Category:Gerasa (subject)

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Gerasa (now Jerash, Jordan) was an ancient polis in Transjordan.

Overview

The site was inhabited as early as the Neolithic period. The first mention city however appears in the Hellenistic period, as a Seleucid settlement at the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The city was named Antioch on the Chrysorrhoas, the little river by which it is watered.

In 83 BCE, Alexander Jannaeus took possession of the city, although according to Jospehus it was surrounded by a triple wall (Bel I, 4, 8). In Roman times, after the conquest of Pompey, Gerasa became an independent city of Decapolis and an important city of the Roman empire, in which a number of Jews resided.

In the Gospel (Matthew 8:28; Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26, 37) there is question of the country of the Gerasans, but if this name is to be read instead of Gadarenians or Gergesians, the reference is to another locality, Gadara, near the Lake of Tiberias.

In 68 A.D. Vespasian ravaged the country and sacked the city because the Jews were all-powerful there (Bel IV, 9, 1). Simon, the son of Gioras, one of the principal leaders of the rebellious Jews, was born at Gerasa. Gerasa, however, continued to prosper, especially after the conquest of the Nabatean kingdom by Trajan (105 CE) and the establishment of the Province of Arabia. The city's monumental buildings date mainly from the emperors of the second and third centuries. Caracalla granted Gerasa the title of Roman colony.

Gerasa experienced renewed prosperity as a Christian city. The temple of Dionysus was converted into a center of Christian worship and numerous churches were built, one of them on the ruins of a synagogue. We know three Greek Bishops of Gerasa: Exairesius, fourth century; Plancus, 451; Aeneas, who built the church of St. Theodore in the sixth century. The decline of the city was brought about by the Arab invasion (635) and a series of earthquakes.

In 1121 Baldwin II attempted in vain to conquer it, and at the beginning of the thirteenth century the geographer Yakut informs us that it was no longer inhabited. In modern times, several thousand Tcherkesses established themselves amid its ruins.

The city was rediscovered in 1806 by Ulrich Jasper Seetzen, and restoration of the ruins began in 1925.

Today, in spite of ancient and modern destruction, Gerasa is one of the best preserved city of Roman antiquity. Its ramparts, in a state of partial preservation, are still to be seen; also a magnificent triumphal arch, with three openings about 82 feet wide by 29 high; a "naumachia", or circus for naval combats; two theatres; the forum with fifty-fivecolumns still standing; the great colonnade which crosses the city from north to south, and which still retains from 100 to 150 of its columns; several aqueducts; some propylaea; a temple of the Sun, the columns of which are about 40 feet high, and several other temples, baths, etc. Greek and Latin inscriptions are very numerous among the ruins. The ramparts of the city cover a distance of about three miles.