Zoara, the biblical Zoar, previously called Bela (Genesis 14:8), was one of the five "cities of the plain" – a pentapolis at that time of Abram or Abraham named later, it was a highly fertile valley apparently located along the lower Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea plain and mentioned in the Book of Genesis. It was said to have been spared the "brimstone and fire" which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in order to provide a refuge for Lot and his daughters. It is mentioned by Josephus; by Ptolemy (V, xvi, 4); and by Eusebius and Saint Jerome in the Onomasticon.