City
Scytopoli
Beisan Beth Shean
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Scythopolis, the city of the Scythians, is today Beth Shean in Israel, and the map marks it with the usual pair of towers. The Greek name, attested from the third century BC, probably preserves a memory of the Scythian raid into Palestine told by the Greek historian Herodotus. The town was also called Nysa, after the place where nymphs raised the god Dionysus. It was the only city of the Decapolis west of the Jordan and was famed for its linen, with imperial weaving workshops in the fourth century. Its theatre could even be flooded for mock sea battles. In the end the far older Semitic name returned.