street running southwards to the sea and two more running east and
west at right angles to that.[35] In Asia two Syrian towns, which
occupy sites closed to Hellenic culture before Alexander, may serve as
examples. Apamea on the Orontes was built by the Macedonians, rose
forthwith to importance, and retained its vigorous prosperity through
the Roman Empire; in A.D. 6 it was 'numbered' by Sulpicius Quirinius,
then the governor of Syria, and the census showed as many as 117,000
citizens settled in the city and its adjacent 'territory'. Its ruins
seem to be mainly earlier than the Romans, and its streets may well
date from its Macedonian founders. In outline it is an irregular
oblong, nearly an English mile in length and varying in width from
half to two-thirds of a mile. A broad and straight street, lined
throughout with colonnades, runs from end to end of its length and
passes at least five great buildings, which seem to be the temples and
palaces of the Seleucid kings. Two other streets cross this main
street at right angles. Whether the smaller thoroughfares took the
same lines can be determined only by excavation. It would be a gentle
guess to think so.[36]

[35] Tafrali, _Topographie de Thess._ pp. 121 foll. and plan.

[36] E. Sachau, _Reise in Syrien_ (1883), p. 76; Mommsen,
_Ephemeris epigr_. iv, p. 514, and _Mon. Ancyr._ (ed. 2), p. 540.

Further south, on the edge of the Haurân, stood the town of Gerasa.
This too, like Apamea, was built by the Macedonians and flourished not
only in their days but during the following Roman age. Its general
outline was ovoid, its greatest diameter three quarters of a mile, its
area some 235 acres--nearly the same with Roman Cologne and Roman
Cirencester. Its streets resembled those of Apamea. A colonnaded