Decapolis

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ten cities=deka, ten, and polis, a city, a district on the east and south-east of the Sea of Galilee containing "ten cities," which were chiefly inhabited by Greeks. It included a portion of Bashan and Gilead, and is mentioned three times in the New Testament (Mt 4:25; Mk 5:20; 7:31). These cities were Scythopolis, i.e., "city of the Scythians", (ancient Bethshean, the only one of the ten cities on the west of Jordan), Hippos, Gadara, Pella (to which the Christians fled just before the destruction of Jerusalem), Philadelphia (ancient Rabbath-ammon), Gerasa, Dion, Canatha, Raphana, and Damascus. When the Romans conquered Syria (B.C. 65) they rebuilt, and endowed with certain privileges, these "ten cities," and the province connected with them they called "Decapolis."

This entry includes text from Easton's Bible Dictionary, 1897.

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Decapolis was the name of a region of country in the bounds of the half tribe of Manasseh, mainly on the east of Jordan. It was so called because it included ten cities- the meaning of the word Decapolis in Greek. Geographers generally agree that Scythopolis was the chief of these cities and was the only one of them west of the Jordan; that Hippo, (Hippos,) Gedara, Dion, (or Dios,) Pelea, (or Pella,) Gerasa, (or Gergesa,) Philadelphia and Raphana, (or Raphanae,) were seven of the remaining nine, and the other two were either Kanatha and Capitolias, or Damascus and Otopos. These cities were inhabited chiefly by foreigners (Greeks) in the days of Jesus, and not by Jews.

This entry includes text from Barnes New Testament Notes.

(From Gr. Deka, ten, and polis, city)

Decapolis is the name given in the Bible and by ancient writers to a region in Palestine lying to the east and south of the Sea of Galilee. It took its name from the confederation of the ten cities that dominated its extent. The Decapolis is referred to in the New Testament three times: Mt 4:25; Mk 5:20; vii, 31. Josephus, Ptolemy, Strabo, Pliny, and other ancient geographers and historians make frequent reference to it.

At the disruption of the army of Alexander the Great, after his burial at Sidon, great numbers of his veterans, their occupation gone, settled down to a life of peace. The coast towns being already peopled, many of the Greeks sought homes farther inland. There they either laid out new cities or rebuilt and transformed older ones. In 218 B. C., according to Polybius, several of these towns were looked upon as strong fortresses. As long as the Seleucidæ ruled in the North and the Ptolemies in the South, the influence of the Greeks remained paramount in Syria; but when, with the rise of the Romans, the power of the descendants of Alexander's soldiers weakened, the Greek cities were in sore straits. Especially perilous was the plight of these towns in Palestine after the successful rise of the Machabees. In the years 64-63 B. C., however, Pompey overran Syria and made it a Roman province. The Grecian cities, being regarded as bulwarks of Roman rule against any native uprisings, were granted many favours. They enjoyed the right of coinage, preserved their municipal freedom, and were allowed a certain sway over the near-by country.

It was after Pompey's conquest that the league of the Decapolis was formed. There is no record of the year, and although most likely it was soon after the coming of Pompey, yet it may not have been until Herod's time. The earliest list of the ten cities of the Decapolis is Pliny's, which mentions Scythopolis, Pella, Hippo, Dion, Gerasa, Philadelphia, Raphana, Canatha, and Damascus. Later, Ptolemy enumerates eighteen cities, thus showing that the term Decapolis was applied to a region. The importance of this league was greatly strengthened by the advantageous positions of the principal towns. Scythopolis, the capital of the Decapolis, lay at the head of the plain of Esdraelon, to the west of the Jordan, guarding the natural portal from the sea to the great interior plateau of Basan and Galaad. The other cities were situated to the east of the Jordan on the great routes along which passed the commerce of the whole country. To-day the cities of the Decapolis, with the exception of Damascus, are deserted and in ruins. Yet even in their ruined state they offer a striking contrast to the near-by cities of the Semites. Their temples, theatres and forums built on a lavish scale, give even to this day clear indication of the genius of the people who built them.

