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[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Syria | Theatre | Hasmonaeans | Pilgrimage | Pompeius (modern Ǧaraš). City located 34 km north of Ammān. Thanks to a stream with the ancient name of Chrysorrhoas, G. was a place of settlement from the time of the early Stone Age. It is therefore reasonable to assume that a settlement already existed when the Macedonians, mentioned in a Roman inscription, introduced the Greek element ─ contrary to legends that  Alexander [4] the Great,  Perdiccas, or  A…

(Βέροια; Béroia). [German version] [1] In Macedonia This item can be found on the following maps: Christianity | Macedonia, Macedones | Macedonia, Macedones | Education / Culture In Macedonia. Errington, Robert Malcolm (Marburg/Lahn) [German version] A. Hellenistic and Roman periods City in Macedonian  Bottice, east of the Bermium; now Verria. First mentioned in the 5th cent. BC (Thuc. 1,61,4), B. had its development, like many Mac…

[German version] (ἡ Δεκάπολις; hē Dekápolis). Term for a territory comprising a varying number of cities and with a predominantly Greek population, concentrated in northern Trans-Jordan, southern Syria and northern Palestine. Although some towns later to belong to the Dekapolis had already been in existence in pre-Hellenistic times, most of them claimed to have been founded by  Alexander [4] the Great. Archaeological investigations, however, have shown that the development of many towns into urban centres began only under Seleucid an…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Pompeius Town (mod. Quwailibeh) 15 km north-west of Irbid (Jordan). The ruins of A. cover an area of c. 1.5 km × 0.5 km, which comprises two hills, Tell A. and Khirbat Umm al-Amad [1. 1 f.] to the south. The settlement, which had been continuously settled from the 3rd millennium BC to the Ir…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Syria | Theatre | Hasmonaeans | Pilgrimage | Pompeius (modern Umm Qais). Town in north-eastern Transjordania, east of Lake Gennesareth; traces of settlement date back to the 7th cent. BC. After the fall of the Achaemenid kingdom ( Achaemenids), the district of G. came under the control of the Ptolemies for a short period, but became part of the Seleucid kingdom under  Antiochus [5] III in 198 BC. For some time, the name of the town appears on coins as Seleucea or Antioch. Under Roman supremacy from 63 BC, G. was counted as one of the towns of the  Decapolis in the 1st and 2nd cents. AD. In the late imperial period, it held the title of a Roman colony and commanded an extensive hinterland. Archaeological remains indicate G.'s wealth and importance: two temples, two theatres, and two thermae, the fortified acropolis, a street of colonnades, as well as the necropolis with two mausolea. As early as the beginning of the 4th cent. AD, G. had developed into an important Transjordanian Christian centre with an episcopal see and a basilica. However, an…

(Ἀντιόχεια; Antiócheia). [German version] [1] on the Orontes Founded as Antigonea on the Orontes 307 BC, but after the defeat of Antigonus I by Seleucus I Nicator at  Ipsus (301 BC), the town was moved to the site of present-day Antakya (Turkey) in 300 BC, and renamed as A. in honour of the latter's father Antiochus. Capital city of the Seleucid kingdom; it developed under the Seleucids through incorporating numerous settlements into a tetrapolis, each with their own boundary walls. Thanks to its position as a traffic junction in the ancient cultural region of the Amuq plain on one of the most important trade routes and near to the harbour of  Seleuce…

[German version] 1. A. Etymological and conceptual history The term A. as a name for the continent has got a long and ramified history. The term A. (see 3 below) could only be used by the Romans as a description of the continent of A., when the ‘area’ described by the Latin term A. had come to coincide at least in parts with that described by the Greek term Λιβύη ( Libýē) -- but, at the earliest, this happened in the 2nd half of the 3rd cent. BC, i.e. because of the related concepts of ‘Northern A.’ or ‘Punic A.’. Indirectly, via the ‘partial term’, the ‘full term’ for the continent was arrived at, something the Greek word Λιβύη referred to since long before. In literature, the Greek name for the …

[German version] [1] Main town of Cappadocia, modern Kayseri This item can be found on the following maps: Sassanids | Syria | Byzantium | Christianity | Zenobia | | Alexander | Hellenistic states | Hellenistic states | Asia Minor | Limes | Limes | Pompeius | Rome | Rome (Καισάρεια; Kaisáreia, Iranian or cuneiform M…

[German version] (Dāmġān). Town in Iran on the southern foothills of the Alborz, 342 km east of Teheran on the road to Nīšāpūr. The name possibly arose from the contraction of Deh-e Moġān (village of the Magi). The prehistoric antecedent of D. is Tepe Ḥeṣār with layers between the 5th millennium and the early 2nd millennium BC. After a hiatus of 1,500 years…

