DAMASCUS. — Principal city of Syria, since 1946 the capital of the independent Syrian Republic. It currently has 346,000 inhabitants.
I. HISTORY
The name is Ti-mas-quo or Di-mas-qu in the temple of Karnak (Dimasqi in an inscription of Shalmaneser II, Paris 1890, p. 6), Di-ma-as-qa or Di-mas-qa in the letters of el-'Amārnah; in biblical Hebrew it is Dam-méeg, but the Aramaic form is Dárméeg in 1 Chron. 18:5 and 2 Chron. 16:2; 24:23; 28:5, 23; the Talmudic Dármúsqás, Dárméeg; the Greek Δάμασκος, in Arabic it is Dimasq or as-Šám. According to the tradition collected by Flavius Josephus, it would have been founded by Ush (Gen. 10:23), son of Aram (Antiq. Iud., I, 6, 4). It was conquered in the 16th century BC by Thutmose III. Abraham pursued Amraphel and his allies as far as the north of D.; Eliezer, its steward, was from D. (Gen. 14:15; 15:2).According to letters 197 and 53 of el-'Amārnah, in the violent struggle between Egypt and the Hittites for influence over the intermediary lands, Etakma, prince of Qadesh on the Orontes and Hittite leader, attacked the region of D. But Egypt re-established its influence. The power of the Hittites, however, grew until Ramses II won the battle of Qadesh (1294 BC). D. is included in a list of Ramses III (1200-1163 BC) among the cities he subdued. But the decline of Egypt was accentuated, as was also the case for the Hittites. As a result, D. could enjoy a certain independence. David subjected the Aram (q.v.) of D.; however, under Solomon’s reign, D., through Rezon, became independent again (2 Sam. 8:5-9; 1 Kings 11:23-26). Asa, king of Judah, sought and obtained an alliance against Baasha (q.v.), king of Israel, with Ben-hadad, son of Tabrimmon, son of Hezion (in the Septuagint: Eṣpōḇ), who then incorporated the northern provinces of Israel into his Damascene kingdom (1 Kings 15:18-20), and had a quarter in Samaria (1 Kings 20:34). Ben-hadad II (Adad-idri in cuneiform texts), defeated by Ahab, king of Israel, returned the provinces his father had taken from Baasha and granted a quarter or emporium in D. (1 Kings 20).
Shalmaneser II (860-825 BC) resumed the campaign against D., which his father Ashur-nasir-apli had begun, and found several forces allied against him, including Adad-idri or Ben-hadad, king of D., and Ahab, king of Israel. These forces are enumerated on the monolith of Shalmaneser II, from which it appears (lines 96 ff.) that victory went to the Assyrians. Once the coalition was dissolved, Ahab, with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, attacked the king of D., Ben-hadad, at Ramoth-gilead, but was defeated (1 Kings 22). Ben-hadad, however, remained defeated in the campaign of Shalmaneser II against Syria in 849 BC, the events of which are narrated on the Nimrud obelisk. Even in the campaign of 846 BC, Shalmaneser II inflicted a disastrous defeat on the king of D. and his allies.
During the reign of Jehoram (853-842 BC), Ben-hadad II waged war on Israel, but, due to a miracle of Elisha, was forced to retreat. Later he besieged Samaria, but once again a miraculous intervention put him to flight (2 Kings 6-7). The change of dynasty in D. effected by Hazael (2 Kings 8:7-15) is attested by inscriptions of Shalmaneser II and by an inscription carved on an ivory plaque. Against Hazael, Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah waged war but were defeated (2 Kings 8:28-29). Hazael in 842 and 839 BC withstood two Assyrian expeditions, which sowed terror and devastation.
