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Umm Qais or Qays ((アラビア語:أم قيس), "Mother of Qais") is a town in northern Jordan principally known for its proximity to the ruins of the ancient Gadara. It lies in the Bani Kinanah Department and Irbid Governorate in the extreme northwest of the country, near Jordan's borders with Israel and Syria. It is perched on a hilltop above sea level overlooking the Sea of Tiberias, the Golan Heights, and the Yarmouk River gorge. ==Gadara== (詳細はDecapolis,〔.〕 Gadara was a center of Greek culture in the region, considered one of its most Hellenized and enjoying special political and religious status.〔 By the third century BC the town was of some cultural importance. It was the birthplace of the satirist Menippos, a slave who became a Cynic philosopher and satirised the follies of mankind in a mixture of prose and verse. His works have not survived, but were imitated by Varro and by Lucian. The Greek historian Polybius describes Gadara as being in 218 BC the 'strongest of all places in the region'. Nevertheless, it capitulated shortly afterwards when besieged by the Seleucid king Antiochus III of Syria. Under the Seleucids, it was also known as Antiochia or (, ''Antiókheia Semíramis'') and as Seleucia. The region passed in and out of the control of the Seleucid kings of Syria and the Ptolemies of Egypt. In 167 BC the Jews of Jerusalem rebelled against the Seleucids, and in the ensuing conflict in the region Gadara and other cities suffered severe damage. In the early first century BC Gadara gave birth to its most famous son, Meleager. He was one of the most admired Hellenistic Greek poets, not only for his own works but also for his anthology of other poets, which formed the basis of the large collection known as the Greek Anthology. In 63 BC, when the Roman general Pompey placed the region under Roman control, he rebuilt Gadara and made it one of the semi-autonomous cities of the Roman Decapolis, and a bulwark against Nabataean expansion. But in 30 BC Augustus placed it under the control of the Jewish king Herod. The historian Josephus relates that after King Herod's death in 4 BC Gadara was made part of the Roman province of Syria.〔Josephus ''Antiquities'', XVII, xi, 4; Josephus, ''Bellum Judaicum'', II, vi, 3.〕 In the first century, Jesus is said to have driven demons out of a man and into some swine 'in the country of the Gadarenes' or 'country of the Gerasenes', which has often been associated with Gadara. A story set in the 'territory of the Gadarenes', probably referring to the area around Gadara, appears in the Gospel of Matthew. It describes an encounter between Jesus and two man 'possessed by demons'; Jesus exorcises the demons, driving them into a nearby herd of pigs, which then run "down the steep place into the sea”, evidently intended to refer to the Sea of Galilee. In the original version, in the earlier Gospel of Mark, the incident is set in 'the territory of the Gerasenes', or Gerasa, around 50 km southeast of the Sea of Galilee.〔M. Eugene Boring, ''Mark: A Commentary'' (Presbyterian Publishing Corp, 2006) pages 148-149.〕 The author of the Matthew Gospel appears to have moved the setting to Gadara to make it more plausible. However it is still 10 km away, so Origen speculated that there had been a town called 'Gergasa' on the shores of the sea.〔 Josephus relates that in AD 66 at the beginning of the Jewish revolt against the Romans the country around Gadara was laid waste,:〔Josephus, ''Bellum Judaicum'', II, xviii, 1.〕 The Gadarenes captured some of the boldest of the Jews, of whom several were put to death and others imprisoned.〔Josephus, ''Bellum Judaicum'', 5.〕 Some in the town surrendered to emperor Vespasian, who placed a garrison there.〔Josephus, ''Bellum Judaicum'', IV, vii, 3.〕 The 2nd century AD Roman aqueduct to Gadara supplied drinking water through a qanat 170 km long. Its longest underground section, running for 94 km, is the longest known tunnel from ancient times.〔〔Mathias Döring: ("Wasser für Gadara. 94 km langer Tunnel antiker Tunnel im Norden Jordaniens entdeckt" ), in: ''Querschnitt'', Vol. 21 (2007), pp. 24–35〕 Gadara continued to be an important town within the Eastern Roman Empire, and was long the seat of a Christian bishop.〔Reland, Palestine, 776.〕 With the conquest of the Arabs, following the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 it came under Muslim rule. Around 747 it was largely destroyed by an earthquake, and was abandoned. The ancient walls may now be traced in almost their entire circuit of 3 km. One of the Roman roads ran eastward to Ḍer‛ah; and an aqueduct has been traced to the pool of Ḳhab, about 20 miles to the north of Ḍer‛ah. The ruins include those of "baths, two theaters, a hippodrome, colonnaded streets and, under the Romans, aqueducts,"〔Desmond, William. Cynics. p36 - referencing (Weber & Khouri 1989:17-18)〕 a temple, a basilica and other buildings, telling of a once splendid city. A paved street, with double colonnade, ran from east to west. The ruts worn in the paved road by the wheels of ancient vehicles are still to be seen. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Umm Qais」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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