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Concept
Decapolis
Summary
The Decapolis (Greek: Dekápolis) was a group of ten Hellenistic cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire in the Southern Levant in the first centuries BC and AD. They formed a group because of their language, culture, religion, location, and political status, with each functioning as an autonomous city-state dependent on Rome. They are sometimes described as a league of cities, although some scholars believe that they were never formally organized as a political unit.
The Decapolis was a center of Hellenistic and Roman culture in a region which was otherwise populated by Jews, Nabataeans and Arameans. In the time of the Emperor Trajan, the cities were incorporated into the provinces of Syria and Arabia Petraea; several cities were later placed in Syria Palaestina and Palaestina Secunda. Most of the Decapolis region is located in modern-day Jordan, except Hippos and Scythopolis (in Israel), Canatha, probably Dion, Raphana and Damascus (in Syria).
The names of the traditional ten cities of the Decapolis come from Pliny's Natural History. They are:
Damascus was further north than the others and so is sometimes thought to have been an "honorary" member. Josephus stated that Scythopolis was the largest of the ten towns. Biblical commentator Edward Plumptre suggested that this is the reason why Damascus was not included in Josephus' list. According to other sources, there may have been as many as eighteen or nineteen Greco-Roman cities counted as part of the Decapolis.
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.
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