, and flow into a marshy See W
.
F
.
See also: Lynch, Narrative of the U.S
.
Expedition, &c
.
(1849) ; See also: tract now called Huleh (Semechonitis, and perhaps Merom of H
.
B
.
Tristram, See also: Land of Israel (1865) ; J
.
Macgregor, Rob See also: Roy on the See also: Joshua
.
There the Jordan begins to fall below sea-level, rushing Jordan (1870); A
.
Neubauer, Geography ofGeo raphie duSee also: Talmud E1 See also: Hull, the See also: Holy Land (1865) down 68o ft. in 9 m. to a See also: delta, which opens into the Sea of See also: Mount Seir, &c
.
(1885), and Memoir on the Geology of See also: Arabia Petraea, Galilee
.
Thereafter it follows a valley which is usually not above &c
.
(1886) ; G
.
A
.
See also: Smith, Hist
.
Geography of the Holy Land (1894) ;
4 M. broad, but opens out twice into the small plains of Bethshan W
.
Libbey and F
.
E
.
See also: Hoskins, The Jordan Valley, &c
.
(19055)
.
See and Jericho
.
The river actually flows in a depression, the Zor, also PALESTINE . (C . W . W . ; D . G . H.) from a quarter to 2 M. wide, which it has hollowed out for JORDANES,' the historian of theSee also: Gothic nation, flourished itself in the bed of the Ghor
.
During the See also: rainy season (See also: January about the See also: middle of the 6th century
.
All that we certainly know and See also: February), when the Jordan overflows its banks, the Zor about his life is contained in three sentences of his history of the is flooded, but when the water falls it produces See also: rich crops
.
The Goths (cap
.
5o), from which, among other particulars as to the floor of the Ghor falls gently to the Zor, and is intersected by history of his See also: family, we learn that his grandfather Paria was deep channels, which have been cut by the small streams and See also: notary to Candac, the chief of a confederation of Alans and other winter torrents that See also: traverse it on their way to the Jordan
.
As tribes settled during the latter half of the 5th century on the south far south as Kurn Surtabeh most of the valley is fertile, and even of the Danube in the provinces which are now See also: Bulgaria and the between that point and the Dead Sea there are several well- Dobrudscha
.
Jordanes himself was the notary of Candac's watered oases . In summer the heat in the Ghor is intense,See also: nephew, the Gothic chief Gunthigis, until he took the vows of a I Io° F. in the shade, but in winter the temperature falls to' 4o°, See also: monk
.
This, according to the manner of speaking of that
See also: day, and sometimes to 32° at See also: night
.
During the seasons of rain and is the meaning of his words ante conversionem means, though it is melting snow the river is very full, and liable to freshets
.
After quite possible that he may at the same See also: time have renounced twelve See also: hours' rain it has been known to rise from 4 to 5 ft., the Arian creed of his forefathers, which it is clear that he no and to fall as rapidly
.
In 1257 the Jordan was dammed up longer held when he wrote his Gothic history
.
The Getica of for several hours by a landslip, probably due to heavy rain
.
On Jordanes shows Gothic sympathies; but these are probably due leaving the Sea of Galilee the water is quite clear, but it soon to an imitation of the See also: tone of See also: Cassiodorus, from whom he draws assumes a tawny colour from the soft marl which it washes away practically all his material
.
He was not himself a Goth, belong-from its banks and deposits in the Dead Sea
.
On the whole it is See also: ing to a confederation of Germanic tribes, embracing Alans and an unpleasant foul stream See also: running between poisonous banks, Scyrians, which had come under the influence of the See also: Ostrogoths and as such it seems to have been regarded by the Jews and other settled on the lower Danube; and his own sympathies are those Syrians
.
The Hebrew poets did not sing its praises, and others of a member of this confederation
.
He is accordingly friendly to compared it unfavourably with the clear See also: rivers of See also: Damascus. the Goths, even apart from the influence of Cassiodorus; but he is The See also: clay of the valley was used for brickmaking, and See also: Solomon also prepossessed in favour of the eastern emperors in whose terriestablished brassfoundries there
.
From crusading times to this tories this confederation lived and whose subject he himself was. day it has grown See also: sugar-See also: cane
.
In Roman times it had extensive This makes him an impartial authority on the last days of the palm-groves and some small towns (e.g
.
Livias or Julias opposite Ostrogoths
.
At the same time, living in See also: Moesia, he is restricted Jericho) and villages
.
The Jordan is crossed by two See also: stone in his outlook to Danubian affairs
.
He has little to say of the bridges—one north of Lake Huleh, the other between that lake inner history and policy of the
See also: kingdom of See also: Theodoric: his inter-and the Sea of Galilee—and by a wooden See also: bridge on the road ests lie, as See also: Mommsen says, within a triangle of which the three from Jerusalem to Gilead and See also: Moab
.
