AURAN (err. Hawran). — A northern region of Transjordan, of volcanic origin, lying between Damascus to the north, the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee to the west, the Yarmuk tributary to the south, and the Syrian Desert to the east. The name is preserved today in the Gebel Hawran (“Selmon” of the Bible, Ps. 67 [68], 15). A. corresponds almost exactly to the region more often called in Holy Scripture Bashan (v.). In Ezek. 47:16, 18 it is mentioned as the northeastern boundary of the new and symbolic Promised Land.
Frequently devastated by the Assyrians, it subsequently passed under Seleucid, Nabataean, and Roman rule. Under the Romans (1st cent. B.C.) it was divided into four parts: Gaulanitis to the west, Batanaea in the center, Trachonitis to the northeast, and Auranitis (including Gebel Hawran) to the southeast. In 23 B.C. Herod obtained from Rome Auranitis, Trachonitis, and Batanaea; after his death these territories, together with Gaulanitis, passed to his son Philip “the tetrarch,” and in A.D. 53 Philip’s tetrarchy was given to Herod Agrippa II. In 106 all these various territories formed the Roman province of Arabia with Bostra as its capital, until the Muslim conquest (6th cent.). Meanwhile Christianity had spread intensively throughout A. In the Hellenistic-Roman period the chief cities, Bostra (v.), Canatha (now Qanawât), and Soada (now Suedia), were adorned with fine monuments whose ruins still excite admiration: paved streets, triumphal arches, baths, nymphaea, theaters, pagan temples, and later Byzantine Christian basilicas and monasteries.