or ASKELON (now called Askalan), a chief city of one of the five states of the Philistines, situated on the coast of the Mediterranean between Gaza and Ashdod, 12 geographical miles north of the former, 10 south by west of the latter, and 37 W.S.W. from Jerusalem. Ascalon was assigned to the tribe of Judah, but was never for any length of time in the possession of the Israelites. It afterwards fell successively into the hands of the Greeks, the Romans, and the Arabs. At the period of the first crusade it, as well as Jerusalem, was in the possession of the Khalifs of Egypt. The crusaders having advanced to Jerusalem, a very formidable Egyptian army, composed of Arabs, Turks, and Africans, hastened to defend it. When this army arrived after the capture of the holy city, it halted in a plain near Ascalon, while the Egyptian fleet took up its position along the shore. On receiving intelligence of this, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Tancred, issued out of Jerusalem with all their available forces to attack the enemy. The Christian army was very inferior in numbers to that of the Egyptians, but their former success and the conviction that God was on their side rendered them invincible. The battle was fought on the 15th of August 1099, and the slaughter of the Egyptians is said to have amounted to a fourth part of their whole forces, which consisted of 400,000 men. In the account of this battle given by Tasso in his Jerusalem Delivered, the poet has freely used his license. This signal victory was not followed up as would have been expected by an attack upon Ascalon, so that that city remained in the possession of the Egyptians till 1157, when it was taken by Baldwin III., king of Jerusalem, after a siege of five months. When Saladin had defeated and almost annihilated the Christian army in the plains of Tiberias, in 1187, Ascalon offered but a feeble resistance to his victorious army, surrendering after a siege of four days. Saladin repaired and strengthened its fortifications; but alarmed at the capture of Saint Jean d'Acre by the Crusaders under Richard Coeur de Lion in 1191, he caused Ascalon to be dismantled. From this time Ascalon lost much of its importance, and at length in 1270 its fortifications were totally destroyed by the Sultan Bibars, who filled up its port with stones to prevent its again falling into the hands of the Christians. This sealed the ruin of Ascalon, of which little now remains but the walls and fragments of granite pillars. The situation is described as strong; the thick walls, flanked with towers, were built on the top of a ridge of rock that encircles the town, and terminates at each end in the sea, and the ground within sinks in the manner of an amphitheatre.