X KEEPERS OF THE HERD OF SWINE 379 



and the shore, and doubtless lay well within the 

 territory of the polis of Gadara. 



The proof that Gadara was, to all intents and pur- 

 poses, a Gentile, and not a Jewish, city is complete. 

 The date and the occasion of its foundation are 

 unknown ; but it certainly existed in the third 

 century B.C. Antiochus the Great annexed it to 

 his dominions in B.C. 198. After this, during 

 the brief revival of Jewish autonomy, Alexander 

 Jannseus took it ; and for the first time, so far as 

 the records go, it fell under Jewish rule. l From 

 this it was rescued by Pompey (B.C. 63), who 

 rebuilt the city and incorporated it with the 

 province of Syria. In gratitude to the Romans 

 for the dissolution of a hated union, the Gadarenes 

 adopted the Pompeian era on their coinage. 

 Gadara was a commercial centre of some import- 

 ance, and therefore, it may be assumed, Jews 

 settled in it, as they settled in almost all con- 

 siderable Gentile cities. But a wholly mistaken 

 estimate of the magnitude of the Jewish colony 

 has been based upon the notion that Gabinius, 

 proconsul of Syria in 57-55 B.C., seated one of the 

 five sanhedrims in Gadara. Schiirer has pointed 

 out that what he really did was to lodge one of 

 them in Gazara, far away on the other side of the 

 Jordan. This is one of the many errors which have 

 arisen out of the confusion of the names Gadara, 

 Gazara, and Gafrara. 



1 It is said to have been destroyed by its captors. 



