Amathus
Ἀμαθοῦς
Amathus (Ἀμαθοῦς or τὰ Ἀμαθά), a strongly fortified city on the east of the Jordan, in Lower Persia, 21 Roman miles south of Pella. (Eusebii Ononmast.) It was destroyed by Alexander Jannaeus (Joseph Ant. 13.13.3), and after its restoration was one of the five cities in which the Sanhedrim sat: the others were Jerusalem, Jericho, Gadara and Sepphoris (Ib. 14.10). Burkhardt passed the ruins of an ancient city standing on the declivity of the mountain
called Amata, near the Jordan, and a little to the north of the Zerka (Jabbok). He was told that several columns remain standing, and also some large buildings.
(Travels, p. 346.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.