Category:Gadara (subject)

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Gadara (now Umm Qais, Jordan) was ancient city in Transjordan, one of the poleis of the Decapolis.

Overview

The area was inhabited since the Late Bronze Age. The first records of ancient Gadara, however, are from the early Hellenistic period. To protect the borders against their Seleucid rivals, the Ptolemies founded Gadara as a military colony at the end of the 4th cent. BCE, but in 218 BCE Antiochus III besieged the city and captured it. In the early first century BCE Gadara was besieged again and destroyed by the Jewish Hasmonaean king Alexander Jannaeus. In 63 BCE Pompey made Gadara one of the poleis of the Decapolis. Even since the city enjoyed a semi-autonomous status, with the only exception of the period between 31 and 4 BCE when its control was bestowed by the Romans to Herod the Great in appreciation for his fight against the Nabateans.

Under Seleucid and Roman rule Gadara prospered as an important center of Hellenistic culture. It was the hometown of the Cynic philosopher Menippus (3rd cent. BCE), the poet Meleager (1st cent. BCE), and the rhetorician Theodoros (14-37 CE). Gadara was also the resort of choice for Romans vacationing in the nearby Himmet Gader Springs. In the Gospels the land of Gadara is the setting of one of the miracle of Jesus of Nazareth.

During the Jewish War, Gadara sided with the Romans. Its territory was devastated by the Jews under the leadership of Justus of Tiberias. In retaliation, the inhabitants of Gadara killed or imprisoned the Jewish residents.

Gadara reached its peak of prosperity in the 2nd century CE. The city still flourished in Christian times, before its decline with the Arab conquest and destruction by earthquakes.