DAMARIS (dam'a-rts), (Gr. Ligapts, a woman of Athens, who was led to embrace Christianity by the preaching of St. Paul (Acts xvii:34).
Some suppose she was the wife of Dionysius the Areopagite, who is mentioned before her ; but Damascus' are found in Is. vii :8. It is expressly said 'the head of Syria is Damascus ;' also, Is. xvii :3, 'the kingdom' is to cease 'from Damascus.' So that this place was obviously the metropolis of a Syrian empire. It gave name (Syria Damas cena, Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 13) to a district of Syria which, in I Chron. xix :6, is distinguished aq 'Syria-Maachah,' in the common English Version The plain is about 40o stadia from the Mediter ranean, and from six to eight days' journey from Jerusalem.
(2) Topography. Damascus—by some held to be the most ancient city in the world—is called by the Orientals 'a pearl surrounded by emeralds.'
Nothing can be more beautiful than its position, whether approached from the side of Mount Leb anon, from the Desert to the east, or by the high road from the north from Aleppo and Hamah. For many miles the city is girdled by fertile fields, or gardens, as they are called, which being watered by rivers and sparkling streams, give to the vegetation, consisting principally of olive trees, a remarkable freshness and beauty. Of all the cities of the East, Damascus is probably the most oriental.
the construction in the Greek will not sanction this conclusion. The name Damaris does not occur elsewhere, whence some suppose it a corruption of Damalis, which was not an uncommon name; hut the r and / are in Greek so constantly interchanged as to render this emendation superfluous.