Lydda / Lod

• SCHOLARLY AND FICTIONAL WORKS: see Category:Lydda (subject)
• ANCIENT SOURCES: see Lydda (sources)

Lydda / Lod (modern Lod, Israel) was a Judean city.

History

The city of Lod is mentioned several times in ancient sources. According to Ezra 2:33, it was one of the cities whose inhabitants returned after the Babylonian captivity.

Little is known of the fate of the city during the Ptolemaic and Seleucid periods, until Jonathan Maccabeus and his brother Simon Maccabeus took control of the city.

Pompey conquered the city in 63 BCE. Julius Caesar in 48 BCe gave Lydda to the Jews, but Cassius in 44 BCE sold the inhabitants, who two years later were set at liberty by Mark Antony. The city was then ruled by Herod the Great.

In the Acts of Apostles (9:32-38), it is the site of Peter's healing of a paralytic man.

During the Jewish War, the Roman proconsul of Syria, Cestius Gallus, razed the town during his failed attempt to regain control of Judea in 66 CE. Lydda was then occupied by Emperor Vespasian in 68 CE.

According to Rabbinic sources, during the Kitos War, the Roman army laid siege to Lydda, where the rebel Jews had gathered under the leadership of Julian and Pappus. Lydda was next taken and many of the Jews were executed; the Talmud often refers to the event as the "slain of Lydda."

In 200 CE, the emperor Septimius Severus established a Roman city there, calling it Colonia Lucia Septimia Severa Diospolis. At that point, most of its inhabitants were not Jewish.

The city continued to flourish in Byzantine and Muslim times and is today a modern city in Israel.

References

• Lydda / The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (1973-1987 Schurer / Vermes), book / 2 (1979)

External links

• Wikipedia