GAULON. - A Levitical city and city of refuge in the territory of the half-tribe of Manasse, in Bashan in Transjordan (Ios. 20, 8; 21, 27). Today Saḥem el-Golān. Conquered and destroyed by A. Ianneo (Fl. Giuseppe, 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 Genesareth 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 Gaulanitis, with its capital at Sogane (=el-Jehūdijjah), and lower Gaulanitis, with its capital at Gamala (= Gamlah; id., op. cit., II, 20, 6; IV, 1, 1). After the death of King Erode it belonged to the tetrarchy of Filippo (id., Antiq. Ind., XVIII, 1, 6) and was finally incorporated into the Roman province of Syria.
Today the region, called Golān, of volcanic nature, very arid and bare toward the north but fertile in the south, with extensive areas cultivated in cereals, is completely isolated, except for villages along the two roads which, between Lake Ḥāleh and Lake Tiberiade, connect Palestine with Syria.