After this demolition (which occurred in B.C. 129), the Jews inhabited what remained of the city; at least, we find it in their possession in the time of Alexander Jan- najus (Josephus, /!»«/. xiii, 15, 4), and until Pompey gave it back to the descendants of its original inhabitants (roTf oiKi'iToprni'). These o'lKijroptQ may possibly have been the Syro-Macedonians, but it is more probable that they were Samaritans proper, whose ancestors had been dispossessed by tlie colonists of Alexander the Great. Bj' directions of (iabiiiius, Samaria and other demolish- ed cities were rebuilt {ibid, xiv, 5, 3). But its more ef- fectual re1)uilding was undertaken by Herod the Great, to whom it had been granted by Augustus, on the death of Antony and Cleopatra (iW(/. xiii, 10, 3 ; xv, 8, 5; War, i, 20, 3). He called it Sebaste, 'SsjSaaTt] = A iiynsta, af- ter the name of his jiatron (Joseplms, Ant. xv, 7, 7). Joseplms gives an elaborate description of Herod's im- provements. The wall surrounding it was twenty stadia in length. In the middle of it was a close, of a stadium and a iialfs(|uare, containing a magnificent temple ded- icated to the Ctesar. It was colonized by 6000 veterans
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and others, for whose support a most beautiful and rich district .surrounding the city was appropriated. Herod's motives in these arrangements were probably, first, the occupation of a commanding position, and then the de- sire of distinguishing himself for taste by the embellish- ment of a spot already so adorned by nature (liit/. xv, 8, 5, War, i, 20,3, 21,2).
How long Samaria maintained its splendor after HenKl's improvements, we are not informed. In the New Test, the city itself does not appear to be men- tioned, but rather a portion of the district to which, even in older times, it had extended its name. Our version, indeed, of Acts viii, 5 says that Philip the deacon "went down to the city of Samaria;" but the (ireek of the pas- sage is simply tig TroXti' Ti)Q 'Eaf.taptiag. It is hardly safe to argue, however, either from the absence of the definite article, or from the probability that, had the city Sainaria been intended, the term employed would have been Sebaste, that some one city of the district, the name of which is not specified, was in the mind of the writer (as Olshausen, Neander, De Wctte, Meyer, etc.); for the genitive is one of ajiposition (Winer), ttoXiq be- ing sufficiently defined by it (Hackett), and the city was well known in that day by this name (see Josephus, .■^«^ XX, (), 2). The evangelist would naturally have re- sorted lirst to the chief city, where also Simon Magus probably was. In ver. 9 of tVie same chapter " the peo- jile of Samaria" represents to tBvoc tPjc; ^ofiaptiag; and the phrase in ver. 25, "many villages of the Samari- tans," shows that the operations of evangelizing were not confined to the city of Samaria itself (comp. Matt, x, 5, "Into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not;" and ,Iohn iv, 4, 5, where, after it has been said, " And he must needs go through Samaria," obviously the district, it is subjoined, " Then cometh he to a city of Samaria called Sychar"), Henceforth its history is very un- connected, although it is occasionally noticed in the reigns of the Roman emperors (L'lpian, Lef/. I. de Cen- sibus, quoted by Dr. Robinson). Various specimens of coins struck on the spot have been preserved, extend- ing from Nero to Geta, the brother of Caracalla (Vail- lant, in Numism. Imper., ami Noris, cjuoted by Reland; Eckhel, iii, 440; Mionnet, Med. Antiq. v, 513). Septi- mius Severus appears to have established there a Ro- man colony in the beginning of the od century (Cel- larius. Not. Orb. ii, 432). Eusebius scarcely mentions the cit}' as extant ; but it is often named bj' Jerome and other writers of the same and a later age (adduced in Reland's Pahest. p. 979-981). But it could not have been a place of much political importance. We find in the Codex of T/ieodosiiis that by A.D. 409 the Holy Land had been divided into Patestina Prima, Secunda, and Tertia. Palsestina Prima included the country of the Philistines, Samaria (the district), and the northern part of Judaja; but its capital was not Sebaste, but Qes- area. In an ecclesiastical point of view it stood rather higher. It was an episcopal see probablj- as early as the 3d century. At any rate, its bishop was present among those of Palestine at the Council of Nica?a, A.D. '62b, and subscribed its acts as "Maximus («/. Marinus) Sebastenus." The names of some of his successors have been preserved; the latest of them mentioned is Pelagius, who attended the sj'nod at .Jerusalem, A.D. 53G. The title of the see occurs in the earlier Greek NotiticB and in the later Latin ones (Reland, Pala'st. p. 214-229).
Jerome, whose acquaintance with Palestine imparts a sort of probability to the tradition which prevailed so strongly in later days, asserts that Sebaste, which he in- variably identifies with Samaria, was the place in which John the Baptist was imprisoned and suffered death. (See below.) He also makes it the burial-place of the prophets Elisha andObadiah (see various passages cited by Reland, Palcpst. p. 980, 981 ). Epiphanius is at great pains, in his work Adi\ f/wnses (lili. i). in which he treats of the heresies of the Samaritans with singular minuteness, to account for the origin of their name. He