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Gerasa

Historical Location
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Ancient city in Jordan, part of the Decapolis and famed for Roman ruins

Detailed Definition
Gerasa (Jerash) was a prosperous Hellenistic-Roman city with theaters and temples. It appears in the Gospels as the site of the Gadarene swine miracle (variant reading). Poets use Gerasa to symbolize the reach of Greco-Roman urbanism into the Near East and the overlay of Christian narrative on classical space—often in meditations on layered sacred geography.
Example
Example in poetry:
A Roman poet names Gerasa (Jerash) as Decapolis jewel of colonnaded grace; In a modern Jordanian poem, Gerasa embodies Greco-Roman heritage in Arab land; A postwar lyric contrasts Gerasa’s preserved Oval Plaza with regional conflict; A minimalist verse reduces Gerasa to Corinthian capital and desert wind; A historical meditation imagines Gerasa’s theaters echoing with Greek and Aramaic plays.
Additional Notes
Gerasa (Jerash), with its colonnaded streets and temples, exemplifies Roman urbanism in the Decapolis; its preservation allows modern readers to visualize the settings of provincial life often idealized or critiqued in imperial poetry.
Also Known As
Jerash
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