Among the cities of the Decapolis of special interest are: Damascus, so often referred to in the Old and New Testament; Gadara, on the Sea of Galilee, whose inhabitants were the Gerasens of the Evangelists &#151 the Gadarenon of one reading of Mt 8:28 &#151 whose swine were driven by the devil into the sea; and Pella, the city in the valley of the Jordan to which the Christians withdrew at the first siege of Jerusalem.

Portions of this entry are taken from The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907.

Name of a district of Palestine that included a number of autonomous cities. According to Pliny ("Historia Naturalis," v. 18, 74) these ten cities were Damascus, Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis, Gadara, Hippos, Dion, Pella, Gerasa, and Canatha. With the exception of Scythopolis (= Beth-Shean) all these cities are east of the Jordan. It is curious that Damascus, which lies much further north, is also included in the Decapolis. Josephus mentions Scythopolis ("B. J." iii. 9, § 7), Philadelphia (ib. ii. 18, § 1), Gadara, and Hippos ("Vita," §§ 65, 74) as in the Decapolis. The "Onomasticon" of Eusebius and Jerome (ed. Lagarde, 251, 89, and 116, 29) describes the Decapolis as situated in Peræa, round about Hippos, Pella, and Gadara, these cities being expressly mentioned, perhaps, because they were more prominent than the others in the history of Christianity; Pella, for example, is known as the home of the first Christian community, and it is also included in the Decapolis by Epiphanius ("Hæreses," i.30, § 2). It is curious that Stephanus Byzantius includes Gerasa (Γέρασα) in a district he calls Τεσσαρεσκάπολις ("Township of Fourteen"), but this is probably a clerical error for "Ten City." Ptolemy (v. 15, §§ 22, 23) places the Decapolis in Cœle-Syria, and enumerates most of the cities mentioned by Pliny, as well as some in the neighborhood of Damascus, eighteen cities in all, and among them Capitolias, founded by Nerva in the year 97 or 98. The city of Abila is mentioned on an inscription ("C. I. G." No. 4501) as being included in the Decapolis.

The population of the Decapolis was chiefly pagan. Scythopolis was attacked by the Maccabeans (2 Macc 12:29), but most of the cities of the Decapolis were not subjugated until the reign of Hyrcanus. Pompey again separated them from the Jewish territory in 63 B.C., and placed them as autonomous cities directly under the government of the legate of Syria. Gadara and Hippos were given to Herod (Josephus, "Ant." xv. 7, § 3; compare 10, § 2); but after his death they were again declared to be free by Augustus, so that Galilee and Perea, the two districts of Herod Antipas' tetrarchy, were separated by the Decapolis. The cities of the Decapolis used the Pompeian era in reckoning dates; were organized entirely along Hellenic lines; had Greek worship and Greek games, and were always hostile to Jews. Pliny (l.c. xv. 4) speaks highly of the small olives of the Decapolis. Jesus had several persons from the Decapolis among his followers (Mt 4:25; Mk 5:20), showing that many Jews were living there. When the Jewish war broke out, the pagans fell upon the Jews, an uprising for which Justus Of Tiberias took bloody revenge. The Talmud speaks often of the pagan population of these cities, the philosopher Oenomaos of Gadara, for instance, being cited; hence several cities mentioned in the Talmud under other names may have been identical with the cities of the Decapolis, as Susitha with Hippos, Peḥla with Pella.

The Decapolis must have existed as a special district in the second century, since the geographer Ptolemy speaks of it as such; when, however, the province of Arabia was organized (106), several of those cities came gradually to be included in that province—for example, Gerasa and Philadelphia (Ammian. Marcell. xiv. 8, § 8), in 295, according to Marquardt ("Staatsverwaltung," i. 277, Leipsic, 1873); the other cities with their territories were probably included a century earlier.

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