Friday, September 25, 2009

Old Philadelphia: A Lesson from the Ages

Too often, it seems, the leaders of a city tend to think the solutions to their problems must come from within their own city.

It is refreshing to see a city looking beyond itself to find new ideas and solutions. (See the September 3 blog on Oaxaca and the surrounding towns that worked out a regional solution to “market days.”)

But the regional (or multi-city) approach is not a new idea.

On the east side of the Sea of Galilee, ten cities linked their fortunes and became forever known as “the Decapolis” (in Greek: Ten Cities).

“For the most part, the Decapolis cities owed their existence to the Hellenistic era . . . which followed the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. Each was founded, or modeled, on Greek principles and culture instead of the indigenous Semitic.”

The term reached such a level of popular usage that in addition to referring to each of the ten cities, the entire region was known as the Decapolis.

While “each of these cities functioned as a city-state (polis) within the overall empire of Rome . . . . Though never a formal federation or union, it is likely that the cities were commercially associated, joined by Roman roads making trade easier. The view within each city was that it was “free” or autonomous” . . . yet they were truly semi-autonomous.

Population estimates of the Decapolis cities include numbers such as 4,000 and 20,000. “A larger Decapolis city may have, also, jointly shared, or controlled, some territory with a smaller neighboring Decapolis city.”

During the first 200 years A.D. the Decapolis cities continued to flourish and Damascus and Philadelphia (Amman) grew into major international cities. Today, the ancient ruins mark the sites of most of these cities.

The other eight are worthy of recognition:

Raphana (Abila, Jordan)
Scythopolis (Beth-Shean, Israel)
Gadara (Umm Qais, Jordan)
Hippus (Hippos, Israel)
Dion (Jordan)
Pella (Jordan)
Gerasa (Jerash, Jordan)
Canatha (Qanawat, Syria

Ten cities, who discovered a timeless insight: semi-autonomous can be better than autonomous or, cooperation can yield success that cannot be realized through competition.

Source: The Cities of the Decapolis, BibleIsTrue.com (Lion Tracks Ministries)

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