Anatolia the Mediterranean, Greeks in Late Antiquity came to use the name Μικρὰ Ἀσία ("Mikrá Asía") or Asia Minor, meaning "Lesser Asia" to refer to present-day Anatolia. The English-language name "Anatolia" itself derives from the Greek ("") meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise” (comparable to the Latin-derived terms "levant" and "orient"). The precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme (Ἀνατολικόν θέμα) was a "theme" covering the western and central parts of Turkey's present-day Central
Transjordan (region) and Eber-Nari. The Decapolis is named from its ten cities enumerated by Pliny the Elder. It should be noted, that what Pliny calls "Decapolis", Ptolemy calls "Cœle-Syria". Ptolemy does not use the term "Transjordan", but rather the periphrasis "across the Jordan". And he enumerates the cities; Cosmas, Libias, Callirhoe, Gazorus, Epicaeros—as being in this district—east of the Jordan, that Josephus et al. called Perea. Jerash was a prominent central community for the surrounding region during the Neolithic period and was also inhabited during the Bronze Age. Ancient Greek inscriptions from the city, and the literary works of Iamblichus and the