This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[506]
Now this lake of Gennesareth is so called from the country adjoining
to it. Its breadth is forty furlongs, and its length one hundred and forty;
its waters are sweet, and very agreeable for drinking, for they are finer
than the thick waters of other fens; the lake is also pure, and on every
side ends directly at the shores, and at the sand; it is also of a temperate
nature when you draw it up, and of a more gentle nature than river or fountain
water, and yet always cooler than one could expect in so diffuse a place
as this is. Now when this water is kept in the open air, it is as cold
as that snow which the country people are accustomed to make by night in
summer. There are several kinds of fish in it, different both to the taste
and the sight from those elsewhere. It is divided into two parts by the
river Jordan. Now Panium is thought to be the fountain of Jordan, but in
reality it is carried thither after an occult manner from the place called
Phiala: this place lies as you go up to Trachonitis, and is a hundred and
twenty furlongs from Cesarea, and is not far out of the road on the right
hand; and indeed it hath its name of Phiala [vial or bowl] very justly,
from the roundness of its circumference, as being round like a wheel; its
water continues always up to its edges, without either sinking or running
over. And as this origin of Jordan was formerly not known, it was discovered
so to be when Philip was tetrarch of Trachonitis; for he had chaff thrown
into Phiala, and it was found at Paninto, where the ancients thought the
fountain-head of the river was, whither it had been therefore carried [by
the waters]. As for Panium itself, its natural beauty had been improved
by the royal liberality of Agrippa, and adorned at his expenses. Now Jordan's
visible stream arises from this cavern, and divides the marshes and fens
of the lake Semechonitis; when it hath run another hundred and twenty furlongs,
it first passes by the city Julias, and then passes through the middle
of the lake Gennesareth; after which it runs a long way over a desert,
and then makes its exit into the lake Asphaltitis.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.