ELEUTHEROPOLIS, an ancient city of Palestine, 25 m. from Jerusalem, on the road to Gaza, mod. Beit Jibrin (Gabriel) ; pop. I ,000.
Mareshah was the name of the settlement in Old Testament times, now Khirbet Mar'ash, about 1 m. S.W. of Beit Jibrin beside Tell Sandahanna (St. John), on which are the ruins of an early church of that name. Mareshah was fortified by Rehoboam, sacked by Judas Maccabeus (163 B.c.), and taken by John Hyrcanus (1 Io B.C.). Pompey restored it to independ ence (63 B.c.), and in 4o B.C. it was completely destroyed by the Parthians. The Romans rebuilt it as a fortress on the modern site with the name Baitogabra. Septimius Severus showed it favour and gave it the name Eleutheropolis ("free city") (A.D. 200). It boasted an era of its own, with the year 199 as zero year. In the course of the 9th century the old name reappeared as Beit Jibrin. On this site, the name of which they corrupted to Gibelin, the crusaders built a castle (1134), which fell into the hands of Saladin (1187), was retaken by Richard Lionheart (I191), and destroyed by Beibars (1264). During the World War the Turkish troops, who had entrenched themselves in the caves in its neighbourhood, were surprised and dislodged by Australian cavalry, Nov. I 1, 1917.
The hills in the neighbourhood of Tell Sanda hanna are honeycombed with caves, some of great dimensions, which have been cut out of the soft rock. They are thought to be of early date. They seem to have been used in different ages for a variety of purposes—dwellings, tombs (one with about 2,000 columbaria), chapels, cisterns, etc. Some of the caves were decorated in the Roman period with paintings, which are now carefully protected. More recently (1922) at Tell Sandahanna, the site of a Roman villa of the 2nd century A.D., on which had been superposed a church, has been excavated. In one of its chapels there has been discovered a most wonderful mosaic, the finest example of its kind yet found in Palestine.
See H. Thiersch and J. P. Peters, Painted Tombs in the Necropolis of Marissa (Mareshah, 1905) ; F. M. Abel, "Decouvertes recentes a Beit-Djebrin," Revue Biblique (1924).
