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Decapolis, league of 10 ancient Greek cities in eastern Palestine that was formed after the Roman conquest of Palestine in 63 bce, when Pompey the Great reorganized the Middle East to Rome’s advantage and to his own. The name Decapolis also denotes the roughly contiguous territory formed by these.
Except for Scythopolis, Damascus and Canatha, the Decapolis cities were by and large founded during the Hellenistic period, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the Roman conquest of Coele-Syria, including Judea in 63 BC.
- Client state
This particular league seems to have been constituted about the time of Pompey's campaign in Syria, 65 B.C., by which several cities in Decapolis dated their eras. They were independent of the local tetrarchy, and answerable directly to the governor of Syria.
Oct 26, 2020 · The number of cities belonging to the Decapolis varied. One list of cities of the Decapolis is provided by Pliny (NH 5.16.74). The Decapolis first is mentioned in the New Testament (Mk 5:20; Mk 7:31; Mt 4:25). In the Hellenistic period, the cities were supported by Ptolemaic and Seleucid rulers and received civic status.
- Achim Lichtenberger
- lichtenb@uni-muenster.de
Whereas it is on record that two of the Decapolis cities, Hippos and Gadara, were given by Augustus to Herod, it it possible that the League as a defensive unit, did not emerge until after Herod’s death in 4 b.c., but it is as probable that it took shape sixty years earlier—as part of Pompey’s reorganization of the whole of the eastern ...
Jul 23, 2014 · The U.S. Coast Guard led a water evacuation of more than 500,000 people from Manhattan following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center towers in an action that moved more people from the island than the 1940 evacuation of Allied troops from France, according to a new oral history of former USCG commandant, Adm. James Loy.
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.
