A city on the edge of the empire
Gerasa was a prosperous Greek-speaking city east of the river Jordan, counted among the group of cities known as the Decapolis. In 106 CE the emperor Trajan annexed the neighbouring Nabataean kingdom and created the province of Arabia, and Gerasa became part of it. New roads and trade made the city rich, and in the second century it rebuilt itself in marble and limestone on a Roman grid.
An arch for Hadrian
Hadrian spent much of his reign travelling round the provinces, and in 129-130 he toured the East. He spent the winter at Gerasa. To mark the honour, the city built a triple arch on the road from the south, with a Greek inscription dated by the city’s own calendar to the year of the visit. Originally about 21 metres high, with a large central passage and two smaller ones, it probably had wooden doors.
Its design follows the model of a Roman arch, but some details are local. The columns that frame the passages rest on bases carved with acanthus leaves, a feature unusual in Roman architecture and possibly borrowed from the Nabataeans. It shows how provincial builders mixed imperial forms with their own traditions.
A city that meant to grow
The arch stands some way outside the city’s south gate, beside the later hippodrome. It seems that Gerasa planned to extend its walls southwards and make the arch a new city gate, but the expansion was never built. The arch remained a free-standing monument, a sign of what the city hoped to become with an emperor’s favour.
Cities across the empire competed for imperial attention. An emperor’s visit could bring privileges, money and new buildings, and an arch was a lasting thank-you, in stone, that every traveller arriving from the south would pass.
The city behind the arch
Inside the walls, Jerash is one of the best-preserved Roman provincial cities in the Middle East. Visitors entering from the south reach first the Oval Plaza, an unusual oval square surrounded by a colonnade. From there the main street, the cardo, runs north for about 800 metres between rows of columns, its paving still marked by cart wheels.
Two great sanctuaries rise above the city: the temple of Zeus near the Oval Plaza and the temple of Artemis, the city’s patron goddess, whose tall columns still stand. The South Theatre seated several thousand people, and is used again for performances today. Each temple stood on a podium in the manner of a Roman temple, approached by a long stair.
Earthquake and rediscovery
Gerasa remained an important city in the Byzantine period, when many churches were built with stone from older buildings, and into the early Islamic period. A severe earthquake in 749 CE brought down much of it, and the city slowly shrank. In 1806 the German traveller Ulrich Jasper Seetzen described its ruins, and excavation and restoration have continued since the twentieth century. The modern town of Jerash grew up alongside the ancient site.
Where to see it
Jerash lies about 50 kilometres north of Amman. The Arch of Hadrian stands at the southern entrance to the archaeological site, near the visitor centre, and is the first monument you see on arrival.
Sources
- Department of Antiquities of Jordan, “Jerash”.
- Columbia University, Media Center for Art History, “Arch of Hadrian, Gerasa”.
- C. H. Kraeling (ed.), Gerasa: City of the Decapolis (New Haven, 1938).
- W. Ball, Rome in the East (London, 2nd ed. 2016).
