DECAPOLIS.
4. This region contained ten principal cities, as the name signifies. Pliny gives the names Scythopolis (or old Beth-shean), Philadelphia, Raphana, Gadara, Hippos, Dios, Pella, Gerasa, Canatha, and Damascus as constituting the ten. Josephus says Otopos instead of Canatha. The region was inhabited by many foreigners, and hence might have contained more swine than any truly Jewish region. Hence the mention of large numbers of swine in the healing of the demoniac, for among the strictly Jewish districts the keeping of swine would not have been permitted. This district may be described generally as east of the Lake of Gennesaret and of that part of Jordan which is south of the lake as far as Scythopolis or Beth-shean, fifteen miles south of the lake and four miles west of the Jordan. The citiesof the list have not all been identified. Scythopolis, Philadelphia, Gadara, Damascus, and possibly Hippos and Pella, are known, but the district of Decapolis has not yet been satisfactorily defined.
5. Scythopolis we have already described, page 132. Philadelphia was the name given to the present Ammon by Ptolemy Philadelphus. It is a ruin on the high tableland twenty-three miles east of the Jordan and nearly thirty miles northeast of the Dead Sea. It is the old Rabbath-Ammon, the capital of the Ammonites in the time of Moses, Deut. 3:11. Its ruins are very extensive.
6. Damascus is yet an important city fifty-five miles east of the Mediterranean coast, situated on an extensive plain bounded on the north by spurs of the Anti-Lebanon range.
Excavations seem to show that the greater part of Damascus is built upon ancient ruins of the former city. Its population at present (1890) is supposed to be about 125,000. Hippos, another city of the Decapolis, is supposed to have been upon the south shore of the Sea of Galilee; and Pella, whither many Christians fled just before the destruction of Jerusalem, is about three miles east of the Jordan, up in the hills eighteen miles south of the Sea of Galilee.
Decapolis region. The four thousand are fed near the lake, Matt. 15:32; Mark 8:1.
DALMANUTHA. MAGDALA.
7. Dalmanutha is the place which Jesus approachedon his return from the east of the lake to the west, according to Mark 8:10, after feeding the four thousand. Matthew states that he came into the coasts of Magdala. They must have been in the same vicinity. Magdala is now called Mejdel, the village still being inhabited. It is immediately upon the shore, and a little more than three miles north of Tiberias. But between Mejdel and Tiberias there is a spring and a good landing place with some remains. The place is called Ain el-Fuliyeh, and may have had the above name of Dalmanutha, as the soil is richer than that around and shows evidences of a former settlement. The place seems to have assumed in recent times the name Ain Barideh, “the cold spring.”
The boat in crossing evidently landed between these two villages of Dalmanutha and Mejdel.
8. On the shore. The Pharisees again demand a “sign,” or proof, of his authority, Matt. 16:1; Mark 8:11. The former time is recorded in Matt. 12:38.