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.
The walls of the ancient city are plainly traceable, and formed an
enclosure about a mile square. Three of its gates are fairly well
preserved. On the south side of the city ruins, less than a half
mile distant, stands a triumphal arch forty feet high. Between
this arch and the city wall are the ruins of a great stone pool
and of a circus. The main street lies on the west side of the
stream. It was paved; yet shows ruts worn into the stones by
chariot wheels; and was lined on each side with a row of rock
columns above twenty feet in height, some of which have capitals
representing a high degree of artistic skill in their planning and
execution. Part of this street was arcaded behind the columns
where was the sidewalk. Fronting upon this street were vast
temples and baths, which, though fallen, are yet grand in their
ruins. All along this way lie great blocks of stone and marble and
fallen columns, so numerous that at times our progress is almost
barred. But not all of the columns are fallen; more than two
hundred yet stand on their original bases. About mid-way along the
street it is crossed at right angles by another which is also
lined with columns. Farther on toward the south it widens into an
oval-shaped forum a hundred yards long, surrounded with Ionic
pillars in their original positions.
Just beyond the forum, elevated somewhat, is a large, well-
preserved temple; and immediately to the right of the temple is a
theater built in the hill-side with seats, stage, and other parts
plainly distinguishable. It is easy to sit in one of these empty
benches and see, as a shadow out of the past, a lively scene
presented on the now deserted stage - the voice of eloquence rings
clear out of the dead centuries, the play-house resounds with the
applause of the shades that fill the seats about me - and, then,
the curtain of mystery is dispelled by the bright sunlight that
floods all the landscape, and I see nothing but ruins everywhere.
The play is over.
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