11 Facts About Gadara

Gadara, in some texts Gedaris, was an ancient Hellenistic city, for a long time member of the Decapolis city league, a former bishopric and present Latin Catholic titular see.

Gadara was situated in a defensible position on a ridge accessible to the east but protected by steep falls on the other three sides.

Gadara's works have not survived, but were imitated by Varro and by Lucian.

Philodemus of Gadara was born there, later studied under the Epicurean Scholarch Zeno of Sidon in Athens, and went on to teach Epicurean philosophy to the father-in-law of Caesar at the Villa of the Pisos in Herculaneum.

Greek historian Polybius describes Gadara as being in 218 BC the "strongest of all places in the region".

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Gadara was captured and damaged by the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus.

In 63 BC, when the Roman general Pompey placed the region under Roman control, rebuilt Gadara and made it one of the semi-autonomous cities of the Roman Decapolis, and a bulwark against Nabataean expansion.

Gadara came into it and slew all the youth, the Romans having no mercy on any age whatsoever.

Gadara continued to be an important town within the Eastern Roman Empire, and was long the seat of a Christian bishop.

Ancient Gadara was important enough to become a suffragan bishopric of the Metropolitan Archbishopric of Scythopolis, the capital of the Roman province of Palestina Secunda, but it faded with the city after the Muslim conquest.

David Sider notes that Gadara was produced numerous remarkable philosophers, writers and mathematicians, but in spite of that and of being large enough to boast two theatres, it saw all its famous sons move to Greece and Italy in search of career opportunities.