GAULON. - A Levitical city and city of refuge in the territory of the half-tribe of Manasseh, in Bashan in Transjordan (Josh. 20:8; 21:27). Today Saḥem el-Golān. Conquered and destroyed by A. Jannaeus (Fl. Josephus, Bell. Ind., I, 4, 8).
The place gave its name to the Roman province of Gaulanitis, which extended from the foothills of Hermon in the north to the Jarmōk in the south, and from the lake of Gennesaret in the west to the Nahr el-'Allān in the east. The Wādī Goramājah, at the level of the little Jordan, divides G. into upper, with its capital Sogane (=el-Jehūdijjah), and lower, with its capital Gamala (= Gamlah; id., op. cit., II, 20, 6; IV, 1, 1). After the death of King Herod it belonged to the tetrarchy of Philip (id., Antiq. Ind., XVIII, 1, 6) and finally was incorporated into the Roman province of Syria.
Today the region, called Golān, of volcanic nature, very arid and barren toward the north but fertile in the south with large areas cultivated with cereals, is completely isolated, with the exception of villages along the two roads that between Lake Ḥāleh and the lake of Tiberias connect Palestine with Syria.
Bibliography
Donato Baldi