Elis was divided into three districts—Hollow or Lowland Elis κοίλη Ηλιs), Pisatis, or the territory of Pisa, and Triphylia, or the country of the three tribes. Hollow Elis, the largest and most northern of the three, was watered by the Peneus and its tributary the Ladon, whose united stream forms the modern Gastuni. It included not only the champaign country originally designated by its name, but also the mountainous region of Acrorea, occupied by the offshoots of Erymanthus. Besides the capital city of Elis, it contained Cyllene, an Arcadian settlement on the sea coast, whose inhabitants worshipped Hermes under the phallic symbol, Pylus at the junction of the Peneus and the Ladon, which, like so many other places of the same name, claimed to be the city of Nestor, and the fortified frontier town of Lasion, the ruins of which are still visible at Kuti, near the village of Kumani. The district was famous in antiquity for its cattle and horses; and its byssus, supposed to have been introduced by the Phoenicians, was inferior only to that of Palestine. Pisatis extended south from Hollow Elis to the right bank of the Alpheus, and was divided into eight departments called after as many towns. Of these Salmone, Heraclea, Cicysion, Dyspontium, and Harpina are known,—the last being the reputed burial-place of Marmax, the deliverer of Hippodamia. From the time of the early investigators it has been disputed whether Pisa, which gave its name to the district, has ever been a city, or was only a fountain or a hill. By far the most important spot in Pisatis was the scene of the great Olympic games, on the northern bank of the Alpheus; but for details in regard to the locality, and the results of the explorations commenced in 1875, the reader must be referred to the special article Olympia. Triphylia stretches south from the Alpheus to the Neda, which forms the boundary towards Messenia. Of the nine towns mentioned by Polybius, only two attained to any considerable influence— Lepreus and Macistus, which gave the names of Lepreatis and Macistia to the southern and northern halves of Triphylia. The former was the seat of a strongly independent population, and continued to take every opportunity of resisting the supremacy of the Eleans. In the time of Pausanius it was in a very decadent condition, and possessed only a poor brick-built temple of Demeter; but considerable remains of its outer walls are still in existence near the village of Strovitzi, on a part of the Minthe range.

The original inhabitants of Elis were called Caucones and Paroreatae. From traces of the worship of Venus in the city of Elis, and from the presence of such names as Same and lardanus, it is believed that the Phoenicians had settlements in the country at a very remote period. The inhabitants of Elis first appear in Grecian history under the title of Epeans, as setting out for the Trojan war, and they are described by Homer as living in a state of constant hostility with their neighbours the Pylians. At the close of the eleventh century b.c., the Dorians invaded the Peloponnesus, and Elis fell to the share of Oxylus and the Aetolians. These people, amalgamating with the Epeans, formed a powerful kingdom in the north of Elis. After this many changes took place in the political distribution of the country, till at length it came to acknowledge only three tribes, each independent of the others. These tribes were the Epeans, Minyae, and Eleans. Before the end of the eighth century b.c., however, the Eleans had vanquished both their rivals, and established their supremacy over the whole country. Among the other advantages which they thus gained was the right of celebrating the Olympic games, which had formerly been the prerogative of the Pisans. The attempts which this people made to recover their lost privilege, during a period of nearly two hundred years, ended at length in the total destruction of their city by the Eleans. From the time of this event (572 b.c. ) till the Peloponnesian war, the peace of Elis remained undisturbed. In that great contest Elis sided at first with Sparta; but that power, jealous of the increasing prosperity of its ally, availed itself of the first pretext to pick a quarrel. At the battle of Mantinea the Eleans fought against the Spartans, who, as soon as the war came to a close, took vengeance upon them by depriving them of Triphylia and the towns of the Acrorea. The Eleans made no attempt to re-establish their authority over these places, till the star of Thebes rose in the ascendant after the battle of Leuctra. It is not unlikely that they would have effected their purpose had not the Arcadian confederacy come to the assistance of the Triρhylians. In 366 b.c. hostilities broke out between them, and though the Eleans were at first successful, they were soon overpowered, and their capital very nearly fell into the hands of the enemy. Unable to make head against their opponents, they applied for assistance to the Spartans, who invaded Arcadia, and forced the Arcadians to recall their troops from Elis. The general result of this war was the restoration of their territory to the Eleans, who were also again invested with the right of holding the Olympic games. During the Macedonian supremacy in Greece they sided with the victors, but refused to tight against their countrymen. After the death of Alexander they renounced the Macedonian alliance. At a subsequent period they joined the Aetolian League, but persistently refused to identify themselves with the Acliaeans. When the whole of Greece fell under the Roman yoke, the sanctity of Olympia secured for the Eleans a certain amount of indulgence. The games still continued to attract to the country large numbers of strangers, until they were finally put down by Theodosius in 391, two years previous to the utter destruction of the country by the Gothic invasion under Alaric. In later times Elis fell successively into the hands of the Franks and the Venetians, under whose rule it recovered to some extent its ancient prosperity. By the latter people the province of Belvedere on the Peneus was called, in consequence of its fertility, “the milch cow of the Morea.”

