Region
Syria Cole
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Syria Coele, Greek for 'hollow Syria', is a Roman province whose name was usually taken to describe the deep trough between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges, the Beqaa valley in modern Lebanon. Some scholars suspected instead a Greek rendering of an old Egyptian name. For centuries the term covered almost all of Syria and Palestine, and coins still used it in that broad sense into the early third century AD. Only in 194 did the emperor Septimius Severus make northern Syria, together with Commagene, a province of this name, with Antioch as its capital. The map names eight of the nine provinces of the Diocese of the East; only Commagene is missing.