Articles relating to the Decapolis (63 BC–AD 106), a group of ten cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire in the southeastern Levant in the first centuries BC and AD. They formed a group because of their language, culture, location, and political status, with each functioning as an autonomous city-state dependent on Rome. They are sometimes described as a league of cities, although some scholars believe that they were never formally organized as a political unit. The group consisted of the cities Canatha (Qanawat), Damascus, Dium (Capitolias), Gadara (Umm Qais), Gerasa (Jerash), Hippos, Pella, Philadelphia (Amman), Raphana (Abila), and Scythopolis (Beit She'an).