Elis, the chief city in the above country, was situated on the river Peneus, just where it passes from the mountainous district of Acrorea into the champaign below. According to native tradition, it was originally founded by Oxylus, the leader of the Aetolians, whose statue stood in the market-place. In 471 b.c. It received a great extension by the incorporation, or “synoikismos,” of various small hamlets, whose inhabitants took up their abode in the city.

Up to this date it only occupied the ridge of the hill now called Kalascopi, to the south of the Peneus, but afterwards it spread out in several suburbs, and even to the other side of the stream. As all the athletes who intended to take part in the Olympic games were obliged to undergo a month’s training in the city, its gymnasiums were among its principal institutions. They were three in number—the “Xystos,” with its pillared galleries, its avenues of plane-trees, its plethrion or wrestling-place, its altars to Hercules, to Eros and Anteros, to Demeter and Cora, and its cenotaph of Achilles; the “Tetragonon,” appropriated to the lighter exercises, and adorned with a statue of Zeus; and the “Maltho,” in the interior of which was a hall or council chamber called Lalichmion after its founder. Among the other objects of interest were the temple of Artemis Philomirax; the Hellanodicaeum, or office of the Hellano-dicasts; the Corcyrean Hall, a building in the Dorian style with two façades, built of spoils from Corcyra; a temple of Apollo Acesius; a temple of Silenus; an ancient structure supported on oaken pillars and reputed to be the burial place of Oxylus; the building where the sixteen women of Elis were wont to weave a robe for the statue of Hera at Olympia; and the shrine of Dionysus, whose festival, the Thyia, was yearly celebrated in the neighbourhood. The history of the town is closely identified with that of the country. In 399 b.c. it was occupied by Agis, king of Sparta. The acropolis was fortified in 312 by Telesphorus, the admiral of Antigonus, but it was shortly afterwards dismantled by Philemon, another of his generals. A view of the site is given by Stanhope.

See J. Spencer Stanhope, Olympia and Elis, 1824, folio; Leake, Morea, 1830; Curtius, Peloponnesus, 1851-2; Schiller, Stämme und Staaten Griechenlands; Bursian, Geographie von Griechenland, 1868-1872.

Though the duration of Elisha ’ 3 career, with the approximate dates of its beginning and end, can be fixed, it is impossible to settle a detailed chronology of his life. In most of the events narrated no further indication of time is given than by the words “the king of Israel,” the name not being specified, so that it is impossible to tell which king is meant. There are two instances at least in which the order of time is obviously the reverse of the order of narrative (compare 2 Kings viii. 1-6 with 2 Kings v. 27, and 2 Kings xiii. 14-21 with 2 Kings xiii. 13). There are besides this other grounds, which it would be out of place to state here, for concluding that the narrative as we now have it has been disarranged and is incomplete. The fact, however, of dislocation and probable mutilation of the original documents requires to be borne in mind in dealing with the life of Elisha. It may serve not only to explain the insuperable difficulties of a detailed chronology, but also to throw some light on the altogether exceptional character of the miraculous element in Elisha’s history. Not only are the miracles very numerous, even more so than in the case of Elijah, but, as has been frequently pointed out, they stand in a different relation to the man and his work from that in which the miracles of Elijah or any of the wonder-working prophets do. With all the other prophets the primary function is spiritual teaching,— miracles, even though numerous and many of them symbolical like Elisha’s, are only accessory. With Elisha, on the other hand, miracles seem the principal function, and the spiritual teaching is altogether subsidiary.

