Introduction/Definition

The Decapolis (“ten cities”) was a group of Greco-Roman cities in the southern Levant, in today’s Jordan, Syria, and Israel (Bietenhard 1977; Isaac 1981; Hoffmann and Kerner 2002; Lichtenberger 2003). Several cities are attributed to the Decapolis, among them Damascus, Canatha, Dion, Adraa, Gadara, Hippos, Abila, Capitolias, Gerasa, Philadelphia, Pella, and Nysa-Scythopolis. 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. With the Roman conquest of Syria by Pompey in 64 BCE, the cities were attached to the new provincia Syria and were backed by Rome.

Probably in this time, the term “Decapolis” was created, and several cities counted back their civic eras to Pompey’s conquest. The cities did not form a territorial unit, and they also were not connected directly with other territories of the provincia Syria. Between them and the northern and coastal parts of the province, tribal and less-Hellenized political entities were positioned (e.g., Judaea, Nabataea, Ituraea), and it was probably due to the Decapolis’ Greek orientation that its cities were supported by Hellenistic rulers and later by Rome.

The Hellenized profile of the Decapolis probably resulted from pre-Hellenistic and early Hellenistic Greek influence conveyed from the Phoenician coast (Lichtenberger 2011, 2014).

Key Issues/Current Debates

Some of the Decapolis’ cities have yielded rich Bronze and Iron Age finds (such as Philadelphia and Scythopolis), and according to literary sources, Damascus was an important Achaemenid settlement. However, a direct continuity to the Hellenistic and Roman periods is difficult to establish. Although from literary sources we are well informed about the importance of the cities already in the Hellenistic period, little archaeological evidence for Hellenistic settlements is available yet (Thiel 2007).

Mainly Gerasa (Camp Hill and Sanctuary of Zeus), Gadara (acropolis), and Nysa-Scythopolis (Tell Istabba) have provided some Hellenistic finds. These finds predominantly stem from the second century BCE, and they seem to be related to Seleucid activities. At that time, many cities received Seleucid dynastic names (Seleucia, Antioch), and the cult of Zeus Olympios, the protector deity of Antiochus IV, was introduced (Lichtenberger 2008).

Only under the Pax Romana can a thorough urbanization be observed and traced in the archaeological record. Starting in the late first century BCE, the cities expanded and erected civic monuments typical for Greco-Roman cities (Seyrig 1959; Segal 1997; Ohlig 2008). Several temples, theaters, baths, hippodromes, colonnaded streets, nymphaea, city gates, etc. were built, and the cities had the urban fabric of typical Greco-Roman cities. Especially the Antonine age, starting with the visit of the emperor Hadrian to the Decapolis was a period of urban blossom, and cities like Gerasa experienced large-scale building projects such as the monumental complex of the Artemision with terracing, forecourts, and several propylaea (Kraeling 1938; Zayadine 1986; Kennedy 2007; Lichtenberger and Raja 2017).

The cities were decorated with imported marble sculptures, and the language of the inscriptions mainly was Greek with only some Latin exceptions. The cities issued coins. Damascus was already a mint under the Seleucids, and civic bronze coins were given out in some of the cities starting in the first century BCE and ending in the third century CE (Spijkerman 1978; Lichtenberger 2003).

Most of the cities only minted coins in the Antonine/Severan period. The coins are a prime source for the reconstruction of the civic life in the Roman period as they display local deities and myths as well as civic buildings (Stein 1990; Lichtenberger 2003; Riedl 2005). We learn from them that, in the second and third centuries CE, the cities emphasized their Greek and Roman descent, although at the same time, it is obvious that some of their cults and deities are of Semitic origin and only superficially Hellenized (Lichtenberger 2014). This however is not a contradiction, but it fits well into the civic culture in the Greek East under Roman rule: the cities propagated their Greek origins and their local specifics.

Such a cultural orientation is of interest as it demonstrates that the cities were not simply Greco-Roman cities as opposed to indigenous settlements, but they themselves were clearly embedded into the Semitic environment, being Hellenized and Romanized. Local sculpture in the Decapolis was dependent on the stone material available (Weber 2002). Especially limestone and basalt were used for local production. There is a rich corpus of tombstones with portraits (e.g., Gadara), and there are several local productions of limestone sarcophagi (e.g., Gerasa). In some cities of the Decapolis, Roman underground chamber tombs with arcosolia and sometimes loculi were found.

In Abila and Capitolias, many of the tombs were lavishly decorated with paintings (Barbet and Vibert-Guigue 1994). The hinterlands (chorai) of the cities of the Decapolis have been only little investigated yet. Some of the cities had large territories with extra-urban sanctuaries and smaller rural settlements with agricultural installations (Moors 1992). The mostly semiarid environment of the transition zone of the Arabian Desert and the Mediterranean climate belt was suitable for agriculture. In today’s northwestern Jordan, sophisticated water supply systems, dating to the Roman period, have been uncovered (Ohlig 2008).

In late antiquity, many churches were built in the cities of the Decapolis, such as in Gerasa, Gadara, Abila, and Philadelphia. These churches were extensively decorated with polychrome mosaics. Pagan temples went into decay or were transformed and reused by Christians (March 2008). In Gerasa, the classical city was transformed, and urban spaces were used by churches and ecclesiastical buildings. This period in general is a period of urban growth, concentration, and extension of civic and rural settlements. The settlement intensity in this period reaches its peak. Glass and imitations of fine wares (“Jerash bowls”) were produced locally in the Byzantine period. With the Muslim conquest of the Levant in CE 636/640, the Byzantine period ends, but the material culture (e.g., pottery) changed only very slowly in the Umayyad period, and the transition is difficult to identify (Avni 2014).

Cross-References