On the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, a ruined city rises into the Golan Heights from En Gev. It is called Susita in Aramaic or Hippos in Greek – the place of the horse. A small volcanic outcrop.
We wander off the main road onto a track labeled “farm use only.” Our guide suggests we all moo to give some legitimacy to the venture, but behind the jest he as a permit to take us to this place no one else seems to bother to visit. What they miss!
The bus climbs up a switchback road as high as possible and then we set off on foot up a rocky track. Brimming the crest we find ourselves on a street paved with smooth basalt blocks, neatly set together. To the side are hollow rocks that are the remains of the siphon system that drew water up here from another nearby mountain.
We wander Susita marveling at the remains of four Byzantine churches, a cistern system, a wide marketplace, and tumbled ruins of shops and homes.
This could have been the city set on a hill that cannot be hidden from Matthew 5:14. Certainly it would have been visible by day and night from all around the Sea of Galilee. Rising in the Hellenistic period about 300 BC, it remained until it’s decline after the Arab invasion of 749 AD.
Hiking down later, another woman and I ponder what might have been the rhythms of this place. Isolated and quiet, yet filled with imported marble and granite, one of the Decapolis cities right in the path of the Via Maris – the way of the sea that led to Damascas.
Who lived in Susita? Why? The stones only hint at answers.
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