[German version] (Araq al-Amir). The ruins of I. and Qaṣr al-ʿAbd are located in Wādī al-Sīr, to the west of present-day Amman. From Achaemenid times it was a domain of the  Tobiads (Neh. 2,10; 2,19; 3,33; 3,35). I. consists of two man-made cave galleries, about 300 m in length. Lying above on a plateau, the palace or monument structure with animal reliefs (Qaṣr al-ʿAbd) belonged to the fortification (βάρις) of Tyre of the Tobiad  Hyrcanus [1], founded in 181 BC (Jos. Ant. Iud. 12, 229-234).…

(Πέλλα; Pélla). [German version] [1] City near modern Palea {{?}}Pella This item can be found on the following maps: | Coloniae | Diadochi and Epigoni | Alexander | Hellenistic states | Macedonia, Macedones | Macedonia, Macedones | Peloponnesian War | Persian Wars | Punic Wars | Balkans, languages | Education / Culture From c. 400 BC under Archelaus [1] the residence of Macedonian kings near modern Palea P., in…

(Ἀφροδισίας; Aphrodisías). [German version] [1] City in  Caria This item can be found on the following maps: Theatre | Byzantium | Asia Minor | Marble | Rome | Education / Culture City in  Caria, 38 km south of the Maeander, in the left side valley of the Morsylos (present-day Dandalaz çayı); the modern Geyre. Traces of neolithic and early Bronze Age settlement on the acropolis; old name of Νινόη (Steph. Byz. s. v. Ninoe) preserved in the lo…

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This item can be found on the following maps: Syria | | Coloniae | Commerce | Hasmonaeans | Colonization | Phoenicians, Poeni | Pompeius | Aegean Koine …

This item can be found on the following maps: Theatre | Caesar | Christianity | Africa | Wine | | Coloniae | Africa | Etrusci, Etruria | Commerce | Colonization | Limes | Limes | Pertinax | Phoenicians, Poeni | Pilgrimage | Punic Wars | Punic Wars | Rome | Rome …

(Ἐπιφάνεια; Epipháneia). [German version] [1] City in Cilicia Pedias City in Cilicia Pedias (Ptol. 5,8,7; Steph. Byz. s.v. E., 274 Meineke), previously Oeniandus (Plin. HN 5,93), renamed E. after  Antiochus [6] IV Epiphanes. Road station (Geogr. Rav. 2,16,93; [2. 766]). In AD 260, E. was captured by Šapur I [1. 312f.]. After the restructuring of the province in AD 408, E. was seen as one of the cities of Cilicia II (Hierocles, 705,5). Its ruins (well preserved theatre and aqueduct) are c. 8 km west of Erzin in Gözene/Gözcucler Harabeleri. Sayar, Mustafa H. (Cologne) Bibliography 1 A. …

[German version] Middle Persian xwarsārān, ‘[Land of the] Sunrise, the East’. Nowadays denotes the north-eastern part of Iran, with Mašhad as its administrative centre. In the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period C. included parts of Central Asia and western Afghanistan. It was under the Sassanids that C. first formed one of the four great provincial satrapies; it was ruled by a Spāhpat with his seat in Merv, having jurisdiction over the following districts (Yaqūbī, Tarīḫ I, 201): Nīšāpūr, Harāt…

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[German version] ( Sāmarrā; Theophanes Continuatus 3,36: Σάμαρα/ Sámara). Area of ruins of c. 60 km2 and modern town on the left bank of the Tigris, 100 km north of Baghdad (cf. map). At this site, known since the neo-Assyrian Period (Mesopotamia III D), the emperor Julian [11] the Apostate fell in AD 363 in battle against the Sassanids. It was in this area, mainly inhabited by Nestorians (Nestorius), that the Nahrawān canal, dug in the time of Chosroes [5] Anushirvan (pe…

This item can be found on the following maps: Syria | Theatre | Dead Sea (textual finds) | Hasmonaeans | Pompeius ( Rabbath bnē Ammōn, LXX Ῥαββά/ Rhabbá; Pol. Ῥαβατάμανα/ Rhabatámana, Assyrian bīt ammāna; Philadelphia since the mid 3rd cent. BC; modern Ammān). [German version] I. Through the Persian Period Capital city of the Ammonites (Ammon [2]); the oldest traces of settlement come from the Neolithic Age (7th-6th millennium BC). The earliest im…