ABILA, or ABELA. There were several towns of this name in Syria, each of which was called by the Greeks, Leucas, or Leucadia, "white." But the principal one was a town of Coelosyria, and the cap ital of Abilene, a province of which Lysanias was tetrarch, Luke iii. 1. It was situated in a valley, or rather on the rocky declivity of a mountain, adjacent to the river Chysorrhoas, or Barrada, about twelve miles N. W. of Damascus, perhaps on the site of the present village Senciah, at the foot of the hill on which Abel is said to have been buried. (See Abel.) If these rocks were whitish in color, (and most of those in Judea are of gray limestone,) they would furnish the Greeks with a reason for giving to Abila the name of Leucadia — "White-rock-town." Compare Weissenfels, i.e. White-rock, the name of a German city a few miles W. of Leipzig. — It is worthy of remark, too, that Strabo, speaking of the city of Leu cadia, in Acanuuiia, says it was so called because of a great white rock in its neighborhood.

There are several medals of Abila extant, two of which are of some importance, as they serve to identify the site of the town. On the reverse of one of these is a large bunch of grapes, from which it is to be inferred that the place where it was struck abound ed in vineyards. This agrees exactly with the rocky eminence or declivity upon which we have assumed it to have stood ; besides which, Eusebius and Jerome agree that its vineyards were very extensive and rich. But the most remarkable and decisive medal extant, is one which bears a half-figure of the river, with the inscription " Chrysoroas Claudiaion," and on the reverse, a figure of Victory, and the inscription "Leucadion," the Greek name of the city. We may also remark, that Abila adding the name of Claudia to its other appellations, as it appears from this medal it did, affords a presumption that it was of some importance, and perhaps of considerable magnitude also ; and the conjecture receives confirmation from some antiquities and inscriptions which are mentioned by Pococke, as still existing in the neighborhood. See Mod. Traveller, vol. iii. p. 65.