SEPPhORIS (Hebrew post-biblical Sippuri; Greek Σεπέρος). — A city of Galilee, whose name is preserved in the modern village of Šaffūrijjeh, 8 km northwest of Nazareth (Israel). Flavius Josephus (Antiq. Iud., XIII, 12, 5) reports that in the time of Alexander Jannaeus (103–78 BC) Sepphoris was able (c. 100 BC) to withstand the attacks of Ptolemy Lathyrus (117–81 BC).
On account of its political and economic importance, Gabinius (57–55 BC) chose it as the seat of one of the five sanhedrins into which Roman administration divided Palestine. Incorporated into the kingdom of Herod the Great, it attempted to revolt at the king’s death but was severely punished by Varus, who sold its inhabitants into slavery. Rebuilt by Herod Antipas (4–39 AD), it received the titles of Autocratis and Caesarea and served as the capital of the tetrarchy of Galilee until AD 18, when the tetrarch Herod transferred the capital to the new city of Tiberias. When Tiberias was ceded to Agrippa I (49–93 AD) in 55, Sepphoris again became the capital of Galilee and may at that time have received the title Irenopolis-Neronias-Sepphoris. After surrendering to Vespasian, many refugees from Jerusalem and Judea settled there. Under the Roman name Diocesarea, it was the residence of the celebrated rabbi Judah ha-Nasi; it was a center of intense Jewish religious and political life. Joseph, count of Tiberias, a converted Jew, built there a church in honor of St Anne, said to have been born in the city; serious disturbances arose among the Jews and were sternly repressed by Gallus (351). In the 6th century it was an episcopal see, and the Piacenza pilgrim visited the church of St Anne there (P. Geyer, Itin. Hier., 161, 4). The Crusaders rebuilt the church, of which important ruins remain, and from there they set out for the disastrous battle of Hattin (1187). In 1725 the emir Dāhir al-ʿUmar restored the castle that still dominates the hill, a witness in its architecture to the various periods of its history. In 1909 a hall with a mosaic pavement and an Aramaic inscription, belonging to a synagogue, was discovered. In 1931 archaeological digs brought to light a Roman amphitheater, mosaics, capitals, columns, and remains of a temple.