It was named in honour of the emperor Tiberius. In modern Hebrew it is Teverya.
Tiberias was built at about AD 20[?] by Herod Antipas[?], the son of Herod the Great, and it became Herod's capital.
During Herod's time, the Jews refused to settle there; the presence of a cemetery rendered the site ritually unclean. However, in time, Tiberias became one of the country's four Holy Cities, a centre of learning and the arts, also the Sanhedrin, the Jewish court, chose it as one of its meeting places.
Under Byzantine and Arab rule, the city declined and was devastated by wars and earthquakes in the Middle Ages.
In the 16th century, Suleiman the Magnificent gave it back to the Jews, and Tiberias flourished again for a hundred years. It was devastated again, and again resettled by Hassidic[?] Jews.
Today, Tiberias is Israel's most popular holiday resort in the Northern half of the country.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump