Cities
The names of the traditional Ten Cities of the Decapolis come from the Roman historian Pliny the Elder (N.H. 5.16.74). They are:
- Gerasa (Jerash) in Jordan
- Scythopolis (Beth-Shean) in Israel, the only city west of the Jordan River
- Hippos (Hippus or Sussita) in Israel
- Gadara (Umm Qais) in Jordan
- Pella (West of Irbid) in Jordan
- Philadelphia, modern day Amman, the capital of Jordan
- Capitolias (Beit Ras) in Jordan (Dion, Jordan)
- Canatha (Qanawat) in Syria
- Raphana in Jordan
- Damascus, the capital of modern Syria; Damascus was considerably north of the others and so is sometimes thought to have been an "honorary" member.
According to other sources, there may have been as many as eighteen or nineteen Greco-Roman cities counted as part of the Decapolis. For example, Abila is very often cited as belonging to the group.
Read more about this topic: Decapolis
Famous quotes containing the word cities:
“The only phenomenon with which writing has always been concomitant is the creation of cities and empires, that is the integration of large numbers of individuals into a political system, and their grading into castes or classes.... It seems to have favored the exploitation of human beings rather than their enlightenment.”
—Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908)
“Like other cities created overnight in the Outlet, Woodward acquired between noon and sunset of September 16, 1893, a population of five thousand; and that night a voluntary committee on law and order sent around the warning, “if you must shoot, shoot straight up!””
—State of Oklahoma, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The cities of the world are concentric, isomorphic, synchronic. Only one exists and you are always in the same one. It’s the effect of their permanent revolution, their intense circulation, their instantaneous magnetism.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)