Antioch on the Orontes was a Hellenistic Greek city founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BC. One of the most important Greek cities of the Hellenistic period, it served as the capital of the Seleucid Empire and later as regional capital to … 展开

Alexander the Great is said to have camped on the site of Antioch and dedicated an altar to Zeus Bottiaeus; it lay in the northwest of the … 展开

Roman rule before Constantine
The Roman emperors favored the city from the first moments, seeing it as a more suitable capital for the … 展开

Two routes from the Mediterranean Sea, lying through the Orontes river gorge and the Belen Pass, converge in the plain of the Antioch Lake, now called 展开

A settlement called "Meroe" pre-dated Antioch. A shrine of the goddess Anat, called by Herodotus the "Persian Artemis", was located here. This site was included in the eastern suburbs of … 展开

The original city of Seleucus was laid out in imitation of the grid plan of Alexandria by the architect Xenarius. Libanius describes the first building … 展开

In 637, during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, Antioch was conquered by Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah of the Rashidun Caliphate during the Battle of the Iron Bridge, … 展开