GAZA, A city in Southern Syria, the modern Ghazzeh, three miles from the Mediter ranean coast, and about 50 miles southwest of Jerusalem. It was once the most important member of the Philistine Pentapolis, and a flour ishing centre of Hellenistic culture, and is still an emporium of trade and a place of considerable size, with a population of about 35,000. Gaza is mentioned as Gazatu in a list of places in Palestine captured by Thothmes III. It is re ferred to in the Amarna correspondence under the form Khazati. In the time of Rameses H. it was still an Egyptian possession. But the Pilisti or Philistines seem to have secured the city when they were repelled in their attack upon Egypt in the reign of Rameses III. Probably the city was not captured by the tribe of Judah at the time of the Hebrew invasion, as stated in Judges i. 18, since the editorial gloss contradicts the con text. In the narrative of Samson (q.v.), Gaza figures prominently, and he is said to have car ried away the gates of this city (Judges xvi. 3). The Assyrian inscriptions do not mention the city until the reign of Tiglathpileser III. (Lc. 745 728), when `Chanun, King of Gaza,' resisted his attacks, was defeated, and fled to Miluelicha in n.c. 734. In n.c. 720 this King again offered resist ance, aided by Sibe. King of the north Arabian country of Muzri. Sargon defeated him at Rahpia and carried him and 0000 of his people away into captivity. Gaza seems to have taken no part in the rebellion of Ashdod in n.c. 713-711, or in that of Hezekiah of Judah in n.c. 701, and its King Sil Bel was therefore presented with a part of Hezekiah's territory. Sil Bel is mentioned as a faithful vassal of Asurbanipal (me. 668-626) ; and even in the time of Nabunaid of Babylonia (me. 556-539) the vassals of Gaza are men tioned. During the Achnmenian period the city must have been of great importance. Herodotua (ii. 159), who calls it Kadytis, says that it
seemed to him not inferior to Sardis. In R.C. 332 it was taken by Alexander only after a siege of two months, the Persian General Bates, with the aid of Arabian mercenaries, offering a stout re sistance. Gaza was destroyed in B.C. 96 by Alex ander Jannmus, the Nabitean King Aretas fail ing to send aid. The ruined city is referred to in Acts viii. 26, and also in a Greek geographer as ?ply,or, eremos, 'desert.' The port grew up into a new Gaza. Under the Roman administra tion Gaza was rebuilt, and attained to a sig nificance that it had scarcely possessed before. Hellenic culture made it a rival of Antioch, Alex andria, and Athens. In its temples Greek gods were worshiped; Greek art flourished among its wealthy citizens; from its schools went forth famous rhetoricians, philosophers, and poets. Representatives of Neo-Platonism, such as Pro clus, Olympianus, and Isidor, taught in Gaza in the fifth and sixth centuries, the last of them even after the closing of the school of Athens in 529. Christianity also found here philosoph ically educated defenders, such as Procopius, Choricius, and Johannes. But both the native faith, the worship of the god Marna, 'our lord,' and the Greek cults continued in Gaza longer than in any other great Syrian city. Omar cap tured the city in 634. The Crusaders found it in ruins. In 1149 Baldwin II. built a citadel which he left to the Templars to defend. Saladin plundered the city in 1170, but could not take the citadel until 1187. Napoleon took it in 1799. Consult: Clermont-Ganneau, Arches°logical Re searches in Palestine (London, 1896) ; Stark, Gaza and die philistitische Kiiste (Jena, 1852) ; Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land (London, 1895) ; and Gatt, in Zeitschrift des deutschen vol. i. (1888).