Golan Heights significant event Siege of Gamala
Hellenistic and Roman period
The Golan Heights, along with the rest of the region, came under the control of Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, following the Battle of Issus. Following Alexander's death, the Golan came under the domination of the Macedonian general Seleucus and remained part of the Seleucid Empire for most of the next two centuries.In the middle of the 2nd century BCE, Itureans moved into the Golan, occupying over one hundred locations in the region.In the 1st century BCE, the region as far as Trachonitis, Batanea and Auranitis was put under the administrative control of Herod the Great by Augustus Caesar. In the Roman and Byzantine periods, the area was administered as part of Phoenicia Prima and Syria Palaestina, and finally Golan/Gaulanitis was included together with Peraea in Palaestina Secunda, after 218 AD. Ancient kingdom Bashan was incorporated into the province of Batanea.Following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE, Augustus Caesar adjudicated that the Golan fell within the Tetrarchy of Herod's son, Herod Philip I. After Philip's death in 34 CE, the Romans absorbed the Golan into the province of Syria, but Caligula restored the territory to Herod's grandson Agrippa in 37. Following Agrippa's death in 44, the Romans again annexed the Golan to Syria, promptly to return it again when Claudius traded the Golan to Agrippa II, the son of Agrippa I, in 51 as part of a land swap.Gamla, the capital of Jewish Galaunitis, would play a major role in the Jewish-Roman wars, and came to house the earliest known urban synagogue from the Hasmonean/Herodian realm. Although nominally under Agrippa's control and not part of the province of Judaea, the Jewish communities of the Golan participated in the First Jewish-Roman War, only to fall to the Roman armies in its early stages. Gamla, a major Jewish stronghold in the Golan, was captured in 67 CE, with, according to Josephus, its inhabitants committing mass suicide, preferring it to crucifixion and slavery. Agrippa II contributed soldiers to the Roman war effort and attempted to negotiate an end to the revolt. In return for his loyalty, Rome allowed him to retain his kingdom but finally absorbed the Golan for good after his death in 100.In about 250 CE, the Ghassanids, an Arab Christian tribe from Yemen, established a kingdom that encompassed southern Syria and the Transjordan, building their capital at Jabiyah.According to current research, the political and economic recovery of the Land of Israel during the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine, towards the close of the 3rd and the early 4th century CE, is what led to the return of Jewish village life in the Golan. The ceramics and coins found during the excavations at various synagogue sites provide evidence of the re-settlement of Jewish settlements in the central Golan.