SEFFORIS (post-biblical Heb. Şippurî; Gr. Σεφφάς). — A city of Galilee, whose name is preserved in the modern village of Şaffürijjeh, 8 km northwest of Nazareth (Israel). Flavius Josephus (Antiq. Iud., XIII, 12, 5) reports that in the time of Alexander Jannaeus (103–78 B.C.), S. was able (ca. 100 B.C.) to withstand the attacks of Ptolemy Lathyrus (117–81 B.C.).
Because of its political and economic importance, Gabinius (57–55 B.C.) chose it as the seat of one of the five sanhedrins into which Palestine was divided by the Roman administration. Incorporated into the Kingdom of Herod the Great, it attempted to revolt upon the King’s death, but was severely punished by Varus, who sold its inhabitants into slavery. Rebuilt by Herod Antipas (A.D. 4–39), it was granted the title of Autocratoris and Caesarea and became the capital of the tetrarchy of Galilee until 18, when the tetrarch Herod transferred the capital to the new city of Tiberias. After Tiberias was ceded in 55 to Agrippa II (A.D. 49–93), S. once again became the capital of Galilee and perhaps on that occasion received the title of Irenopolis-Neronias-Sepphoris. Having surrendered to Vespasian, it received many fugitives from Jerusalem and Judea. At Diocaesarea, as S. was called by the Romans, the celebrated rabbî Jéhúdháh han-Náší resided; it was a center of intense Jewish religious and political life. Count Joseph of Tiberias, a converted Jew, built there a church in honor of St. Anne, believed to have been a native of the city; serious disturbances nevertheless arose, provoked by the Jews and severely repressed by Gallus (351). In the sixth century it was an episcopal see, and the pilgrim Piacentius visited the church of St. Anne there (P. Geyer, Itin. Hier., 161, 4). The Crusaders rebuilt its church, important ruins of which remain, and from there they later set out for the disastrous battle of Qurn Ḥaṭṭin (1189). In 1725 the emir Dāhir el-'Omar restored the castle that still dominates the hill, its architecture bearing witness to the various periods of its history. In 1909 a hall with a mosaic floor and an Aramaic inscription was discovered there; it belonged to a synagogue. In 1931 archaeological soundings brought to light a Roman amphitheater, mosaics, capitals, columns, and the remains of a temple.