Sepphoris or Zippori

The largest city in Galilee was located just south of the road from PtolemaÃ-s to Tiberias, about half-way between the Mediterranean & the sea of Galilee, on a steep ridge that rises 300 feet above the valley floor. It was fortified in the 7th c. BCE, during the Assyrian occupation of Israel & served subsequent Babylonian, Persian & Hellenistic empires as an administrative center for the region. In 104 BCE it was taken by Hasmonean forces led by either Aristobulus I or Alexander Jannai. But a generation later Gabinius, the Roman governor of Syria gave Sepphoris its own council (Sanhedrin), making it independent of Jerusalem.