In 843 Hazael assassinated Ben-Hadad and made himself king of Damascus. The states which Ben-Hadad had brought together into a coalition against the advancing power of Assyria all revolted; and Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, took advantage of this in 842 and attacked Syria. He wasted the country, but could not take the capital. Jehu, king of Israel, paid tribute to Assyria, for which Hazael afterwards revenged himself, during the time when Shalmaneser was distracted by his Armenian wars, by attacking the borders of Israel (2 Kings x. 32).
Adad-nirari IV. invaded Syria and besieged Damascus in 806. Taking advantage of this and similar succeeding events, Jehoash, king of Israel, recovered the cities that his father had lost to Hazael.
In 734 Ahaz became king of Judah, and Rezon (Raṣun, Rezin), the king of Damascus at the time, came up against him; at the same time the Edomites and the Philistines revolted. Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III., king of Assyria, sent him gifts, and besought his protection. Tiglath-Pileser invaded Syria, and in 732 succeeded in reducing Damascus (see also [Babylonia and Assyria], Chronology, § 5, and [Jews], §§ 10 sqq.).
Except for the abortive rising under Sargon in 720, we hear nothing more of Damascus for a long period. In 333 B.C., after the battle of Issus, it was delivered over by treachery to Parmenio, the general of Alexander the Great; the harem and treasures of Darius had here been lodged. It had a chequered history during the wars of the successors of Alexander, being occasionally in Egyptian hands. In 112 B.C. the empire of Syria was divided by Antiochus Grypus and Antiochus Cyzicenus; the city of Damascus fell to the share of the latter. Hyrcanus took advantage of the disputes of these rulers to advance his own kingdom. Demetrius Eucaerus, successor of Cyzicenus, invaded Palestine in 88 B.C., and defeated Alexander Jannaeus at Shechem. On his dethronement and captivity by the Parthians, Antiochus Dionysus, his brother, succeeded him, but was slain in battle by Hāritha (Aretas) the Arab—the first instance of Arab interference with Damascene politics. Hāritha yielded to Tigranes, king of Armenia, who in his turn was driven out by Q. Caecilius Metellus (son of Scipio Nasica), the Roman general. In 63 Syria was made a Roman province.
In the New Testament Damascus appears only in connexion with the miraculous conversion of St Paul (Acts ix., xxii., xxvi.), his escape from Aretas the governor by being lowered in a basket over the wall (Acts ix. 25; 2 Cor. xi. 32, 33), and his return thither after his retirement in Arabia (Gal. i. 17).
In 150, under Trajan, Damascus became a Roman provincial city.
On the establishment of Christianity Damascus became the seat of a bishop who ranked next to the patriarch of Antioch. The great temple of Damascus was turned by Arcadius into a Christian church.
In 635 Damascus was captured for Islam by Khālid ibn Walīd, the great general of the new religion, being the first city to yield after the battle of the Yarmuk (Hieromax). After the murder of Ali, the fourth caliph, his successor Moawiya transferred the seat of the Caliphate (q.v.) from Mecca to Damascus and thus commenced the great dynasty of the Omayyads, whose rule extended from the Atlantic to India. This dynasty lasted about ninety years; it was supplanted by that of the Abbasids, who removed the seat of empire to Mesopotamia; and Damascus passed through a period of unrest in which it was captured and ravaged by Egyptians, Carmathians and Seljuks in turn. The crusaders attacked Damascus in 1126, but never succeeded in keeping a firm hold of it, even during their brief domination of the country. It was the headquarters of Saladin in the wars with the Franks. Of its later history we need only mention the Mongolian capture in 1260; its Egyptian recapture by the Mameluke Kotuz; the ferocious raid of Timur (Tamerlane) in 1399; and the conquest by the Turkish sultan Selim, whereby it became a city of the Ottoman empire (1516). In its more recent history the only incidents that need be mentioned are its capture by Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian general, in 1832, when the city was first opened to the representatives of foreign powers; its revolt against Ibrahim’s tyranny in 1834, which he crushed with the aid of the Druses; the return of the city to Turkish domination, when the Egyptians were driven out of Syria in 1840 by the allied powers; and the massacre of July 1860, when the Moslem population rose against the Christians, burnt their quarter, and slaughtered about 3000 adult males.
Modern City.—Damascus is a city with a population estimated at from 154,000 (35,000 Christians and Jews) to 225,000 (55,000 Christians and Jews), situated near the northern edge of a plain called the Ghutah, at the foot of Anti-Lebanon, 2250 ft. above the sea. The river Barada (the Abanah of 2 Kings v. 12) rises in the Anti-Lebanon, runs for about 10 m. in a narrow channel, and then spreads itself fan-wise over the plain. About 18 m. east of the city it loses itself in the marshlands known as the Meadow Lakes. A second river, the ’Awaj (possibly the Pharpar of 2 Kings), pursues a similar course. The plain is thus exceptionally well irrigated, and its consequent fertility is proverbial over the East. Damascus is situated on both banks of the Barada, about 2 m. from the exit of the river from the gorge. On the right bank is all the older part of the city, and a long suburb called El-Meidān extending about a mile along the Hajj Road. On the left bank are the suburbs El ‘Amāara and El-Salihia. The waters of the river are carried by channels and conduits to all the houses of the city. The orchards, gardens, vineyards and fields of Damascus are said to extend over a circuit of at least 60 m. In the surrounding plain are one hundred and forty villages, occupied in all by about 50,000 persons (1000 Christians, 2000 Druses).
The rough mud walls in the private houses give poor promise of splendour within. The entrance is usually by a low door, and through a narrow winding passage which leads to the outer court, where the master has his reception room. From this another winding passage leads to the harem, which is the principal part of the house. The plan of all is the same—an open court, with a tesselated pavement, and one or two marble fountains; orange and lemon trees, flowering shrubs, and climbing plants give freshness and fragrance. All the apartments open into the court; and on the south side is an open alcove, with a marble floor, and raised dais round three sides, covered with cushions; the front wall is supported by an ornamented Saracenic arch. The decoration of some of the rooms is gorgeous, the walls being covered in part with mosaics and in part with carved work, while the ceilings are rich in arabesque ornaments, elaborately gilt. A few of the modern Jewish houses have been embellished at an enormous cost, but they are wanting in taste.