=8. Philadelphia=, the most southerly of the cities of the Decapolis, was on the site of Rabbah Ammon (Deut. 3:11; Josh. 13:25; 2 Sam. 11:1, etc.). This was situated on the upper Jabbok about twenty miles east of the Jordan valley, where Amman now lies. The Hellenic city here was built by Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt, who reigned from 283-247 B. C. It was named Philadelphia from him. In 218 B. C. the city was taken by Antiochus III, who captured the cistern to which in time of siege the Philadelphians went for water by an underground passage,[315] after which thirst compelled them to surrender. Joab centuries before had captured the city for David by the same method,[316] and in 30 B. C. Herod the Great again took it in the same way.[317] The remains of the Hellenic temple, of the theater, and of other buildings, including a Christian basilica, are still to be seen at Amman.[318] In the fourth century A. D. Philadelphia was one of the prominent cities of the Roman province of Arabia; (see Figs. 270, 271). These cities of the Decapolis appear to have been built on a similar plan. Each had a colonnaded street through the center of the town, each had at least one temple and one theater, and some of them more. All were architecturally beautiful. They all possessed a similar government also, and each appears to have controlled the villages in its district. =9. Jesus in the Decapolis.=--The prevailing influences in the Decapolis were pagan, and yet there were Jews living in it, for multitudes of them from the Decapolis followed Jesus (Matt. 4:25). On at least two occasions our Lord himself went into the territory of the Decapolis. We read in Mark 5:1 that Jesus and his disciples “came to the other side of the sea to the country of the Gerasenes.” The Authorized Version reads “to the country of the Gadarenes.” The country to which Jesus came at this time cannot have been that of the Decapolitan city Gerasa, for, as we have seen, that lay far to the south. It was in a direct line nearly fifty miles from the Sea of Galilee. Neither can it have been to the region of Gadara that he came, for Gadara lay at least five miles to the south across the deep valley of the Yarmuk. There was, however, on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee a town called Gergesa, the modern Kursi. This place was near the city of Hippos, and possibly one of the towns subordinate to Hippos. As Jesus and the disciples walked back from the sea they met the demoniac, whom Jesus healed. It was in connection with this healing that the herd of swine was destroyed--an incident that could happen in no part of Palestine except Decapolis or Philistia, for swine were unclean to Jews and they never kept them. The demoniac, when cured, went and preached Jesus in the Decapolis (Mark 5:20).