Decapolis - Hellenistic Era

Hellenistic Era

Except for Damascus, the Decapolis cities were by and large founded during the Hellenistic period, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE and the Roman conquest of Coele-Syria, including Judea in 63 BCE. Some were established under the Ptolemaic dynasty which ruled Judea until 198 BCE. Others were founded later, when the Seleucid dynasty ruled the region. Some of the cities included "Antiochia" or "Seleucia" in their official names (Antiochia Hippos, for example), which attest to Seleucid origins. The cities were Greek from their founding, modeling themselves on the Greek polis.

The Decapolis was a region where two cultures interacted: the culture of the Greek colonists and the indigenous Semitic culture. There was some conflict. The Greek inhabitants were shocked by the Semitic practice of circumcision, while various elements of Semitic dissent towards the dominant and assimilative nature of Hellenic civilization culminated gradually in the face of assimilation.

At the same time, there was also some cultural blending and borrowing in the Decapolis region. The cities acted as centers for the diffusion of Greek culture. Some local deities began to be called by the name Zeus, from the chief Greek god. Meanwhile, in some cities Greeks began worshipping these local "Zeus" deities alongside their own Zeus Olympios. There is evidence that the colonists adopted the worship of other Semitic gods, including Phoenician deities and the chief Nabatean god, Dushara (worshipped under his Hellenized name, Dusares). The worship of these Semitic gods is attested to in coins and inscriptions from the cities.

During Hellenistic times the cities were clearly distinct from the surrounding region by their practice of Greek culture; Josephus names several of them in a list of Gentile cities in Judea before the Roman conquest. The term "Decapolis" may have already been used to identify these cities during the Hellenistic period. The term, however, is mostly associated with the period after the Roman conquest in 63 BCE.

The Roman general Pompey conquered Judea in that year. The people of the Decapolis cities welcomed Pompey as a liberator from the Jewish Hasmonean kingdom that had ruled much of the area. For centuries the cities based their calendar era on this conquest: 63 BCE was the epochal year of the Pompeian era, used to count the years throughout the Roman and Byzantine periods. It is from this time that historians identify the region and the cities with the term "Decapolis."