My First Observation Is That The Present Inhabitants,
Circassians, Are Rapidly Despoiling The Treasures Of Antiquity
Found Here.
They take the rocks and pillars of temples that were
once the admiration of a great region and pile them roughly
together, forming a small enclosure; then, in many instances, they
place poles and brush across the top, throw ground on the brush, -
and their houses are ready for occupancy.
There is no regularity
whatever in the plan of the alleys, or lanes, of the present
village. We mount our horses for a further study of these
interesting ruins.
Gerasa was one of the chief cities of the Decapolis, (the other
nine were Damascus, Hippos, Scythopolis, Dion, Pella, Kanatha,
Raphana, Gadara, and Philadelphia,) and was situated twenty miles
east of the Jordan on one of the northern tributaries of the
Jabbok, and within five miles of the place where the famous
"Moabite Stone" was found. Tristam considers it to-day as
"PROBABLY THE MOST PERFECT ROMAN CITY LEFT ABOVE GROUND." The
present ruins seem to date back to the second century of the
Christian era. A Christian bishop from Gerasa attended the Council
of Seleucia in 359 A.D., and another that of Chalcedon in 451 A.D.
In the thirteenth century this city was in ruins. It was then for
five centuries lost to the eyes of the civilized world. In the
beginning of the thirteenth century a German traveler visited it;
the magnificent ruins of the place amazed him. The same ruins to-
day, or some of them, strike the comparatively few visitors with
awe at the thought of the riches, the gayety, and the power that
once reigned here on the border of the desert.
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