AURAN (Hebrew Hauran). - A northern region of Transjordan, of volcanic origin, bounded by Damascus to the north, the Jordan and the Lake of Gennesaret to the west, the tributary Jarmuk to the south, and the Syrian desert to the east. The name survives today in Gebel Hăurăn ("Selmon" of the Bible, Ps. 67 [68], 15). The A. corresponds almost to the region more often called in Sacred Scripture Basan (v.). In Ex. 47, 16, 18, it is mentioned as the north-eastern boundary of the new and symbolic Promised Land.
Repeatedly devastated by the Assyrians, it then passed successively under Seleucid, Nabataean and Roman rule. Under the Romans (1st century B.C.) it was divided into four parts: Gaulanitis to the west, Batanaea in the centre, Trachonitis to the north-east, and Auranitis (enclosing the Gebel Hăurăn) to the south-east. In 23 B.C. Herod obtained Auranitis, Trachonitis and Batanaea from Rome; after his death these territories, together with Gaulanitis, passed to his son Philip "the tetrarch", and in 53 A.D. Philip's tetrarchy was given to Herod Agrippa II. In 106 all these various territories formed the Roman province of Arabia with Bosra as its capital, until the Muslim conquest (7th century). Meanwhile Christianity had developed intensively throughout the whole of the A. In the Hellenistic-Roman period the principal cities, such as Bosra (v.), Canatha (today Qanawāt), Soada (today Sueida), were adorned with fine monuments, whose remains still excite admiration today: paved streets, triumphal arches, baths, nymphaea, theatres, pagan temples, and later Byzantine Christian basilicas and monasteries.
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Gaetano M. Perrella