=Victories in Northeastern Gilead.= Learning that the Jews and descendants of the ancient Israelites settled in northern Gilead were being besieged by Timotheus, that many others had been massacred, and that those in Galilee were also the object of bitter persecution, he gathered eleven thousand of his followers. Simon, his brother, was sent with three thousand soldiers into Galilee, where he succeeded in rescuing the Israelites and in driving the heathen out of the uplands down to Ptolemis. With the remaining eight thousand picked soldiers Judas and his brother Jonathan made a rapid and brilliant campaign through southern Gilead. A march of three days from the east-Jordan to the northeast brought them to the borders of the desert, where they met certain of the Nabateans, an Arabian people who at this time were crystallizing into a strong nation, with their centre southeast of the Dead Sea. Like Judas they were apparently hostile to the Syrians and therefore they met him on friendly terms. Learning through them of conditions in Gilead, he turned suddenly northward and captured the important trading city of Bozrah, far out in the wilderness to the south of the Hauran. The spoils of this city provided his followers with immediate supplies. Thence by a night march he reached the stronghold where the Israelites were being besieged by the Ammonites under Timotheus. In the Greek version of I Maccabees, this stronghold is called Dathema, but in the Syriac version Rametha, which is clearly the modern Remtheh, an important station on the great pilgrim road to the north, about twenty-five miles east of Bozrah. As has already been noted, it is one of the most probable sites of the ancient Ramoth-Gilead. Timotheus and his followers, caught unprepared, were defeated with great slaughter. From this point Judas made a détour to the Gileadite city of Mizpah, mentioned in the Jephthah stories. Its exact site is doubtful. It may be identified with Sûf, the height northwest of Jerash, where are to be found many great dolmens, or possibly it occupied the site of Jerash itself. =Cities Captured North of the Yarmuk.= From here Judas evidently marched northward across the Yarmuk to the town of Casphor. In II Maccabees this name appears as Caspin, and in all probability is to be identified with Castle Chisfin in the southeastern Jaulan, a little west of the Nahr er-Rukkad. The next town captured by Judas was Maked, which may be represented by Tell Mikdad, about twenty miles northeast of Chisfin and a little west of the railway from Damascus to Haifa. Bosor without much doubt occupied the site of the modern town of Busr el-Hariri, fifteen miles southeast of Tell Mikdad and on the southern side of the great lava-bed, El Lejah.