I am indebted to three numbers of Jottings and Snapshots from Gaza, Southern Palestine, for some of the above information.
Note.—On Feb. 20, 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte took El Arîsh. At the capitulation of the town the French were permitted to evacuate Egypt with all the honours of war.
FOOTNOTE:
[49] For additional information see Palmer's The Desert of the Exodus, vol. ii. pp. 286-8.
APPENDIX I
Public Games at Gaza [50]
Periodical games were often closely connected with the religious rites. The great importance of public games in Imperial times is well known. Not a provincial town of any consequence was without them. This was especially the case with those in connection with the games in honour of the Emperor, which were everywhere in vogue, even in the time of Augustus.
In Gaza a πανήγυρις Ἁδριανή (an assembly of a whole nation for a public festival) was celebrated from the time of Hadrian. A παγκράτιον (the joint contest which comprises both wrestling and boxing) is mentioned as held there in the inscription of Aphrodisias. These wrestlers and boxers of Gaza were, in the fourth century, the most famous in Syria. St. Jerome, in his Life of St. Hilarion, mentions the Circensian games there.[51]