Decapolis
Name meaning: "containing ten cities"
Decapolis (Greek, deka ten + polis city) was a league or district of ten predominantly Greek-speaking cities east and southeast of the Sea of Galilee, in the region of Bashan and Gilead and extending to Damascus. The cities — most commonly listed as Scythopolis (the only one west of the Jordan), Pella, Gerasa, Philadelphia, Gadara, Hippos, Dion, Raphana, Canatha, and Damascus — had been Hellenized under Seleucid and Roman rule. The Decapolis is mentioned three times in the New Testament: crowds from this region followed Jesus (Matthew 4:25); the Gadarene demoniac after his healing proclaimed what Jesus had done "throughout the Decapolis" (Mark 5:20); and Jesus traveled through the region healing a deaf man (Mark 7:31). The area represented the frontier between Jewish and Gentile populations.
The league took shape after the Roman general Pompey reorganized the East (63 BC), grouping these autonomous, self-governing Greek cities under Roman protection as a cultural and commercial buffer along the desert frontier. With their coins, temples, theaters, and colonnaded streets, they were bastions of Greco-Roman paganism ringing the Jewish lands of Galilee and Perea — a standing reminder that the Gentile world pressed close upon Israel.
It is striking, then, that Jesus deliberately crossed the lake into this Gentile country to free the demoniac possessed by Legion. Though the people begged him to leave, he sent the healed man home with a commission: "Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you" (Mark 5:19) — and the man went and proclaimed it throughout the Decapolis, so that all marveled (Mark 5:20). He became, in effect, the first herald of Christ to the Gentiles. Later Jesus passed again through the region, healing a deaf man (Mark 7:31) and feeding four thousand in the wilderness (Mark 8:1) — a Gentile echo of the feeding of the five thousand. So the pagan Ten Cities became an early seedbed of the gospel, a foretaste of the day when Christ would be proclaimed and praised among all the nations.