Hippos is an
archaeological siteArchaeology or archeology is the science that studies human cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material culture and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, biofacts, and landscapes...
located in
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
on a hill overlooking the
Sea of GalileeThe Sea of Galilee, also Lake of Gennesaret, Lake Kinneret or Sea of Tiberias , is the largest freshwater lake in Israel, being approximately 53 km in circumference, about 21 km long, and 13 km wide. The lake has a total area of 166 km², and a maximum depth of approximately...
. Between the third century BC and the seventh century AD, Hippos was the site of a Greco-Roman city. Besides the fortified city itself, Hippos controlled a small port facility on the lake and an area of the surrounding countryside. Hippos was part of the
DecapolisThe Decapolis was a group of ten cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire in Jordan, Palestine, and Syria. The ten cities were not an official league or political unit, but they were grouped together because of their language, culture, location, and political status...
, or Ten Cities, a group of cities in
RomanThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
Palestine that were culturally tied more closely to
GreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula....
and Rome than to the Middle East.
From above, the plateau on which Hippos is built very vaguely resembles the head and neck of a horse. This is why early Greek settlers named it after the
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
word for horse,
Hippos. The local Aramaic and
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
name,
Sussita, also means horse, and the
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
name,
Qal'at el-Husn, means "Fortress of the Horse." Other names include the alternate spelling
Hippus and the
LatinizedLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
version of the Greek name:
Hippum.
Location
Hippos was built on a flat-topped foothill of the
Golan PlateauThe Golan Heights is a strategic plateau and mountainous region at the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and remains a highly contested land straddling the borders of Syria and Israel. Two-thirds of the area is currently governed by Israel...
350 meters above sea level and 2 kilometers east of the Sea of Galilee, near modern
Kibbutz Ein GevEin Gev is a kibbutz located on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. It falls under the jurisdiction of Emek HaYarden Regional Council...
. The site is just on the Israeli side of the 1949 UN-demarcated border between
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
and
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
. The surrounding
Golan HeightsThe Golan Heights is a strategic plateau and mountainous region at the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and remains a highly contested land straddling the borders of Syria and Israel. Two-thirds of the area is currently governed by Israel...
have been under Israeli control since 1967. Today Hippos is part of a
demilitarized zoneIn military terms, a demilitarized zone is an area, usually the frontier or boundary between two or more military powers , where military activity is not permitted, usually by peace treaty, armistice, or other bilateral or multilateral agreement...
between the Golan Heights and Israel proper.
(See this CIA map of the region.)
Hellenistic period
It is possible that Mount Sussita was occupied before
HellenisticHellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BC to about 146 BC ; note, however that Koine Greek language and Hellenistic philosophy and religion are also indisputably elements of the Roman era till Late Antiquity...
times, but the city of Hippos itself was built by Greek colonists, most likely in the mid-200s BC. During this time,
Coele-SyriaCoele-Syria, traditionally given the meaning 'hollow' Syria, was the region of southern Syria disputed between the Seleucid dynasty and the Ptolemaic dynasty. Rather than limiting the Greek term to the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon, it is often used to cover the entire area south of the river Eleutherus...
served as the battleground between two dynasties descending from Captains of
Alexander the GreatAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
, the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. It is likely that Hippos, on a very defensible site in the north of Coele-Syria, was founded as a border fortress for the Seleucids. Its full name,
Antiochia Hippos (Greek: Αντιόχεια του Ίππου; Latin: Antiocheia ad Hippum), reflects a Seleucid founding.
As the Seleucids took possession of all of Coele-Syria, Hippos grew into a full-fledged
polisA polis -- plural: poleis --is a city, a city-state and also citizenship and body of citizens...
, a
city-stateA city-state is an independent republican country whose territory consists of a city which is not administered as part of another local government....
with control over the surrounding countryside. Antiochia Hippos was improved with all the makings of a Greek polis: a temple, a central market area, and other public structures. The availability of water limited the size of Hellenistic Hippos. The citizens relied on rain-collecting
cisternA cistern is a receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Often cisterns are built to catch and store rainwater...
s for all their water; this kept the city from supporting a very large population.
