MESOPOTAMIA (Metratrora.tla), the district lying between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and deriving its name from this circumstance (Arrian, Alex., vii. 7; Tacit. Ann., vi. 37). Its limits seem to have varied at different periods, or the name was vaguely used so as to be applied to different extents of territory by different writers. Thus, whilst Strabo draws a line between it and Babylonia (xvi. p. 746), Pliny assigns it to Assyria, and extends it southwards as far as the Persian gulf (Al. II., v. 24; vi. 26). It belongs to physi cal, not to political geography, as it was at no time the designation of any territory artificially determined.
The LXX. use this word to represent the Aram-Naharaim of Gen. xxiv. so ; Deut. xxiii. 4; and also the Padan-Aram of Gen. xxv, 20; xxxi. IS). By this they have been generally understood as intending to identify these districts with the Babylonian Mesopotamia. This, however, may be doubted. There was a Syrian Mesopotamia known to the ancients, as well as that between the Tigris and the Euphrates (see Mela, De situ Orbz:r, i. I /), and that it is to this that the LXX, translators refer in the case before us appears probable, 1. from their expressly stating that it was the Syrian Meso potamia (Ex 1-43s Meo-otrorap.tas Zuplas) from which Rebecca, the daughter of Laban the Syrian, came to be the wife of Isaac (Gen. xxv. zo) ; 2. from their rendering Aram-Naharaim in Judg. iii. 8, to, by f,trpla roral.ciDy, Syria of the rivers; and 3. from their calling the place to which Jacob went for a wife ram, Evpfas, the fain of Syria (Hos. xii. 12), by which they doubtless intended the Ager Damas cenus of the classical writers (Plin. N. H., v. 13). Why this country should be called Mesopotamia, or Syria of the rivers, will be at once seen by observing its position between the Abana and the Pharpar. To Dr. Tilstone Beke is due the credit of having first suggested that we are to seek the Aram Na haraim and the Padan-Aram of the Bible in this district. His reasons for this were first presented
in his Origins p. 123, ff., and have since been urged by him in various publications. They rest chiefly on the identification of the Haran of the Bible with the Harrdn-el-Awamed, or Hal-rein of the Pillars, a village four hours east of Damas cus, first brought to notice by Mr. Porter, and mentioned by him in Five Years in Damascus, i. 376. If this identification can be established, Dr. Beke's opinion as to the position of Aram-Naharaim and Padan-Aram will hardly admit of question. Dr. Beke has recently visited the place, and traversed the ground from Harran to Gilead, along the sup posed route of Jacob when he fled from Laban. His notes, whic are printed in the Yournal of the Geographical Society for 1862, are full of interest, and have tended to confirm his opinion in the judg ment of several who were previously disposed to pass it by as fanciful.
In the address of Stephen (Acts viii. 2) Meso potamia proper is mentioned as the seat of the family of Terah when Abraham left it to settle at Haran. This, as Dr. Beke has noticed, is proof of itself that the Haran of the Bible was not in Mesopotamia proper, and therefore is incorrectly identified by Jerome with the city Charra, beyond Edessa (Onamast., s. v. Charran). The principal ancient accounts of the Babylonian Mesopotamia are to be found in Quintus Curtius, v. I ; Strabo, xvi. p. 766 ; Ptolemy, v. IS ; Pliny, v, 2. 4; vi. 9.
For modern accounts see Pococke, Descr. of the East, ii. I. 17 ; Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabie, p. 300, ff. ; Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, ch. xiv. xv. See also ARAM and HARAN in this work.- W. L. A.