A Seleucid city on the Orontes
Antioch stood on the Orontes River near the modern Turkish city of Antakya, a few kilometres inland from the Mediterranean coast. It was founded around 300 BCE by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great’s generals and the founder of the Seleucid dynasty, and was named after his father, Antiochus. The site was well chosen. It sat between the coast and the Syrian interior, controlled a route from the Mediterranean towards the Euphrates and the east, and had fertile land and water nearby.
Under the Seleucid kings the city grew into a leading capital of the Hellenistic world. Greek settlers formed a core of the population, alongside local Syrians and a long-established Jewish community. A famous statue of the city’s guardian, the Tyche of Antioch, was made by the sculptor Eutychides; the original is lost, but Roman copies show a seated woman wearing a crown shaped like city walls, with the river god at her feet.
Roman provincial capital
The Roman general Pompey ended Seleucid rule in 64 BCE and made Syria a province, with Antioch as its main city. It kept a large measure of self-government, and Roman leaders including Julius Caesar are reported to have funded buildings there. Josephus says Herod the Great paved Antioch’s main street with polished marble and lined it with colonnades, which fits the picture of a city whose main avenue was a showpiece. Other works, including baths, theatres and an amphitheatre, were added over time.
Antioch’s importance was practical as well as ceremonial. It was the base from which Roman governors and emperors managed the eastern frontier facing Parthia and later Persia. The Roman legions stationed in Syria were commanded from this region, and emperors, including Trajan and later Julian, stayed in Antioch when preparing campaigns. Its wealth also depended on trade: goods from the east that crossed Syria, in the network often described as the Silk Road trade routes, passed through the city on their way to Mediterranean ports.
How big was it?
Ancient writers describe Antioch as one of the greatest cities of the empire, usually ranked behind Rome and Alexandria. Modern estimates of its population vary widely, from perhaps a hundred thousand to several hundred thousand people, because the evidence is thin and the ancient city lies under the modern one. It is safest to say that it was a very large city by ancient standards and that precise figures are uncertain.
The urban plan combined a regular Hellenistic street grid with later Roman additions. A long colonnaded main street ran through the city, and nearby, in the suburb of Daphne, there were gardens, springs and a famous temple of Apollo. Public baths, circuses and theatres filled the city with entertainment, and the Roman public baths were among the places where ordinary residents mixed. Ancient writers, especially the rhetorician Libanius in the fourth century, give a picture of a lively, argumentative and sometimes unruly city.
Everyday life and late antique Antioch
Antioch was a mixed city, and its residents spoke Greek, Aramaic and Latin to varying degrees. Its large Jewish community and later its Christians shared streets with worshippers of Apollo, Zeus and many local gods. Street lighting is mentioned by fourth-century writers, which suggests that the main avenues stayed busy after dark, although it is hard to know how widespread it was. The city also hosted games and chariot racing, and Libanius describes rival factions among the spectators.
In 362 and 363 the emperor Julian, who wished to revive traditional worship, spent the winter in Antioch before his Persian campaign. He found the residents unenthusiastic, and he wrote a satirical work, the Misopogon, criticising their habits. The episode gives a rare glimpse of the city through the eyes of an unhappy visitor, and it also shows the tension between the old religions and Christianity in the late fourth century.
Earthquakes and disasters
Antioch lay in an earthquake zone, and the city suffered repeatedly. A severe earthquake in 115 CE struck while the emperor Trajan was visiting, and he is said to have escaped through a window. Another major quake in 526 CE is reported to have killed a very large number of people, and a second damaged the city in 528. Reported casualty figures from these events are uncertain.
In 540, the Persian king Khosrow I captured and sacked the city. He moved many of its inhabitants to a new city built near his capital, close to the site of Ctesiphon with its Taq Kasra palace arch. Justinian rebuilt Antioch on a smaller scale. Arab forces took it in the 630s, and it later passed through Byzantine, Crusader and Mamluk hands. In February 2023 powerful earthquakes badly damaged modern Antakya and its historic buildings, adding a new chapter to this history of seismic damage.
A centre of early Christianity
Antioch holds a special place in Christian history. The New Testament’s Acts of the Apostles says that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians at Antioch. Paul and Barnabas set out on missionary journeys from the city, according to Acts, and Ignatius, an early bishop, wrote letters as he was taken to Rome in the early second century. In the fourth century John Chrysostom, later patriarch of Constantinople, was born and trained in Antioch. The city was one of the great church centres and later became one of the five original patriarchates. Its theologians contributed to the debates of the fourth and fifth centuries about the nature of Christ.
What survives
Much of ancient Antioch is buried under later buildings or was destroyed by earthquakes. Excavations in the 1930s, carried out by an international team, uncovered Roman houses and baths, and the many mosaics found there are now mostly displayed in museums, with an important collection in the Hatay Archaeology Museum in Antakya. These mosaics, with mythological scenes and detailed borders, give some of the best evidence for how wealthy residents decorated their houses.
Antioch should not be confused with other cities of the same name; Seleucus founded several, which is why this one is usually called Antioch on the Orontes, or Antioch in Syria. Its story shows how a Hellenistic foundation turned into a pillar of Roman power and then of Christian life.