Ashkelon became one of their five lordships. Of these the sites of Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashdod are known but Ekron and Gath have not been located. Ashkelon was probably the most important of the five.
Until the time of the Jewish rising against Rome in the first century A.D. there was enmity between Ashkelon and the Israelites. This is reflected
in the Biblical story of Samson (Judges 13-16). An angel promised that Samson, son of Manoah, would "begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines." After marrying a Philistine woman from Timnath (Timna) he quarreled with the Philistines and slew thirty of them in Ashkelon. The Philistines burned his wife to death, whereupon Samson killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass (Judges 14 and 15). Becoming enamored of Delilah, he betrayed to her the secret of his strength: he was of invincible force so long as his hair remained unshorn. When Delilah then cut off his seven locks he was taken prisoner, bound in fetters of brass and blinded. But as his hair grew again his strength returned, and when he was brought to a festival in the temple of Dagon to make sport for the people he pulled down the temple, killing all who were in it; and so "the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life" (Judges 16,30).
The Philistines adopted the worship of the Phoenician deities - the grim fertility god Dagon, who was venerated in Ugarit as the father of Baal and in Byblos as the brother of El (temple in Ashdod), and the mighty god Baal (Baal-zebub, a name which the Israelites interpreted as "lord of the flies") and his consort Astarte. About the middle of the first millennium B.C. the Philistines were absorbed into the Phoenician population, which was growing in numbers as a result of an influx from the northern coastal regions.
Ashkelon was captured in 732 B.C. by the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser and in 701 by Sennacherib. In the sixth century, under Persian rule, it was controlled by the Phoenician city of Tyre. After 332 B.C. it was Hellenised. Under the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IX, in 104 B.C., Ashkelon was granted self-government and its own calendar. That it was a considerable intellectual center is shown by the career of Antiochus of Ashkelon (born about 120 B.C.), who became head of the Platonic Academy in Athens, founded the "Fifth Academy" and became Cicero's teacher.
About 73 B.C. the future king Herod I is believed to have been born in Ashkelon, the son of an Idumaean father and a Nabataean mother (and thus a non-Jew). Flavius Josephus tells us that he "embellished the town with baths and fountains and with pillared halls of astonishing size and craftsmanship."
Under Roman rule, thanks to its situation on the important north-south road, the Via Maris, Ashkelon developed into a prosperous trading town, famed for its festival.
Two basilicas are known to have been built in the town in Byzantine times. After the Islamic conquest, in 685, the Omayyad Caliph Abd el-Malik, builder of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, erected a mosque. In 1099 Godfrey of Bouillon defeated the army of the Fatimid ruler of Egypt at Ashkelon, opening up the road to Jerusalem, but the city itself was captured only in 1135 by King Baldwin II. In 1187 it fell to Saladin, but five years later, during the third Crusade, Richard Coeur de Lion recovered the town and rebuilt it; the town walls date from his time. Finally it was taken by the Mameluke Sultan Baibars in 1290 and thereafter declined.
In the late 18th century Ahmed el-Jazzar used stone from the ruins of Ashkelon and Caesarea for his building operations in Akko. The Arab village of Migdal (the "Tower") grew up on the site of the ancient port. In 1952 Jews from South Africa founded the settlement of Afridar (the present business district) to the east of Migdal, and this developed into the modern town of Ashqelon.
Ashqelon consists of five districts (Migdal, Givath Zion, Samson, Afridar and Barnea), lying some distance apart. The modern town is traversed by wide streets designed to carry a considerable volume of traffic. It is remarkably well equipped with open spaces; four-fifths of the town's area is said to be occupied by parks and gardens.
From the main north-south road (Tel Aviv-Gaza) Sderot Ben-Gurion runs west into the town. To the north of this road, immediately west of the railroad, is the industrial zone, with the terminal of the oil pipeline from Elat, and the former Arab village of Migdal, which was incorporated in the young town of Ashqelon in 1955. This is the scene of a busy market on Mondays and Thursdays.
The street continues past the Histadrut offices into the town center, with the bus station, hospital and law courts, where Hanassi Street goes off on the right. This street, in which is the Town Hall, runs into the Afridar district, the nucleus of the modern town and now a busy shopping and commercial quarter (clock-tower, tourist information office).
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