Decapolis

[frankq]

This may belong in the IR forum but I saw it from an academic, map-making point of view. It regards just when the Decapolis was fully incorporated into the Empire. Sick of Hasmonean rule, the cities all but rolled out the red carpet to Pompey when he arrived. And they continued semi-autonomous as far as I know through Herod's rule. But after that? Below is the opinion of a Jordanian journalist.

 

 

 

The Decapolis may have existed as a formal unit for 170 years - until the Roman Emperor Trajan annexed Petra and the Nabataean kingdom in south Jordan and northern Arabia in A.D. 106; the cities of the Decapolis were then divided among the newly-created Roman province of Arabia and the province of Syria. And though recent scholarship has tended to see the Decapolis as less of a formal league or confederation and more an arrangement among like-minded, probably autonomous Greco-roman cities - whose contiguous territories formed a single geographic unit - only new evidence can verify what the Decapolis was and why it was formed.

[Ingsoc]

The restoration of the Hellenistic cities in Judea and the formation of the Decapolis was most probably a Roman attempt to counter balance the influence of the Jewish population who were the majority in that area as they saw the Jews as not trust worthy in supporting the Roman rule.

 

I also think it's was an arrangement of common minded cities that was probably not relevant after the decrease in the power of the Jewish population in Judea.

[frankq]

The restoration of the Hellenistic cities in Judea and the formation of the Decapolis was most probably a Roman attempt to counter balance the influence of the Jewish population who were the majority in that area as they saw the Jews as not trust worthy in supporting the Roman rule.

 

I also think it's was an arrangement of common minded cities that was probably not relevant after the decrease in the power of the Jewish population in Judea.

 

 

The question is when Rome fully "officially" incorporated the cities in its empire. I've seen maps as late as 100 AD that have the D inc.'d and others that don't. Spokesmen from the eight cities actually requested of Pompey that he cut the D not only out of the former Hasmonean territories but that he place them under the jurisdiction of the new Syrian proconsul.

 

I'm addressing this of course from a map makers perspective. I think the Jordanian writer's speculation holds true. The region had to wait until there was a radical provincial rearranging by Trajan for it to be inc.'d, despite the fact that it had been pretty much operating inside the Roman economic orbit since 64 BC.

[Ingsoc]

This article make the claim that the Decapolis was strictly a geographic term used to describe a certain region and not any kind of political association.

[Caesar CXXXVII]

Peter Richardson, "Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans" says that the Decapolis were "A loose association of Hellenistic cities" . He based his notion on about 15 works and named them in page 88, note 25 .

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[frankq]

Peter Richardson, "Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans" says that the Decapolis were "A loose association of Hellenistic cities" . He based his notion on about 15 works and named them in page 88, note 25 .

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I'm very familiar with Richardson's book and his often oddball disjointed approach. But a good book for anyone interested in reading up in full on Herod. The issue here, however, was not how tightly woven the Decapolis was politically but when its was incorporated into the empire.

 

Inqsoc---thanks for that Jstor link!

Edited January 26, 2009 by frankq