Coele-Syria

Coele-Syria, Coele Syria, or Coelesyria (Greek: Κοίλη Συρία, Koílē Syría), also rendered as Coelosyria and Celesyria, was a region of Syria in classical antiquity. It probably derived from the Aramaic for all of the region of Syria but more often was applied to the Beqaa Valley between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountain ranges. The area now forms part of the modern nations of Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

Name

It is widely accepted that the term Coele is a transcription of Aramaic kul, meaning "all, the entire", such that the term originally identified all of Syria. The word "Coele", which literally means "hollow" in Koine Greek, is thought to have come about via a folk etymology referring to the "hollow" Beqaa Valley between Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon mountains. However, the term Coele-Syria was also used in a wider sense to indicate "all Syria" or "all Syria except Phoenicia", by the writers; Pliny, Arrian, Ptolemy and also Diodorus Siculus, who indicated Coele-Syria to at least stretch as far south as Joppa, while Polybius stated that the border between Egypt and Coele-Syria lay between the towns of Rhinocolara and Rhaphia.