GÉRASA. - A Greco-Roman city in Transjordan, today Geras, on the banks of the river Chrysorrhoas (Wadi Geras), from which comes the name Antiochia ad Chrysorrhoas attested in epigraphy and numismatics, in honor of its founder Antiochus IV (175 BC).
Occupied by Alexander Jannaeus in 78 BC, it was freed by Pompey in 63 BC and became part of the Decapolis (Flavius Josephus, *Bell. Jud.*, 80, 86-87, 104). From the province of Syria it passed in AD 106 to the province of Arabia, and during the Antonine period (AD 117-180) it acquired new splendor in its extension and the creation of monuments. In memory of Hadrian’s visit, a triumphal arch was erected in AD 129-30, followed by the temples of Artemis (AD 150) and Zeus (AD 163), the nymphaeum (AD 191), the stadiums, theaters, and baths, which recent excavations have restored to the admiration of scholars. It was one of the most important fortresses of the region and was garrisoned by the III *Legio Cyrenaica*.
The extent of its territory is unknown; the reading “region of the Gerasenes” indicated by some Gospel manuscripts east of the Sea of Galilee (Mk 5:1; Lk 8:26) certainly refers to another place of the same name (Gerasenes), but not this city, which is more than 50 km from the lake.
The arrival of the Persians in AD 611 and then of the Muslims in AD 634 marked the end of G. In the 8th century there was still a Greco-Arab population, but afterward G. remained deserted. Baldwin II destroyed in 1121 the fortress of Toghtekin, emir of Damascus. In 1878 a colony of Circassians settled there and founded the present village of Geras.
ARCHAEOLOGY. - The first certain notice of a Christian community in G. is given by the presence of its bishop at the Council of Seleucia in AD 351. But the evangelical preaching must have reached it much earlier. Other known bishops are: Placcus (c. 454), Claudius (c. 464), Aeneas (c. 495), Marianus (5th or early 6th century), Paul (c. 531), Anastasius (c. mid-6th century), Genesius (c. 611).
Among the recognized churches, the largest and oldest Christian monumental complex in G. dominates the great colonnaded street, and access to it was through its own Roman gates, with a long staircase, toward which the basilica turned its apse, so that for both it was necessary to traverse two side corridors. In front of the entrance was the atrium with the sacred fountain, which annually would pour wine instead of water on the day of Epiphany, commemorating the miracle at Cana. This church, 42.20 m long, is the only one whose date of foundation has not come down to us; only a restoration between AD 526 and 533 is known. Originally the area was occupied by a pagan temple, perhaps of Dionysus-Dushara, which collapsed in the 6th century due to an earthquake; the Christians then built their cathedral there, also making use of the material from the ruined building.
The church of St. Theodore, with three naves, from the end of the 5th century, was built on the site of a former cattle market, described in a picturesque inscription in verse, while another inscription hails St. Theodore as an invincible and indestructible support of the city and its inhabitants. In the northwest quarter another church, dated between AD 530-531, was built above a synagogue oriented in the opposite direction, adorned with scenes from the Old Testament, among which the best preserved are those of the Flood, the seven-branched candelabrum, cult objects, etc.
The church of the Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs is cruciform, inspired by the church of the Apostles built by Justinian in Constantinople; the church of Procopius (AD 526). Three churches side by side with entrances on a single portico were built between AD 523-529 by the *paramonarius* Theodore, his wife Georgia, and others, including the tribune Daghisteus, mentioned by Procopius. From north to south they were dedicated to SS. Cosmas and Damian, to St. John the Baptist, and to St. George; the latter remained in use until the 8th century, if probative value is given to a hoard of Umayyad coins recovered there. The church of St. John the Baptist repeats, in reduced proportions, the round church of Bosra with radial niches. The mosaics are best preserved in SS. Cosmas and Damian, and partially destroyed in St. George by iconoclasts, while they have almost disappeared in the center of St. John the Baptist, except for the fine inscription before the *cancellus*, which preserves exedrae adorned with fantastic Hellenistic-style candelabra, and in the intervening sectors, representations of cities marked by their names (to the north Alexandria and the Pharos, to the left two other places which Crowfoot identifies with Canopus and with the sanctuary of SS. John and Cyrus at Menuthis; to the west Memphis); all places that were seats of famous sanctuaries. A similar decoration, with the Pharos, Alexandria, and Memphis, is also found in G. in the church of SS. Peter and Paul, which, according to the inscription, was also adorned with precious silver ornaments in addition to the mosaics, of which it boasts rich decoration.
The preferred motifs, besides those already noted (and not only in G.: V. ARAMEI), of famous sacred places, include depictions of the months and seasons, portraits of donors in prayer, and reproductions of animals, birds, and fish; the geometric motifs all derive from three schemes based on different combinations of rhombuses and polygons, the borders are often very rich and varied and suggest an exchange of motifs with the contemporary art of carpets. A large quantity of lamps illuminated the interiors of the churches; many were found in St. Theodore. There were also precious jewels, fabrics, and sacred furnishings, of which a glass chalice is a reminder; it bears an engraved large cross with equal arms worked in a lattice pattern, with two stars above and, below, the apocalyptic letters, flanked by two lambs turning their backs to a tree.
Alongside the churches, the remains of a house for the clergy, a bath establishment for the faithful adjacent to St. Theodore, and even a meeting hall for the cantors have been exhumed. According to the date marked in its museum (for the first time the name of a month appears there in the Latin form), the last church built in G. would date to about AD 611, at least according to our current knowledge, while Genesius was bishop, so that it is named after him; two or three years later the Persian occupation of the city began, lasting until AD 628, and with it its decline, catastrophically concluded by the severe earthquake of 18 January AD 740.
The excavations at G., besides being the object of the normal activity of the Department of Antiquities of Transjordan, of which the Italian architect P. A. Ricci was a part until his death, were expanded from 1928 to 1934 by a scientific expedition resulting from an agreement between Yale University and the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. The study of the Christian monuments was particularly undertaken by the director of the latter, Prof. J. W. Crowfoot, who was also its first editor. - See pl. VI.