An obvious though only very partial explanation of the superabundance of miracles in Elisha’s life is suggested by the fact that several of them were merely repetitions or doubles of those of his master and predecessor. Such were his first miracle, when returning across the Jordan he made a dry path for himself in the same manner as Elijah (2 Kings ii. 14); the increase of the widow’s pot of oil (2 Kings iv. 1-7); and the restoration of the son of the woman of Shunem to life (2 Kings iv. 18-37). It is to be observed, however, that with all the similarity there is a very considerable difference in the circumstances in the two cases, which makes it difficult to accept the theory that stories from the earlier life have been imported by mistake into the later. Besides, this theory, even if tenable, applies only to three of the miracles, and leaves unexplained a much larger number which are not only not repetitions of those of Elijah, but, as has already been pointed out, have an entirely opposite character. The healing of the water of Jericho by putting salt in it (2 Kings ii. 19-21), the provision of water for the army of Jehoshaphat in the arid desert (2 Kings iii. 6-20), the neutralizing by meal of the poison in the pottage of the famine-stricken sons of the prophets at Jericho (2 Kings iv. 38-41), the healing of Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings v. 1-19), and thecausing the iron axehead that had sunk in the water to rise to the surface (2 Kings vi. 1-7), are all instances of the beneficence which was the general characteristic of Elisha’s wonder-working activity in contrast to that of Elijah. Another miracle of the same class, the feeding of a hundred men with twenty loaves so that something was left over (2 Kings iv. 42-44), deserves mention by itself as the most striking though not the only instance of a resemblance between the work of Elisha and that of Jesus, to which commentators have frequently drawn attention. The one distinct exception to the general beneficence of Elisha’s activity—the destruction of the forty-two children who mocked him as he was going up to Bethel (2 Kings ii. 23-25)—presents an ethical difficulty which is scarcely satisfactorily removed by the suggestion that the narrative has lost some particulars which would have shown the real enormity of the offence of the children. The leprosy brought upon Gelιazi (2 Kings v. 20-27), though a miracle of judgment, scarcely belongs to the same clas3 as the other. The wonder-working power of Elisha is represented as continuing even after his death. As the feeding of the hundred men and the cure of leprosy connect his work with that of Jesus, so the quickening of the dead man who was cast into his sepulchre by the mere contact with his bones (2 Kings xiii. 21) is the most striking instance of an analogy between his miracles and those recorded of mediaeval saints. Stanley in reference to this has remarked that in the life of Elisha “alone in the sacred history the gulf betweeu biblical and ecclesiastical miracles almost disappears.”

