page_title: Beirut
section_title: Roman period
hierarchical_section_title: Beirut / History / Roman period
caption_attribution_description: These superb photographic works, we had made during our holiday to Beirut, the capital of Lebanon in November 2008. Thanks to massive security operations in place in the city, we were sometimes hindered to photograph or on one or two occasions, we had been odered to delete certain pictures! So these would not have been all pictures from beautiful Beirut, when we had our way! This was a sad example for a nation, which should be free and should present itself in an open way to the world, especially through photography! Thanks! ( Beirut in November 2008 and the question, can I take a photo and show the world or not? ).
context_page_description: Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. As of 2007 it had an estimated population of slightly more than 1 million to 2.2 million as part of Greater Beirut, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region and the fifteenth-largest in the Arab world. On a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coast, Beirut is an important regional seaport.
  It is one of the oldest cities in the world, having been inhabited for more than 5,000 years. The first historical mention of Beirut is found in the Amarna letters from the New Kingdom of Egypt, which date to the 15th century BC.
  Beirut is Lebanon's seat of government and plays a central role in the Lebanese economy, with most banks and corporations based in its Central District, Badaro, Rue Verdun, Hamra, Ryad el Soleh street, and Achrafieh. Following the destructive Lebanese Civil War, Beirut's cultural landscape underwent major reconstruction. Identified and graded for accountancy, advertising, banking, finance and law, Beirut is ranked as a Beta World City by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.
context_section_description: Laodicea was conquered by Pompey in 64 BC and the name Berytus was restored to it. The city was assimilated into the Roman Empire, veteran soldiers were sent there, and large building projects were undertaken.
  Beirut was considered the most Roman city in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, the veterans of two Roman legions were established in the city of Berytus by emperor Augustus: the 5th Macedonian and the 3rd Gallic Legions. Consequently, the city quickly became fully Romanized: it was one of four Roman colonies (coloniae) in the Syria-Phoenicia region and the only one with full Italian rights (ius Italicum) exempting its citizens from imperial taxation.
  Its territory under Claudius reached the Bekaa valley and included Heliopolis (Baalbek): it was the only mostly Latin-speaking area in the Syria-Phoenicia region, because it was settled by Roman colonists who even promoted agriculture in the fertile lands around Yammoune. From the 1st century BC, the Bekaa Valley served as a source of grain for the Roman provinces of the Levant and even for Rome itself. In 14 BC, during the reign of Herod the Great, Berytus became a colony. Its law school was widely known; two of Rome's most famous jurists, Papinian and Ulpian, both natives of Phoenicia, taught there under the Severan emperors. When Justinian assembled his Pandects in the 6th century, a large part of the corpus of laws was derived from these two jurists, and in AD 533 Justinian recognised the school as one of the three official law schools of the empire. After the 551 Beirut earthquake the students were transferred to Sidon.
  The post-war salvage excavations since 1993 have yielded new insights in the layout and history of Roman Berytus. Public architecture included several bath complexes, Colonnaded Streets, a circus and theatre; residential areas were excavated in the Garden of Forgiveness, Martyrs' Square and the Beirut Souks.
caption: Roman Columns of Basilica near the Forum of Berytus
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