Alexander the Great’s conquests started a process of Hellenisation in Egypt and Syria that continued for 1,000 years. Paneas was first settled in the Hellenistic period. The Ptolemaic kings, in the 3rd century BC, built a cult centre.
Panias is a spring, today known as Banias, named for Pan, the Greek god of desolate places. It lies close to the “way of the sea” mentioned by Isaiah, along which many armies of Antiquity marched. In the distant past a giant spring gushed from a cave in the limestone bedrock, tumbling down the valley to flow into the Hula marshes. Currently it is the source of the stream Nahal Snir. The Jordan River previously rose from the malaria-infested Hula marshes, but it now rises from this spring and two others at the base of Mount Hermon. The flow of the spring has decreased greatly in modern times. The water no longer gushes from the cave, but only seeps from the bedrock below it.
