That Herod made no effort
to judaise his temporary possession, but rather the contrary, is
obvious from the fact that the coins of Gadara, while under his rule,
bear the image of Augustus with the superscription [Greek: Sebastos]--a
flying in the face of Jewish prejudices which, even he, did not dare
to venture upon in Judaea. And I may remark that, if my co-trustee of
the British Museum had taken the trouble to visit the splendid
numismatic collection under our charge, he might have seen two coins
of Gadara, one of the time of Tiberius and the other of that of Titus,
each bearing the effigies of the emperor on the obverse: while the
personified genius of the city is on the reverse of the former.
Further, the well-known works of De Saulcy and of Ekhel would have
supplied the information that, from the time of Augustus to that of
Gordian, the Gadarene coinage had the same thoroughly Gentile
character. Curious that a city of "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law"
should tolerate such a mint!
Whatever increase in population the Ghetto of Gadara may have
undergone, between B.C. 4 and A.D. 66, it nowise affected the gentile
and anti-judaic character of the city at the outbreak of the great
war; for Josephus tells us that, immediately after the great massacre
of Caesarea, the revolted Jews "laid waste the villages of the Syrians
and their neighbouring cities, Philadelphia and Sebonitis and Gerasa
and Pella and Scythopolis, and after them Gadara and Hippos" ("Wars,"
II.
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