Scythopolis
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(Judg. 1:27; Judith 3:10)—the Greek name of Beth-shean. The city lay in the territory of Issachar but was assigned to Manasseh, whose people did not initially drive out its Canaanite inhabitants. In Hellenistic and Roman times it was a strongly fortified, predominantly pagan member of the Decapolis. Jewish tradition praised the fertility of its district and the excellence of its palms and olives. The encyclopedia’s travelers describe a small source-era village of seventy or eighty houses among imposing ruins in a landscape that had become barren. These demographic and environmental observations belong to the nineteenth century. See Beth-shean.