Though unquestionably true that the structure and composition of the soil for miles around Jerusalem must always have been essentially what it is now, of a rough limestone nature, and as such it must have appeared in the palmiest age of the Jewish commonwealth, yet in those happier days, under a mild and an enlightened government, no part was waste; the more fertile hills were cultivated in artificial terraces, others were covered with orchards of fruit-trees, while the more rocky and barren districts were converted into vineyards. But in the process of time the terraces which supported the soil upon the steep declivities have been destroyed, and the accumulated earth has been swept away by the rains, leaving naked hills “where once grew the corn and crept the vine.” Those who quote Gibbon against Moses and David with so much triumph, should also cite pagan authors of higher antiquity and of equal authority in their favor. In his description of Jericho, Strabo speaks of “a grove of palms, and a country of a hundred stadia full of springs and well-peopled.” According to Tacitus, “the inhabitants of Palestine are healthy and robust, the rains moderate, and the soil fertile.” Ammianus Marcellinus is even more explicit than his predecessors: “The last of the Syrias is Palestine, a country of considerable extent, abounding in clean and well-cultivated land, and containing some fine cities, none of which yield to the other, but, as it were, being on a parallel, are rivals.”[19] Regarding it as a valuable accession to their dominions, Palestine was a prize for which the Assyrians and Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, the Persians and Saracens, fought to conquer and retain. To each it was the “diamond of the desert;” and coveting the fruits of the soil, and sighing for the delights of the climate, they each in turn also contended for the advantages its central position afforded as a military station between the east and west, the north and south. Charmed with its gardens, the fascinating Cleopatra induced Antony to take from Herod the Great the noble plain of Jericho and annex it to her dominions, that she might possess the celebrated balm and the other valuable drugs and fruits it then produced.[20] Delighted with its fertility, its opulence, and populousness, Chosroes of Persia aspired to its permanent conquest; and, a quarter of a century later, the Saracens feared to have Omar see Jerusalem, lest the richness of the surrounding country and the purity of the air might tempt him never to return to the holy city of Medina. As significant of its fruitfulness, both Vespasian and Titus caused medals to be struck on which Palestine is represented by a female under a palm-tree; and there are medals still extant on which Herod is represented as holding a bunch of grapes, and the young Agrippa as displaying fruit.[21]