During the Roman points are Sirmium, Larissa and Constantinople
.
Finally, See also: con-See also: period, and almost to the end of the Arab supremacy, there were netted as he was with the Mans, he shows himself friendly to See also: bridges on all the great lines of communication between eastern them, whenever they enter into his narrative
.
and western Palestine, and ferries at other places
.
The See also: depth of We pass from the extremely shadowy See also: personality of Jordanes
water varies greatly with the season
.
When not in See also: flood the to the more interesting question of his See also: works
.
river is often fordable, and between the Sea of Galilee and the 1
.
The See also: Romana, or, as he himself calls it, De summa temporum Dead Sea there are then more than fifty fords—some of them of vel origine actibusque geniis Romanorum, was composed in 551. historic See also: interest
.
The only difficulty is occasioned by the erratic It was begun before, but published after, the Getica
.
It is a zigzag current
.
The natural products of the Jordan valley sketch. of the history of the world from the creation, based on —a tropical oasis sunk in the temperate zone, and overhung by See also: Jerome, the epitome of Florus, See also: Orosius and the ecclesiastical Alpine Hermon—are unique
.
See also: Papyrus grows in Lake Huleh, history of See also: Socrates
.
There is a curious reference to Iamblichus, and See also: rice and cereals thrive on its shores, whilst below the Sea of apparently the neo-platonist philosopher, whose name Jordanes, Galilee the vegetation is almost tropical
.
The See also: flora and See also: fauna being, as he says himself, agrammatus, inserts by way of a See also: present a large infusion of Ethiopian types; and the See also: fish, with flourish
.
The See also: work is only of any value for the century 450–which the river is abundantly stocked, have a great See also: affinity with 55o, when Jordanes is dealing with recent history
.
It is merely those of the rivers and lakes of east Africa
.
Ere the Jordan a hasty compilation intended to stand See also: side by side with the enters the Dead Sea, its valley has become very barren and for- Getica.2
bidding
.
It reaches the lake at a minus level of 1290 ft., the 2
.
The other work of Jordanes commonly called De See also: rebus
depression continuing downwards to twice that depth in the Geticis or Getica, was styled by himself De origine actibusque
bed of the Dead Sea
.
It receives two affluents, with perennial 2 The evidence ofSee also: MSS. is overwhelming against the form Jor-
See also: waters, on the See also: left, the Yarmuk (Hieromax) which flows in from nandes
.
The MSS. exhibit Jordanis or Jordannls; but these are only Vulgar-Latin spellings of Jordanes. the volcanic Jaulan a little south of the Sea of Galilee, and the 2 The terms of the dedication of this See also: book to a certain See also: Vigilius
Zerka (Jabbok) which comes from the Belka See also: district to a point make it impossible that the See also: pope (538–555) of that name is meant
.
Get arum, and was also written in 551
.
He informs us that while he was engaged upon the Romana a friend named Castalius invited him to compress into one small See also: treatise the twelve books —now lost—of the senator Cassiodorus, on The Origin and Actions of the Goths
.
Jordanes professes to have had the work of Cassiodorus in his hands for but three days, and to reproduce the sense not the words; but his book, See also: short as it is, evidently contains long verbatim extracts from the earlier author, and it may be suspected that the See also: story of the triduana lectio and the See also: apology quamvis verba non recolo, possibly even the friendly invitation of Castalius, are See also: mere blinds to cover his own entire want of originality
.
This suspicion is strengthened by the fact (discovered by von See also: Sybel) that even the very preface to his book is taken almost word for word from See also: Rufinus's See also: translation of See also: Origen's commentary on the See also: epistle to the See also: Romans
.
There is no doubt, even on Jordanes' own statements, that his work is based upon that of Cassiodorus, and that any See also: historical worth which it possesses is due to that fact
.
Cassiodorus was one of the very few men who, Roman by birth and sympathies, could yet appreciate the greatness of the barbarians by whom the See also: empire was overthrown
.
The chief adviser of Theodoric, the East Gothic See also: king in
See also: Italy, he accepted with ardour that monarch's great scheme, if indeed, he did not himself originally suggest it, of welding Roman and Goth together into one harmonious See also: state which should preserve the social refinement and the intellectual culture of the Latin-speaking races without losing the See also: hardy virtues of their Teutonic conquerors
.
To this aim everything in the See also: political life of Cassiodorus was subservient, and this aim he evidently kept before him in his Gothic history
.
But in writing that history Cassiodorus was himself indebted to the work of a certain Ablabius
.
It was Ablabius, apparently, who had first used the Gothic sagas (prisca carmina); it was he who had constructed the See also: stem of the Amals
.
Whether he was a See also: Greek, a Roman or a Goth we do not know; nor can we say when he wrote, though his work may be dated conjecturally in the early part of the reign of Theodoric the Great
.
