History of Dor. 95 



so also the account here of the city's early history. Evidently the 

 town was of no great size in the time of Claudius lolaus (/Spaxcux 

 TroXixvr] — cp. Artemidorus^ "7roA.i(r/u,aTtov,-" Clem. Recog. IY:1% 

 "breve oppidum;" Pliny % " memoria urbium.") The city wall 

 can still be traced in part among the ruins*. That the purple- 

 yielding murex constituted one of the sources of Dor's wealth is 

 easily possible, for the coast in this neighborhood contains quantities 

 of purple-fish\ The reference to Dor by Claudius lolaus is inter- 

 esting for the light it throws upon legends connected with the city, 

 and because of the evidence it affords that early writers could even 

 conceive of it as being of Greek origin. Probably its spirit and 

 culture became in the later centuries B.C. essentially Greek in 

 tone. 



PLINY. 



Pliny® speaks of Dor as though it were not in existence at the 

 time' he wrote: '' Hinc redeundum est ad oram, atque Phoenicen. 

 Fuit oppidum Crocodilon, est flumen: memoria urbium, Doron, 

 Sycaminon." The Crocodile River is located south of Dor". But 

 apart from a reference in Strabo® we have no further record of a 

 city of that name. Sycaminon is in the Onomasticon" identified 

 with Haifa, although the Talmud seems to regard the two as 

 distinct the one from the other. Perhaps the two names were 

 applied to the city proper and its harbor". It is also possible that 

 Sycaminon ought to be identified with the ruins Tell es-Semak, 

 two miles distant from Haifa el-'Atikah". 



1 Page 63. 



2 Page 98. 

 2 Below. 



* Page 10. 



6 Enc. Bib. s.v. Dor; Ritter, Die Erdkunde, XVI, p. 610. Cp. Deut. 33:18, 

 19, where Issachar is to " suck the abundance of the seas, and the hidden 

 treasure of the sands." This may refer to the purple industry. 



^ Hist. Nat., V, 17, ed. Gabraiels Brotier, with notes by Hardouin and 

 Cigalino. 



' C. 77 A.D. 



8 See p. 7. 



9 XVI, 2,^27. 



10 S.v. Hepha. 



11 Buhl, Geog. des alien Pal., p. 214. 



1^ S.W.P. Mem., I, 289.— Sycaminon has also been located at 'AthlTt. 



