City
Ascalone
Askalan
Listen to the story
Ascalone was one of the five chief cities of the Philistines, and its ruins lie at Askalan on the coast of Israel. The Tabula marks it with the usual pair of towers. The city was the main seat of Derketo, a goddess with the body of a fish, to whom fish were sacred, and under Rome it flourished as a free city, as the Roman writer Pliny records. Its onions were famous across the ancient world, the shallots that still carry its name. The map, though, leaves out Gaza and Raphia, so the fifteen Roman miles it gives from Rhinocorura would only reach as far as Gaza.