Hasmonean Period
The Maccabean revolt resulted in an independent
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish kingdom under the
HasmoneanThe Hasmoneans were the ruling dynasty of the Hasmonean Kingdom of Israel , an independent Jewish state. The Hasmonean dynasty was established under the leadership of Simon Maccabaeus, two decades after his brother Judah the Maccabee defeated the Seleucid army during the Maccabean Revolt in 165 BC...
family in
142 BC-Judea:* Simon Maccabaeus succeeds his brother Jonathan as High Priest of Judea until 135 BC....
. In c. 83-80 BC,
Alexander JannaeusAlexander Jannaeus , king of Judea from , son of John Hyrcanus, inherited the throne from his brother Aristobulus, and appears to have married his brother's widow, Shlomtzion or "Shelomit", also known as Salome Alexandra, according to the Biblical law of Yibum , although Josephus is inexplicit on...
led a Hasmonean campaign to conquer Hippos. According to the Jewish historian
JosephusJosephus , also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu and, after he became a Roman citizen, as Titus Flavius Josephus, was a first-century Jewish historian and apologist of priestly and royal ancestry who survived and recorded the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70...
, Alexander forced the entire population to convert to
JudaismJudaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...
and be
circumcisedMale circumcision is the removal of some or all of the foreskin from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin and ....
.
Roman period
In
63 BCYear 63 BC was a year of the pre-Julian calendar.-Rome:*Pompey conquers Phonecia, Coele-Syria, and Judea for Rome.*Establishment of the Decapolis and Year 1 of the Pompeian era.*Roman annexation of Judea as a client kingdom...
the Roman general
PompeyGnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey /'pɑmpi/, Pompey the Great or Pompey the Triumvir , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
conquered
Coele-SyriaCoele-Syria, traditionally given the meaning 'hollow' Syria, was the region of southern Syria disputed between the Seleucid dynasty and the Ptolemaic dynasty. Rather than limiting the Greek term to the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon, it is often used to cover the entire area south of the river Eleutherus...
including
JudeaJudea or Judæa is the name given to the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel , an area now divided between Israel and the West Bank Judea or Judæa (Hebrew: יהודה,
Standard Yəhuda
Tiberian , "praised, celebrated"; Greek: Ιουδαία, Ioudaía; ) is the...
, and ended Hasmonean rule. Pompey granted self-rule to roughly ten Greek cities on Coele-Syria's eastern frontier; this group came to be called the
DecapolisThe Decapolis was a group of ten cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire in Jordan, Palestine, and Syria. The ten cities were not an official league or political unit, but they were grouped together because of their language, culture, location, and political status...
. Hippos was one of these cities. Under Roman rule, Hippos was granted a certain degree of autonomy. The city minted its own coins, stamped with the image of a horse in honor of the city's name.
Hippos was given to
Herod the GreatHerod , also known as Herod I or Herod the Great Herod , also known as Herod I or Herod the Great Herod , also known as Herod I or Herod the Great (born 74 BC, died 4 BC in Jericho, was a Roman client king of Israel. He is often confused...
in
37 BCYear 37 BC was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.-Rome:* Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa created the "portus Julius" in the today submersed town of Puteoli ....
and to the Province of
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
in
4 BCYear 4 BC was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.-Rome:* Archelaus becomes ethnarch of Judea. Herod Antipas becomes tetrarch of Galilee and Perea.-Births:...
. According to Josephus, during this time Hippos, a
paganGreco-Roman religion is the collective name given to Greek and Roman pre-Christian religions due to the similarity between them.See also:* Greek religion* Roman religion* Greek mythology* Roman mythology...
city, was the "sworn enemy" of the new Jewish city across the lake,
TiberiasTiberias is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, Lower Galilee, Israel. Established in 20 CE, it was named in honour of the emperor Tiberius. Since the sixteenth century, Tiberias has been considered one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Hebron and Safed...
