Towards the middle of the thirteenth century a considerable alteration took place in the interior of Canaan, between the coast of the Philistines and the valley of the Jordan. The Amorites advanced towards the south over the Jabbok, and subjugated the Moabites, who dwelt in this district to the east of the Dead Sea, as far as the Arnon. They spread westwards over the Jordan, and overthrew the ancient federation of the Hittites. These were either subjugated or driven out; only in some mountain cantons did the Hittites maintain themselves. In their place the Amorites ruled between the coast and the Dead Sea, and this district was now known as the "Mountain of the Amorites."[493] Northwards also the Amorites pressed forward against the Hittites, and took possession of their land as far as Lake Merom.[494] It was only in Gibeon and the surrounding districts that the Hivites held their own;[495] and all the Hittites and Hivites who refused subjugation and slavery were compelled to retire to the coast. It must have been a heavy blow that could shatter the power of the Hittites; while the collection of a numerous population on the coast, which was caused by the new supremacy of the Amorites, was in its turn of important consequence for the cities of Phenicia. But the new masters of the southern land did not form a consolidated power, like the Hittites before them; they were broken up into separate tribes, so that among them, and the remnants of the Hittites and Hivites, there were about thirty small principalities. The ancient power of the Hittites must have been important enough to leave behind a very lasting impression. The Book of Joshua uses the expression "land of the Hittites," for the whole region from the sea to the Euphrates, and the Assyrian inscriptions of the ninth, eighth, and seventh centuries include beside the land of Arimi, _i.e._ of the Aramæans the whole of Canaan from Hamath to the sea and southwards as far as Egypt, under the name of the "land of Chatti."[496] FOOTNOTES: [477] Strabo, p. 756. "It is true that the whole land from Seleucis to Egypt and Arabia is also called Hollow Syria, but strictly speaking the name is given only to the land between Libanus and Antilibanus." [478] Strabo, p. 763. [479] Genesis xxxi. 20-24; Strabo, pp. 627, 784. [480] Lepsius, "Briefe," s. 396. [481] Tacit. "Histor." 5, 6. [482] Ebers, "Ægypten und die Bücher Mose's," s. 131 ff. [483] De Rougé, "Annales de Toutmes;" cf. _supra_ p. 136. [484] Brandis, "Münzwesen," s. 80, 92. [485] Genesis x. 15-19. [486] Isaiah xxiii. 3; Justin, 18, 3. [487] Herod. 2, 34; Lucian, "De dea Syria," 2, 3. [488] Judges i. 10; Joshua xiv. 12, 15; xv. 13, 14; Numbers xiii. 23. [489] Ebers, "Ægypten," s. 188. [490] Genesis xv. 16; xxxiv. 2; Joshua iii. 10; xi. 3; Jud. iii. 3.