Decapolis
Decapolis ( Greek Δεκάπολις "ten city") denotes ten ancient cities east and south of the Sea of Galilee , between Damascus in the north and Philadelphia (today Amman ) in the south.
After the conquest of the area by Alexander the Great and his Seleucid successors, these cities were founded or re-shaped after the Greek model. They were located in the region called Koilesyria during the Diadoch period , which was long disputed between the Seleucids and Ptolemies .
The emergence of the Decapolis as a political-geographical unit is dated to the first century BC, according to earlier opinion the political changes in the course of the Roman invasion ( Pompey in 64 BC) formed this structure. According to Robert Wenning, on the other hand, in order to preserve their internal autonomy and to avoid submission and administration by the expansive Herodian-ruled Jewish state, these cities voluntarily submitted to the northern Roman province of Syria from 37 AD . This tactic worked. After lengthy battles between the Jewish rulers of the Herodians and the Nabataeans , the Herodians were able to occupy an area east of the Jordan called Perea , which stretched from the Dead Sea to the Decapolis.
In the 2nd century AD, the advantages of autonomy prompted more and more cities in the region to acknowledge that they belonged to the Decapolis. So the Decapolis was not a founding of Pompey, but a later consequence of his conquest of Syria and the creation of the Roman province located there.
Cities
The Decapolis is used in various ancient scripts such as B. mentioned in the New Testament ( Mk 5.20 EU , Mk 7.31 EU , Mt 4.25 EU ).
The oldest list can be found in the natural history of Pliny the Elder († 79 AD). According to this, the cities are:
- Damascus
- Gadara (Umm Qais)
- Hippos (Susita)
- Dion
- Pella
- Raphana
- Kanatha (El-Qanawat)
- Philadelphia (formerly Rabbat-Ammon, capital of Ammon ; now Amman , capital of Jordan )
- Gerasa (Jerash)
- Scythopolis (Bet She'an)
From the 1st century AD, other cities such as Abila and Adraa were also part of the Decapolis. Ptolemy , in his Geography also Lysanias ( Lk 3,1 EU on). In Josephus Decapolis is hardly mentioned as such, but rather some of their cities. Finally, in the 6th century, Stephanos of Byzantium lists 14 cities as belonging to the Decapolis.
literature
- Immanuel Benzinger : Decapolis 2 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IV, 2, Stuttgart 1901, Col. 2415-2417 (outdated).
- Hans Bietenhard : The Syrian Decapolis from Pompey to Trajan. In: Hildegard Temporini , Wolfgang Haase (Hrsg.): Rise and decline of the Roman world. Part 2: Principate. Volume 8: Hildegard Temporini (ed.): Political history. (Provinces and fringe peoples: Syria, Palestine, Arabia). De Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1977, ISBN 3-11-007337-4 , pp. 220-261.
- David F. Graf, Thomas Maria Weber : Peraia and Dekapolis. In: Real Lexicon for Antiquity and Christianity . Volume 27, Delivery 210, Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7772-1511-2 , Sp. 109–147, here: 121–147.
- Adolf Hoffmann , Susanne Kerner (eds.): Gadara - Gerasa and the Dekapolis (= ancient world , special issue; Zabern's illustrated books on archeology ). Von Zabern, Mainz 2002, ISBN 3-8053-2687-4 .
- Achim Lichtenberger : Cults and culture of the Decapolis. Studies of numismatic, archaeological and epigraphic evidence (= treatises of the German Palestine Association. Vol. 29). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-447-04806-9 .
- Frank Rainer Scheck: Jordan. Peoples and cultures between the Jordan and the Red Sea. 5th updated edition. DuMont-Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 2010, ISBN 3-7701-3979-8 , pp. 155–190, pp. 194–204.
- Robert Wenning : The Decapolis and the Nabataeans. In: Journal of the German Palestine Association. Vol. 110, 1994, ISSN 0012-1169 , pp. 1-35, online .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 5.16.74
- ↑ Ptolemy, Geogr. 5,14,18.