We can only say that he wrote on the origin and history of the Goths, using both Gothic saga and Greek sources; and that if Jordanes used Cassiodorus, Cassiodorus used, if to a less extent, the work of Ablabius
.
Cassiodorus began his work, at the See also: request of Theodoric, and therefore before 526: it was finished by 533
.
At the See also: root of the work lies a theory, whencesoever derived, which identified the Goths with the Scythians, whose country Darius Hystaspes invaded, and with the See also: Getae of See also: Dacia, whom Trajan conquered
.
This See also: double See also: identification enabled Cassiodorus to bring the favoured See also: race into line with the peoples of classical antiquity, to interweave with their history stories about Hercules and the See also: Amazons, to make them invade See also: Egypt, to claim for them a share in the wisdom of the semi-mythical Scythian philosopher Zamolxis
.
He was thus able with some show of plausibility to represent the Goths as "wiser than all the other barbarians and almost like the Greeks " (Jord., De reb
.
Get., cap. v.), and to send a son of the Gothic king Telephus to fight at the siege of Troy, with the ancestors of the Romans
.
All this we can now perceive to have no relation to history, but at the time it may have made the subjugation of the Roman less bitter to feel that he was not after all bowing down before a race of See also: barbarian up-starts, but that his See also: Amal See also: sovereign was as firmly rooted in classical antiquity as any See also: Julius or See also: Claudius who ever wore the See also: purple
.
In the eighteen years which elapsed between 533 and the composition of the Getica of Jordanes, great events, most disastrous for the Romano-Gothic See also: monarchy of Theodoric, had taken place
.
It was no longer possible to write as if the whole See also: civilization of the Western world would sit down contentedly under the See also: shadow of East Gothic dominion and Amal See also: sovereignty
.
And, moreover, the instincts of Jordanes, as a subject of the Eastern Empire, pre-disposed him to flatter the sacred majesty of Justinian, by whose victorious arms the overthrow of the barbarian kingdom in Italy had been effected
.
Hence we perceive two currents of tendency in the Getica
.
On the one See also: hand, as a transcriber of the See also: philo-Goth Cassiodorus, he magnifies the race of Alaric and
Theodoric, and claims for them their full share, perhaps more than their full share, of See also: glory in the past
.
On the other hand he speaks of the great See also: anti-Teuton emperor Justinian, and of his reversal of the See also: German conquests of the 5th century, in language which would certainly have grated on the ears of See also: Totila and his heroes
.
When See also: Ravenna is taken, and Vitigis carried into captivity, Jordanes almost exults in the fact that " the See also: nobility of the Amals and the illustrious offspring of so many mighty men have surrendered to a yet more illustrious See also: prince and a yet mightier general, whose fame shall not grow dim through all the centuries." (Getica, lx
.
§ 315)
.
This laudation, both of the Goths and of their See also: Byzantine conquerors, may perhaps help us to understand the See also: motive with which the Getica was written
.
In the See also: year 551 Germanus, nephew of Justinian, accompanied by his bride, Matasuntha, See also: grand-daughter of Theodoric, set forth to reconquer Italy for the empire
.
His early See also: death prevented any schemes for a revived Romano-Gothic kingdom which may have been based on his personality
.
His widow, however, See also: bore a See also: posthumous See also: child, also named Germanus, of whom Jordanes speaks (cap
.
6o) as " blending the See also: blood of the Anicii and the Amals, and furnishing a hope under the divine blessing of one day uniting their glories." This younger-Germanus did nothing in after life to realize these anticipations; but the somewhat pointed way in which his name and his See also: mother's name are mentioned by Jordanes lends some probability to the view that he hoped for the child's succession to the Eastern Empire, and the final reconciliation of the Goths and Romans in the See also: person of a Gotho-Roman emperor
.
The De rebus Geticis falls naturally into four parts
.
The first (chs. i.–xiii.) commences with a See also: geographical description of the three quarters of the world, and in more detail of Britain and Scanzia (Sweden), from which the Goths under their king Berig migrated to the See also: southern See also: coast of the Baltic
.
Their See also: migration across what has since been called Lithuania to the shores of the Euxine, and their differentiation into Visigoths and Ostrogoths, are See also: nest described
.
Chs. v.–xiii. contain an account of the intrusive Geto-ScythianSee also: element before alluded to
.
The second section (chs. xiv.–xxiv.) returns to the true history of the Gothic nation, sets forth the genealogy of the Amal See also: kings, and describes the inroads of the Goths into the Roman Empire in the 3rd century, with the foundation and the overthrow of the great but somewhat shadowy kingdom of Hermanric
.
The third section (chs. See also: xxv.–xlvii.) traces the history of the West Goths from the Hunnish invasion to the downfall of the Gothic kingdom in See also: Gaul under Alaric II
.