Under Jehu of Israel, Hazael attacked the kingdom of Israel on all its frontiers (2 Kings 10:32 ff.), and attacked the kingdom of Judah under Joash, who, to placate him, sent him all the treasures he and his ancestors had accumulated in the Temple and the palace (2 Kings 12:17 ff.). With the end of the Assyrian campaigns against Syria, Zakir, who had organized the kingdom of Hamath, was attacked by Ben-hadad III, son of Hazael, and his allies, who were defeated. Then Joash, son of Jehoahaz of Israel, reclaimed from D. the cities that Hazael had taken from his father (2 Kings 13:25). Toward the end of the 9th century BC, the Assyrian Adad-nirari III defeated Mari, king of D., and made him a vassal.
Later, Jeroboam II of Israel (785-745 BC) took more lands from D. (2 Kings 14:24-28). Rezin (Heb. Rēšin), king of D., allied with Pekah (Peqah), king of Israel, c. 734 BC, and waged war on Ahaz (q.v.) of Judah, who sought help from Tiglath-pileser III. The latter devastated D. and deported its citizens (2 Kings 16:5-9).
Under the Persians, D. was one of the most illustrious cities of Syria, as Strabo attests (XVI); Darius, before the battle of Issus (333 BC), sent his family and his treasure to D. to keep them safe. When the Syrians were occupied by the Macedonians, D. was governed by Parmenion, after whom it passed to the Seleucids, who, however, took Antioch as their capital. Antiochus XII Dionysus, brother of Demetrius Eucaerus, was defeated by Aretas III, king of the Arabs, who in 85 BC became king of D. and of all Celesyria (Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XIII, 15, 1-2; The Jewish War, I, 4, 7-8).
For the Romans, D. was conquered by Metellus (Antiquities of the Jews, XIV, 2, 3; The Jewish War, I, 6, 2); in 64 BC Pompey received the sumptuous gifts of the Egyptians, Jews, and Syrians there (Antiquities of the Jews, XIV, 3, 1), and in 63 BC Syria was made a Roman province.
The Persians of Khosrow II occupied D. in AD 614 and devastated it with plunder and deportations. But Heraclius, in his campaign of 622-29, took it from them. In 635 D. fell for the first time into the hands of the Arabs, and definitively in 638. Unable to replace the Byzantine officials, the Muslim conquerors left them in place, and Mansur b. Sarjun, grandfather of St. John of Damascus, continued to administer the finances. Mu'awiyah I was governor of D. from 638 to 660, the year in which he was elected caliph and transferred the capital of the caliphate to D. Under al-Walid I (705-15), Christians began to be removed from public administration, and under Marwan II D. ceased to be the capital.
From the philosophical-theological school of D. came St. Sophronius, St. Andrew of Crete, and, under the Arabs, St. John of Damascus and his great disciple James of Edessa.
This school influenced Muslim culture, and many Syrian Christians were in the court of the Umayyads. In the court of the Abbasids, who had nearly exterminated the Umayyads and even scattered the bones of all their dead, Persians took the place of the Syrians. The revolt of an Umayyad (809-13), who occupied D. and much of Syria, was unsuccessful. Ahmad b. Tulun occupied Syria in 868 and died in 884. His dynasty became extinct in 905. After them, the dynasty of the Ikhshidids (935-69) settled in D. They were succeeded by the Fatimids of Egypt, who remained in D. until 1075, when the Turkish emir Atsiz conquered it for the Seljuks. The Crusaders besieged D. in 1148 for five days, but without success. In 1154 Nur ad-Din settled in D. without resistance. He established schools and mosques there and made it a bulwark against the Crusaders. After his death (1174), Saladin (Salah ad-Din), founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, who administered Egypt, also occupied D. The Christian Mongol Kitbugha then took D. for a short time, which in 1260 was taken from him by Baybars, who began the series of the Mamluks, who, to prevent the return of the Crusaders, devastated the coastal cities. The Mamluks divided the country into twelve kingdoms or *niyābahs* (vicariates), of which D. was the center. The Mongol Tamerlane (1400-1401) occupied D.; after plundering it and deporting most of the population, especially artisans, to Samarkand, he set it on fire and abandoned II.
