3-053-583 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Giant Cities of Bashan - Busrar, 1873. 'Bozrah is situated in the midst of the great plain of Bashan, and is the last inhabited city in the south-east of the Hauran. Seen from a distance it has a grand appearance: there appears a long line of buildings resembling a church and tower, a square tower, a great castle, a range of houses, towers, and large buildings, and, a little northwards of the city, a river. But on entering it nothing is seen but melancholy sights. At the top of the ruined castle there is a theatre open to the sky, like all Roman theatres. The ruined cathedral was built by Julianus, Archbishop of Bozrah, in a.d. 513, in honour of the martyrs Serjius, Bacchus, and Leontius. The most beautiful ruin is that of a temple of which only four pillars and a portion of the wall are standing; the pillars are singularly beautiful...Bozrah was under the Romans a great military station, and the capital of the province of Arabia. It is still occupied by a detachment of Turkish cavalry. The only modem thing of which it can boast is telegraphic communication with Damascus...Eusebius and Jerome speak of it as Bezer, one of the cities of refuge in Jewish times; but how they got over the topographical difficulty it is rather hard to imagine'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.