Eleutheropolis
ELEUTHEROPOLIS [BETHOGABRIS]
(Ἐλευθερόπολις). A city of Palestine, sixteen Roman miles northeast from Ascalon, and twenty miles southwest from Jerusalem. Its earlier name was Bethogabris (Βαιτογαβρά). In the days of Eusebius and Jerome, however, it was an important and flourishing city. In modern Latin, Eleutheropolis is the name given to Freistadtl in Hungary, and to Freibourg and Freiburg.
A city in Idumaea, 40 km NW of Jerusalem, which began to flourish after the destruction of its rival Marissa by the Parthians in 40 B.C. Pompey conquered it in 64 B.C., and settled veterans of his legions there. Septimius Severus made it a polis in A.D. 200, and conferred ius italicum on its citizens; he also changed its Semitic name, Beth-Gubrin, to Eleutheropolis, the city of the free men. At that time it began to mint coins, dated by its own history. The city appears on the Peutinger Table, and its first bishop participated in the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. Eleutheropolis ruled over a large area, including most of Idumaea and reaching the Dead Sea near Engeddi. There were many Jewish villages in the S part of its territory. In the early Arab and mediaeval periods it lost its importance. The site has been little explored. Among the few finds are the remains of a Late Roman villa decorated with mosaics of hunt scenes, and a marble capital with a representation of a seven-branched candlestick, probably from a synagogue of the Byzantine period.
BIBLIOGRAPHYF. M. Abel, Géographie de la Palestine II (1938) 272; UNESCO World Art Series, Israel Ancient Mosaics (1960) I; M. Avi-Yonah, The Holy Land (1966) 96, 115, 159-62.
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