Damascus — Plan of the ancient city and its buildings.
In the midst of so many upheavals, intellectual activity did not fail to flourish in D. Among its notable figures were Abū'l-Fidā' (d. 1331), Sams ad-din ad-Dimašqī (1327), Šafadī (1206), Šāliḥ b. Jahjā (1436), and others.
The Ottomans occupied D. in 1516. The territories of Syria were then divided into pākālik or vilājet, subdivided into sangiacati. From 1832 to 1840, D. was under Egyptian rule. Following the massacre of Christians in 1860 and the subsequent European intervention, Syria was divided in 1864 into two vilājet, subdivided into mutasarrīfat or prefectures, and these into qā'immāqāmāt or subprefectures. After the First World War, D. was placed under French mandate.
1853: E. Schürer, *Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes*, III, 4th ed., Leipzig 1909, pp. 117 ff.; P. Dhomre, *Les pays bibliques et l'Assyrie*, Paris 1911, pp. 15-21; C. Watzinger and K. Wulzinger, *Damascus. Die antike Stadt*, Berlin and Leipzig 1921 (deals with the pagan temple); R. Dussaud, *Le temple de Jupiter Damascénien*, in *Syria*, 3 (1922), pp. 219 ff.; id., *Topographie historique de la Syrie*, Paris 1927, passim; H. Lammens, *La Syrie, précis historique*, Beirut 1922, passim; P. Sfair, *D. nei suoi più insigni monumenti*, Rome 1935; J. Nasrallah, *Les souvenirs chrétiens de Damas. Souvenirs de st. Paul*, Harissa (Lebanon) 1944, with extensive bibliography and source references.
II. Archaeology
The Christian memories and monuments of D., insofar as they pertain to the Apostolic era, are connected with the events of the conversion of St. Paul and his escape from the city (Acts 9:3-25). The Via Recta (pūmēn eubētēz, *vicus rectus*, in Arabic Darb al-mustaqīm), which ran from east to west through the city in accordance with the Roman grid plan, is still visible in its layout today. Notable remains survive of the double colonnade that flanked it, as in similar cases at Palmyra and Gerasa. Along this street stood the house of Judas, perhaps an inn, where Saul was taken after his conversion. The locations assigned by scholarly tradition to this house in the western part of the street and to that of Ananias, where Saul was healed and received baptism, on the northeastern outskirts of the city, are not supported by direct evidence. Nor is there any direct proof regarding the tower in the southeastern sector of the walls, from which the Apostle is said to have escaped, or the supposed tomb of St. George, the soldier martyred for aiding his escape, located opposite the tower itself.Clear archaeological evidence, including epigraphic, does exist, however, for the church of St. John the Baptist, situated in the northern part of the city and housing the relic of the Saint’s head. The building had been the sanctuary of Jupiter Damascenus in Roman times, with a distinctly eastern plan consisting of two rectangular enclosures: the larger one enclosed a vast courtyard, while the smaller one contained the altar of sacrifices and the cella. It was converted into a church under Theodosius I (379-95); according to an inscription now lost and considered spurious by H. Dussaud, it was restored under Arcadius (395-408). By the end of the 4th century, the temple had been transformed into a three-aisled basilica, built along the southern wall of the smaller enclosure, whose triple-arched door became one of the entrances. A definitive arrangement was achieved in the 5th century with the addition of a transept that divided the interior into two parts and led to the closure of two of the southern doorways. This door was dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity, as evidenced by two surviving Greek inscriptions carved on the first and second arches, drawn from the Psalms and extolling the Father and the Son. Of interest is a fragment of a granite column found about 380 meters from the eastern gate.
DAMASO I, POPE — Portrait of Pope Damasus. Medallion from the series of popes (9th century) in the basilica of St. Paul – Rome.