Editing Decapolis (section)

==History==
===Hellenistic period===
[[File:בית_שאן_סקיתופוליס.jpg|thumb|Roman theatre and cardo of Scythopolis ([[Beit She'an]], Israel)]]
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. Some were established under the [[Ptolemaic dynasty]] which ruled Judea until 198 BC. Others were founded later, when the [[Seleucid Empire]] ruled the region. Some of the cities included "Antiochia" or "Seleucia" in their official names (''Antiochia Hippos'', for example), which attest to Seleucid origins. The cities were Greek from their founding, modeling themselves on the Greek [[polis]].

In 63 BC, the Roman general [[Pompey]] conquered the eastern Mediterranean. The people of the Hellenized cities, who were under the rule of the Jewish [[Hasmonean dynasty|Hasmonean Kingdom]],<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Millar |first=Fergus |title=The Roman Near East: 31 BC–AD 337 |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-674-77886-3 |edition= |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |pages=39 |chapter=For the moment it is enough to recall that when Pompey had acquired the area for Rome in the 60s, he had made a deliberate point of liberating all those cities in this area which had been under Jewish rule (following conquests by the Hasmoneans), and had made them part of the province of Syria. |quote=}}</ref> welcomed Pompey as a liberator. When Pompey reorganized the region, he awarded a group of these cities with autonomy under Roman protection; this was the origin of the Decapolis. For centuries the cities based their [[calendar era]] on this conquest: 63 BC was the epochal year of the [[Pompeian era]], used to count the years throughout the Roman and Byzantine periods.

===Autonomy under Rome===
Under Roman rule, the cities of the Decapolis were not included in the territory of the [[Herodian kingdom]], its successor states of the [[Herodian tetrarchy]], or the [[Judea (Roman province)|Roman province of Judea]]. Instead, the cities were allowed considerable political autonomy under Roman protection. Each city functioned as a polis or [[city-state]], with jurisdiction over an area of the surrounding countryside. Each minted its own coins. Many coins from Decapolis cities identify their city as "autonomous," "free," "sovereign," or "sacred"—terms that imply some sort of self-governing status.<ref name="auto">{{cite book |last=Mare |first=Harold W. |editor-first=David Noel |editor-last=Freedman |title=Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible |publisher=William B. Eerdman's Publishing Company |date=2000 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/eerdmansdictiona0000unse/page/333 333–334] |chapter=Decapolis |isbn=0-8028-2400-5 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/eerdmansdictiona0000unse/page/333 }}</ref>

[[Image:Jerash BW 12.JPG|thumb|The oval [[Forum (Roman)|forum]] and [[cardo]] of Gerasa ([[Jerash]], Jordan)]]
The Romans left their cultural stamp on all of the cities. Each one was eventually rebuilt with a Roman-style grid of streets based around a central [[cardo]] and/or [[decumanus]]. The Romans sponsored and built numerous temples and other public buildings. The [[Roman imperial cult|imperial cult]], the worship of the Roman emperor, was a very common practice throughout the Decapolis and was one of the features that linked the cities. A small open-air temple or façade, called a [[kalybe (temple)|kalybe]], was unique to the region.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Segal |first=Arthur |date=2001 |title=The "Kalybe Structures" : Temples for the Imperial Cult in Hauran and Trachon: An Historical-architectural Analysis |journal=Assaph: Studies in Art History |publisher=Tel Aviv University |volume=6 |pages=91–118 }}</ref>
[[File:The Decapolis at the time of Plinus t.E. and before 106 A.D..jpg|alt=The Decapolis at the time of Plinus t.E. and before 106 A.D|thumb|'''The Decapolis at the time of Plinus t.E. and before 106 A.D''']]
The cities may also have enjoyed strong commercial ties, fostered by a network of new [[Roman roads]]. This has led to their common identification today as a "federation" or "league". The Decapolis was probably never an official political or economic union; most likely it signified the collection of city-states which enjoyed special autonomy during early Roman rule.<ref>"Decapolis" in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East. Ed. Eric M. Meyers, S. Thomas Parker. Oxford Biblical Studies Online. Nov 14, 2016.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://ww1.oxfordbiblicalcstudies.com/?subid1=567cc02c-706c-11e9-83ad-a6e1c2575d0f|title=oxfordbiblicalcstudies.com|website=ww1.oxfordbiblicalcstudies.com|access-date=2019-05-07|archive-date=9 May 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190509110923/http://ww1.oxfordbiblicalcstudies.com/%3Fsubid1%3D567cc02c-706c-11e9-83ad-a6e1c2575d0f|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The [[New Testament]] gospels of [[Gospel of Matthew|Matthew]], [[Gospel of Mark|Mark]], and [[Gospel of Luke|Luke]] mention that the Decapolis region was a location of the [[ministry of Jesus]]. According to {{Bibleverse||Matthew|4:23-25|NKJV}} the Decapolis was one of the areas from which Jesus drew his multitude of [[Disciple (Christianity)|disciples]], attracted by His "healing all kinds of sickness". The Decapolis was one of the few regions where Jesus travelled in which [[Gentile]]s were in the majority: most of Jesus' ministry focused on teaching to Jews. [[Mark 5]]:[[Legion (demon)|1-10]] emphasizes the Decapolis' gentile character when Jesus encounters a herd of pigs, an animal forbidden by [[Kashrut]], the Jewish dietary laws. A [[Exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac|demon-possessed man]] healed by Jesus in this passage asks to be included among the disciples who traveled with Jesus; but Jesus does not permit him, as he wanted him to tell his friends what the Lord had done and instructs him to remain in the Decapolis region.<ref>{{Bibleverse||Mark|5:18-20|NKJV}}</ref>

===Direct Roman rule===
[[File:Dioecesis Orientis 400 AD.png|thumb|250px|The provinces of the East in the year 400]]
The Decapolis came under direct Roman rule in AD 106, when [[Arabia Petraea]] was annexed during the reign of the emperor [[Trajan]]. The cities were divided between the new province and the provinces of [[Roman Syria|Syria]] and [[Judea (Roman province)|Judea]].<ref name="auto"/> In the later Roman Empire, they were divided between [[Arabia Petraea|Arabia]] and [[Palaestina Secunda]], of which Scythopolis served as the provincial capital; while Damascus became part of [[Phoenice (Roman province)|Phoenice Libanensis]]. The cities continued to be distinct from their neighbors within their provinces, distinguished for example by their use of the [[Pompeian era|Pompeian calendar era]] and their continuing Hellenistic identities. However, the Decapolis was no longer a unit of administration.

The Roman and [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] Decapolis region was influenced and gradually taken over by [[Christianity]]. Some cities were more receptive than others to the new religion. Pella was a base for some of the earliest church leaders ([[Eusebius]] reports that the [[Apostle|apostles]] fled there to escape the [[First Jewish–Roman War]]). In other cities, paganism persisted long into the Byzantine era. Eventually, however, the region became almost entirely Christian, and most of the cities served as seats of [[bishop]]s.

Most of the cities continued into the late Roman and Byzantine periods. Some were abandoned in the years following Palestine's conquest by the [[Rashidun Caliphate]] in 641, but other cities continued to be inhabited long into the Islamic period.