(376–507)
.
The best part of this section, and indeed of the whole book, is the seven chapters devoted to See also: Attila's invasion of Gaul and the See also: battle of the See also: Mauriac plains
.
Here we have in all probability a verbatim extract from Cassiodorus, who (possibly resting on Ablabius) interwove with his narrative large portions of the Gothic sagas
.
The celebrated expression certaminis gaudia assuredly came at first neither from the suave See also: minister Cassiodorus nor from the small-souled notary Jordanes, but is the translation of some thought which first found utterance through the lips of a Gothic See also: minstrel
.
The See also: fourth section (chs. xlviii.–lx.) traces the history of the East Goths from the same Hunnish invasion to the first overthrow of the Gothic monarchy in Italy (376–539)
.
In this fourth section are inserted, somewhat out of their proper place, some valuable details as to the Gothi Minores, " an immense See also: people dwelling in the region of See also: Nicopolis, with their high See also: priest and primate Vulfilas, who is said also to have taught them letters." The book closes with the allusion to Germanus and the See also: panegyric on Justinian as the conqueror of the Goths referred to above
.
Jordanes refers in the Getica to a number of authors besides Cassiodorus; but he owes his knowledge of them to Cassiodorus
.
It is perhaps only when he is using Orosius that we can hold Jordanes to have borrowed directly
.
Otherwise, as Mommsen says, the Getica is a mera epitome, laxata ea et perverse, historiae Gothicae Cassiodorianae
.
As to the See also: style and See also: literary character of Jordanes, every author who has used him speaks in terms of severe censure
.
When he is left to himself and not merely transcribing, he is sometimes scarcely grammatical
.
There are awkward gaps in his narrative and statements inconsistent with each other
.
He quotes, as if he were familiarly acquainted with their writings, a number of Greek and Roman writers, of whom it is almost certain that he had not read more than one or two
.
At the same time he does not quote the chronicler See also: Marcellinus, from whom he has copied verbatim the history of the deposition of Augustulus
.
All these faults make him a peculiarly unsatisfactory authority where we cannot check his statements by those of other authors
.
It may, however, be pleaded in extenuation that he is professedly a transcriber, and, if
his story be correct, a transcriber in peculiarly unfavourable comprises the shorelands from See also: Malabar to See also: Cochin See also: China; while See also: India Minor stretches from See also: Sind (or perhaps from See also: Baluchistan) to Malabar; and India Tertia (evidently dominated by See also: African conceptions in his mind) includes a vast undefined coast-region west of Baluchistan, reaching into the neighbourhood of, but not including, Ethiopia and Prester See also: John's domain
.
Jordanus' Mirabilia contains the earliest clear African identification of Prester John, and what is perhaps the first
See also: notice of the Black Sea under that name; it refers to the author's residence in India Major and especially at Kulam, as well as to his travels in Armenia, north-west See also: Persia, the Lake See also: Van region, and See also: Chaldaea; and it supplies excellent descriptions of Parsee doctrines and See also: burial customs, of See also: Hindu ox-worship, idol-ritual, and suttee, and of See also: Indian fruits, birds, animals and See also: insects
.
After the 8th of See also: April 1330 we have no more knowledge of See also: Bishop Jordanus
.
Of Jordanus' Epistles there is only one MS., viz
.
See also: Paris, See also: National Library, 5006 See also: Lat., fol
.
182, r. and v.; of the Mirabilia also one MS. only, viz
.
See also: London, See also: British Museum, Additional MSS., 19,513, fols
.
3, r.–12 r
.
The text of the Epistles is in Quetif and Echard, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum, i
.
549–550 (Epistle I.) ; and in See also: Wadding, Annales minorum, vi
.
359–361 (Epistle II.) ; the text of the Mirabilia in the Paris Geog
.
See also: Soc.'s Recueil de voyages, iv
.
1–68 (1839)
.
The Papal letters referring to Jordanus are in Raynaldus, Annales ecclesiastici, 1330, §§ lv. and lvii (April 8; Feb
.
14)
.
See also See also: Sir H
.
See also: Yule's Jordanus, a version of the Mirabilia with a commentary (See also: Hakluyt Soc., 1863) and the same editor's See also: Cathay, giving a version of the Epistles, with a commentary, &c
.
(Hak
.
Soc., 1866) pp . 184–185, 192–196, 225–230; F . Kunstmann, " DieSee also: Mission in Meliapor and See also: Tana " and " Die Mission in Columbo " in the Historisch-politische Blatter of See also: Phillips and Gorres, See also: xxxvii
.
25–38, 135–152 (See also: Munich, 1856), &c
.
; C
.
R
.
Beazley, Dawn of See also: Modern Geography, iii
.
215–235
.
(C
.
R
.
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