. However, Hippos must have had some Jewish residents in the city. Josephus reports that during the Great Jewish Revolt of AD
66Year 66 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.-Roman Empire:* September 22—Emperor Nero creates the legion I Italica....
-
70Year 70 was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.-Roman Empire:* The building of the Colosseum starts .* Frontinus is praetor of Rome....
, Hippos persecuted its Jewish population. Other Jews from Sussita participated in attacks on
MagdalaMagdala is the name of at least two places in ancient Palestine mentioned in the Jewish Talmud and one that may be mentioned in the Christian New Testament.The New Testament makes one, disputable, mention of a place called Magdala...
and elsewhere. Hippos itself fell under attack by rebels at least once.
After the Romans put down the Bar Kokhba revolt, they created the province of Palaestina in 135, and Hippos was part of it. This is the beginning of Hippos' greatest period of prosperity and growth. It was rebuilt on a grid pattern, centered around a long
Decumanus MaximusIn Roman city planning, a decumanus was an east-west-oriented road in a Roman city, castra , or colonia. The main decumanus was the Decumanus Maximus, which normally connected the Porta Praetoria to the Porta Decumana .This name comes from the fact that the via decumana or decimana In Roman city...
street running east-west through the city. The streets were lined with hundreds of red
graniteGranite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink to dark gray or even black, depending on their...
columns imported from
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
. The great expense required to haul these columns to Palestine and up the hill is proof of the city's wealth. Other improvements included a
shrine to the EmperorThe Roman Imperial cult identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State. The framework for Imperial cult was formulated during the early Principate of Augustus, and was rapidly established throughout the Empire and its provinces, with...
, a
theatreThe most entertaining part of theatre was comedy. It was the most favorable to which was played in the daytime. There was also tragedy plays, these were often sad. Theatres were semi-circular in shape...
, and new city walls. The most important improvement, however, was the
aqueductAn aqueduct is a water supply or navigable channel constructed to convey water. In modern engineering, the term is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and other structures used for this purpose....
, which piped water into Hippos from springs in the
Golan HeightsThe Golan Heights is a strategic plateau and mountainous region at the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and remains a highly contested land straddling the borders of Syria and Israel. Two-thirds of the area is currently governed by Israel...
, 50 km away. The water, collected in a large,
vaultedA Vault is an architectural term for an arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof. The parts of a vault exert a thrust that require a counter resistance. When vaults are built underground, the ground gives all the resistance required...
cistern, allowed a large population to live in the city.
Byzantine period
The imperial restructuring under the emperor
DiocletianGaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus , born Diocles and commonly known as Diocletian , was Roman Emperor from 20 November 284 to 1 May 305. Born to a Dalmatian family of low status, he rose through the ranks of the military to become cavalry commander to the emperor Carus...
put Hippos into the province of Palestina Secunda, encompassing
GalileeGalilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country...
and the Golan. When
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
became officially tolerated in the Roman Empire, Palestine became the target of Imperial subsidies for churches and monasteries, and Christian
pilgrimsIn religion and spirituality, a pilgrimage is a long journey or search of great moral significance. Sometimes, it is a journey to a shrine of importance to a person's beliefs and faith. Members of many major religions participate in pilgrimages...
brought additional revenue. So industry expanded and more luxury goods became available to common people.
Christianity came slowly to Hippos. There is no evidence of any Christian presence before the 300s. A Byzantine-era pagan tomb to a man named Hermes has been found just outside the city walls, attesting to the relatively late presence of paganism here.
But gradually, the city was Christianized, becoming the seat of a
bishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
by at least 359. One Bishop Peter of Hippos is listed in surviving records of church councils in 359 and 362.
Umayyad period
The
UmayyadThe Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four Islamic caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. Although the Umayyad family originally came from the...
Caliphate invaded Palestine in the 600s, completing their conquest by 641. Hippos' new Arab rulers allowed the citizens to keep practicing Christianity. However, the population and economy continued to decline. An
earthquakeAn earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes are recorded with a seismometer, also known as a seismograph...
in January
749-Asia:* Empress Kōken succeeds Emperor Shōmu on the throne of Japan.* Golan earthquake of 749-Deaths:* December 5—Saint John of Damascus , theologian* Ratchis, king of the Lombards...
flattened Hippos. The city was abandoned permanently.
