A roman bronze bull from the floor of the mashhad pool in sepphoris in the galilee

Sepphoris, located in the heart of Lower Galilee, was a main urban center in the Roman period. It is first mentioned by Flavius Josephus (Ant. 13.338) as a Jewish-Hasmonean town, and was later taken over by Herod the Great. During the Great Revolt, Sepphoris eventually took a pro-Roman side and received the name Eirenopolis, city of peace, as appears on its coins (Josephus, J.W. 3.30), and later in the second century it was renamed Diocaesarea (Strange 2015: 22–23). Throughout the Roman period Sepphoris was populated by Jews; it was the home of Jewish sages and of Rabbi Judah, the patriarch who compiled the Mishnah. Alongside the Jewish community of the city there was also a Roman-pagan population, as can be inferred from a Roman temple in the center of the city and a Roman-style mansion with a Dionysiac mosaic on the top of the hill (Weiss 2010, 2015). Furthermore, rabbinic sources attest to a Roman castra inhabited by gentiles in the city (Miller 1984: 31–45). The end of the Roman period in Sepphoris was marked by rapid Christianization of the city, which reached its peak in the fifth century CE; the Roman phase ended with a severe earthquake in 363 that damaged its buildings.