The place which Elisha filled in the history of Israel during his long career as a prophet was, apart altogether from his wonder-working, one of great influence and importance. In the natural as in the supernatural sphere of his activity the most noteworthy thing is the contrast between him and his predecessor. Elijah interfered in the history of his country as the prophet of exclusiveness, Elisha as the prophet of comprehension. During the reign of Jehoram he acted at several important crises as the king’s divine counsellor and guide. At the first of these, when he delivered the army that had been brought out against Moab from a threatened dearth of water (2 Kings iii.), he plainly intimates that, but for his regard to Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, who was in alliance with Israel, he would not have interfered. His next signal interference was during the incursions of the Syrians, when he disclosed the plans of the invaders to Jehoram with such effect that they were again and again (“not once nor twice ”) baffled (2 Kings vi. 8-23). When Benhadad, the king of Syria, is informed that “Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bed-chamber,” he at once sends an army to Dothan, where the prophet is residing, in order to take captive the destroyer of his plans. At the prayer of Elisha an army of horses and chariots of fire is revealed to his servant surrounding the prophet. At a second prayer the invaders are struck blind, and in this state they are led by Elisha to Samaria, where their sight is restored. Their lives are spared at the command of the prophet, and they return home so impressed with the supernatural power that is opposed to them that their incursions thenceforward cease. The marauding incursions were given up, however, only to be followed by the invasion of a regular army under Benhadad, which laid siege to Samaria, and so caused a famine of the severest kind (2 Kings vi. 2 4-29). The calamity was imputed by Jehoram to the influence of Elisha, and he ordered the prophet to be immediately put to death. Forewarned of the danger, Elisha ordered the messenger who had been sent to slay him to be detained at the door, and, when immediately afterwards the king himself came (“messenger” in 2 Kings vi. 33 should rather be king), predicted a great plenty within twenty-four hours. The apparently incredible prophecy was fulfilled by the flight of the Syrian army under the circumstances stated in 2 Kings vii. After the episode with regard to the woman of Shunem (2 Kings viii. 1-6), which, as has been already pointed out, is introduced out of its chronological order, Elisha is represented as at Damascus (2 Kings viii. 7-15). The object for which he went to the Syrian capital is not expressly stated, but it evidently was to fulfil the second command laid upon Elijah, viz., to anoint Hazael as king of Syria. The reverence with which the heathen monarch Benhadad addressed Elisha deserves to l<e noted as showing the extent of the prophet’s influence. In sending to know the issue of his illness, the king causes himself to be styled “Thy son Benhadad.” Equally remarkable is the very ambiguous nature of Elisha’s reply (2 Kings viii. 10), which may, however, be due to the doubtful state of the Hebrew text. The next and, as it proved, the last important interference of Elisha in the history of his country, constituted the fulfilment of the third of the commands laid upon Elijah. The work of anointing Jehu to be king over Israel was performed by deputy, as related in 2 Kings ix 1-3. During the reigns of Jehu and Jehoahaz the Scripture narrative contains no notice of Elisha, but from the circumstances of his death (2 Kings xiii. 14-21) it is clear that he had continued to hold the office and receive the honours of a prophet. Joash the king waited on him on his deathbed, and addressed him in the same words of profound reverence and regret which he himself had used to Elijah: “Oh my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.” By the result of a symbolic discharge of arrows he informed the king of his coming success against Syria, and immediately thereafter he died. It seems fitly to complete the contrast between him and his greater predecessor to be told expressly that “he was buried.” The miracle wrought at his tomb has been already noticed.

Elisha is canonized in the Greek Church, his festival being on the 14th June, under which date his life is entered in the Acta Sanctorum.

Elisha sent one of the sons of the prophets to anoint Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, and grandson of Nimshi, to be king, in pursuance of an order given to Elijah some years before; and Jehu having received the royal unction, executed every thing that had been foretold by Elijah against Ahab’s family, and against Jezebel. Elisha falling sick, Joash, king of Israel, came to visit him, and said, “O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.” Elisha desired the king to bring him a bow and arrows. Joash having brought them, Elisha requested him to put his hands on the bow, and at the same time the prophet put his own hand upon the king’s, and said, Open the window which looks east, and let fly an arrow. The king having done this, Elisha said, This is the arrow of the Lord’s deliverance: thou shalt be successful against Syria at Aphek. Elisha desired him again to shoot, which he did three times, and then stopped. But Elisha with vehemence said, “If thou hadst smitten five or six times, then thou hadst smitten Syria until thou hadst consumed it; whereas now thou shalt smite Syria only thrice.” This is the last prediction of Elisha of which we read in Scripture, for soon after he died; but it was not his last miracle: for, some time after his interment, a company of Israelites, as they were going to bury a dead person, perceiving a band of Moabites making toward them, put the corpse for haste into Elisha’s tomb, and, as soon as it had touched the prophet’s body, it immediately revived; so that the man stood upon his feet: a striking emblem of the life-giving effect of the labours of the servants of God, after they themselves are gathered to their fathers.