Excavations
The German explorer
Gottlieb SchumacherGottlieb Schumacher was a German-American civil engineer, architect, and archaeologist, who was an important figure in the early archaeological explorations of Palestine....
first surveyed Hippos in 1885, although he incorrectly identified the ruins as those of the town of Gamala.
The first excavations were carried out by Israeli archaeologist Claire Epstein in 1951-1955. She unearthed the main Byzantine church that had probably been the seat of Hippos' bishop. After her excavations, the
Israel Defense ForcesThe Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are Israel's military forces, comprising the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
used Mount Sussita for the same purpose as the ancient Greeks: as a fortress. It was used as a border defense against
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
until the Golan Heights were captured by Israel in the Six Day War.
Further excavations began in 2000 under Prof. Arthur Segal of the
University of HaifaThe University of Haifa is a university in Haifa, Israel.About 16,500 undergraduate and graduate students study in the university a wide variety of topics, specializing in social sciences, humanities, law and education. The University is broadly divided into six Faculties: Humanities, Social...
. The excavations, expected to continue until 2009, have focused on six sites in the city: the city's
forumThe Forum was the public space in the middle of a Roman city.A gathering place of great social significance, it was often the scene of diverse activities, including political discussions, meetings, et cetera....
, the small
imperial cultThe Roman Imperial cult identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State. The framework for Imperial cult was formulated during the early Principate of Augustus, and was rapidly established throughout the Empire and its provinces, with...
temple, a large Hellenistic temple compound, the Roman city gates, and two Byzantine churches. The Hellenistic temple and one of the churches are revealing fascinating cultural interplay. The temple, though Greek, may have been for the worship of the Nabataean god
DusharaĐū Shará "Lord of the Mountain", also transliterated as Dusares, was an aniconic deity in the ancient Middle East worshipped by the Nabataeans at Petra and Madain Saleh . In Greek times, he was associated with Zeus because he was the chief of the Nabataean pantheon as well as with Dionysus...
. In Byzantine times, the temple was demolished and a Christian church built on the same site.
Biblical connection
In the
New TestamentThe New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christian Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament, both terms being associated with Supersessionism...
, when
JesusJesus of Nazareth —also known as Jesus Christ or occasionally Jesus the Christ—is the central figure of Christianity. Within most Christian denominations...
mentions a "city set upon a hill" that "cannot be hidden" (one of the metaphors of
Salt and LightSalt and light is a metaphor used by Jesus in the Bible.Matthew 5:13-16: "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its flavour be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. 14“You are the light of the world. A city built on...
in the
Sermon on the MountIn the Gospel of St. Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount is a compilation of Jesus' sayings, epitomizing his moral teaching. According to chapters , Jesus of Nazareth gave this sermon on a mountainside to his disciples and a large crowd. Matthew groups Jesus' teachings into five discourses, of which...
) he may have been referring to Hippos. In addition, a miracle of Jesus recounted in
MarkThe Gospel of Mark is the second of the four Canonical Gospels, but is believed by most contemporary scholars to be the first gospel written, on which the other two synoptic gospels, Matthew and Luke, were partially based....
5 and
LukeThe Gospel of Luke is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension...
8 may also be related to Hippos. See
GergesaGergesa, is a place on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee that is described in the New Testament Gospels of Mark and Luke...
for a discussion of the location of this miracle.
Catholic mystic
Maria ValtortaMaria Valtorta was a Roman Catholic Italian writer and poet, considered by many to be a mystic. Her work centers on Catholic Christian themes...
in her vision-based work "
Poem of the Man GodThe Poem of the Man God is a multi volume book of about four thousand pages on the life of Jesus Christ written by the Italian mystic Maria Valtorta...
" reports that Jesus Christ visited and preached in Hippos.
External links