Hippos / Sussita
[ Hippos] (now Sussita, Israel) was a Hellenistic polis in Transjordan, one of the cities of the Decapolis.
Overview
Born as a Ptolemaic military outpost, Hyppos (Antiochia Hippos) grew into a city under the Seleucids. According to Josephus, Alexander Jannaeus forced the entire population of Hippos to convert to Judaism and be circumcised.
In 63 BCE, after Pompey's conquest, Hyppos was granted a semi-autonomous status as part of the Decapolis. Hyppos maintained such status during the Roman period with a brief parenthesis between 37 and 4 BCE, when the city was given to Herod the Great. The predominantly pagan Hyppos rivaled with the predominantly Jewish Tiberias for the economic control of the See of Galilee.
During the Jewish War, Hippos sided with the Romans and persecuted its Jewish residents.
The second century was the time of greater prosperity and growth. The construction of an a aqueduct allowed a larger population to reside in the city.
Christianity penetrated slowly to Hippos, which only in the 4th century became the seat of a bishop.
The city continued to flourished in the Byzantine period, but its importance declined with the Arab conquest in 641. After the earthquake of 749, the city was abandoned permanently.
Hippos in ancient sources
Hippos in scholarship
Hippos in fiction
Related categories
- Decapolis (Canatha, Damascus, Dion, Gadara, Gerasa, Hippos, Pella, Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis)