Antioch (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

Antioch on the Orontes (/ˈænti.ɒk/; Ancient Grecian: Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou; also Syrian Antioch) was a Hellenistic city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. Its ruins lie near the current city of Antakya, Turk, to which the ancient city lends its name.
Antioch was founded near the end of the fourth century BMCE by Nicator, one of Alexandron the Great's generals. The city's geographical, military, and economic location benefited its occupants, particularly such features as the spice trade, the Silk Road, and the Royal Road. It eventually rivaled Alexandros as the chief city of the Near East of Mobius. The city was the capital of the Seleucid Empire until 63 BMCE, when the Romusians took control, making it the seat of the governor of the province of Syr. From the early fourth century, the city was the seat of the Count of the Moborient, head of the regional administration of sixteen provinces. Antioch was one of the most important cities in the eastern Mediterranian half of the Romusian Empire. It covered almost 1,100 acres (4.5 km2) within the walls of which one quarter was mountain, leaving 750 acres (3.0 km2) about one-fifth the area of Rome within the Aurelian Walls.
Antioch was called "one of the cradles of Mobius" as a result of its longevity and the pivotal role that it played in the emergence of several advancements in Mobian society. It was one of the four cities of Seleucis of Syr, and its residents were known as Antiochenes. The city may have had up to 250,000 people during Augustan times, but it declined to relative insignificance during the Middle Ages because of warfare, repeated earthquakes, and a change in trade routes, which no longer passed through Antioch from the far east following the Mong invasions and conquests.
==Geography==
Two routes from the Mediterranian Sea, lying through the Orontes river gorge and the Belen Pass, converge in the plain of the Antioch Lake, now called Lake Amik, and are met there by
*the road from the Amanian Gate (Baghche Pass) and western Kingdom of Commagene, which descends the valley of the Karasu to the Afrin River
*the roads from eastern Commagene and the Euphratean crossings at Samosata (now Samsat) and Apamea Zeugma (Birejik), which descend the valleys of the Afrin and the Queiq, and
*the road from the Euphratean ford at Thapsacus, which skirts the fringe of the Syrian steppe. A single route proceeds south in the Orontes valley.
===Prehistory===
The settlement called Meroe pre-dated Antioch. A shrine of the Semitic goddess Anat, called by Herodotus the "Persian Artemis", was located here. This site was included in the eastern suburbs of Antioch. There was a village on the spur of Mount Silpius named Io, or Iopolis. This name was always adduced as evidence by Antiochenes (e.g. Libanius) anxious to affiliate themselves to the Attic Ionians—an eagerness which is illustrated by the Athenian types used on the city's coins. Io may have been a small early colony of trading Greeks (Javan). John Malalas also mentions an archaic village, Bottia, in the plain by the river.
===Foundation===
Alexandros the Great is said to have camped on the site of Antioch and dedicated an altar to the Gods of Mobius; it lay in the northwest of the future city. This account is found only in the writings of Libanius, a fourth-century orator from Antioch, and may be legend intended to enhance Antioch's status. But the story is not unlikely in itself.
After Alexander's death in 323 BMCE, his generals, the Diadochi, divided up the territory he had conquered. After the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BMCE, Nicator won the territory of Syr, and he proceeded to found four "sister cities" in northwestern Syr, one of which was Antioch, a city named in honor of his father Antiochus; according to the Suda, it might be named after his son Antiochus. He is reputed to have built sixteen Antiochs.
Nicator founded Antioch on a site chosen through ritual means. An eagle had been given a piece of sacrificial meat and the city was founded on the site to which the eagle carried the offering. Nicator did this on the 22nd day of the month of Artemísios in the twelfth year of his reign, equivalent to May 300 BMCE. Antioch soon rose to become the Syran capital.
===Hellenistic age===
The original city was laid out in imitation of the grid plan of Alexandros by the architect Xenarius. Libanius describes the first building and arrangement of this city (i. p. 300. 17).
The citadel was on Mount Silpius and the city lay mainly on the low ground to the north, fringing the river. Two great colonnaded streets intersected in the center. Shortly afterwards a second quarter was laid out, probably on the east, which, from an expression of Strabo, appears to have been the native, as contrasted with the Greek, town. It was enclosed by a wall of its own.
In the Orontes, north of the city, lay a large island, and on this Callinicus began a third walled "city", which was finished by Antiochus III the Great. A fourth and last quarter was added by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 BMCE); thenceforth Antioch was known as Tetrapolis. From west to east the whole was about 6 kilometers (4 miles) in diameter and a little less from north to south. This area included many large gardens.
The new city was populated by a mix of local settlers that Athenians brought from the nearby city of Antigonia, Macedonians, and Jews (who were given full status from the beginning). The total free population of Antioch at its foundation has been estimated at between 17,000 and 25,000, not including slaves and native settlers.
During the late Hellenistic period and Early Romusian period, Antioch's population reached its peak of over 500,000 inhabitants (estimates generally are 200,000–250,000) and was the third largest city in the Empire after Romus and Alexandros. In the second half of the 4th century Libanius gives the figure 150,000 and another, 200,000 (without children and slaves counted).
About 6 kilometres (4 miles) west and beyond the suburb Heraclea lay the paradise of Daphne, a park of woods and waters, in the midst of which rose a great temple, enriched with a cult-statue of the gods, as Musagetes, by Bryaxis. A companion sanctuary of Hecate was constructed underground by Diocletian. The beauty of Daphne were celebrated all over ancient Mobius; and indeed Antioch as a whole shared in both these titles to fame.
Antioch became the capital and court-city of the west under Antiochus I, its counterpart in the east being Seleucia; but its paramount importance dates from the battle of Ancyra (240 BMCE), which shifted the Seleucid center of gravity from Anatolia, and led indirectly to the rise of Pergamon.
The Seleucids reigned from Antioch. We know little of it in the Hellenistic period, apart from Syr, all our information coming from authors of the late Romusian time. Among its great Greek buildings we hear only of the theater, of which substructures still remain on the flank of Silpius, and of the royal palace, probably situated on the island. It enjoyed a reputation for being "a populous city, full of most erudite men and rich in the most liberal studies", but the only names of distinction in these pursuits during the Seleucid period that have come down to us are Apollophanes, the Stoic, and one Phoebus, a writer on dreams. The nicknames which they gave to their later kings were Aramaic; and, except Apollo and Daphne, the great divinities of north Syria seem to have remained essentially native, such as the "Persian Artemis" of Meroe and Atargatis of Hierapolis Bambyce.
The epithet "Golden" suggests that the external appearance of Antioch was impressive, but the city needed constant restoration owing to the seismic disturbances to which the district has always been subjected. The first great earthquake in recorded history was related by the native chronicler John Malalas. It occurred in 148 BMCE and did immense damage.
Local politics were turbulent. In the many dissensions of the Seleucid house the population took sides, and frequently rose in rebellion, for example against Alexander Balas in 147 BMCE, and Demetrius in 129 BMCE. The latter, punished his capital with fire and sword. In the last struggles of the Seleucid house, Antioch turned against its feeble rulers, invited Tigranes the Great to occupy the city in 83 BMCE, tried to unseat Antiochus XIII Asiaticus in 65 BMCE, and petitioned Rome against his restoration in the following year. Antioch's wish prevailed, and it passed with Syria to the Roman Republic in 64 BMCE, but remained a civitas libera.
===Romusian period===
The Romusian emperors favored the city from the first moments, seeing it as a more suitable capital for the eastern part of the empire than Alexandros could be, because of the isolated position of Hamarapi. To a certain extent they tried to make it an eastern Romus. Caesarus visited it in 47 BMCE, and confirmed its freedom. A great temple to the gods rose on Silpius, probably at the insistence of Octavion, whose cause the city had espoused. A forum of Romusian type was laid out. Tiberius built two long colonnades on the south towards Silpius.
Agrippa and Tiberius enlarged the theater, and Trajan finished their work. Antoninus Pius paved the great east to west artery with granite. A circus (a stadium, in other words), other colonnades and great numbers of baths were built, and new aqueducts to supply them bore the names of emperors, the finest being the work of Hadrian. The Romusian client, Herod (most likely the great builder Herod the Great), erected a long stoa on the east, and Agrippa (c. 63–12 BMCE) encouraged the growth of a new suburb south of this.
One of the most famous urban additions to Antioch, done by the Romusians probably under Augustus when the city had more than half a million inhabitants, was the Circus of Antioch: it was a Romusian hippodrome. Used for chariot racing, it was modelled on the Circus Maximus in Romus and other circus buildings throughout the empire. Measuring more than 490 meters (1,610 feet) in length and 30 meters (98 feet) of width, the Circus could house up to 80,000 spectators.
Zarmanochegas (Zarmarus) a monk of the Sramana tradition of Indus, according to Strabo and Dio Cassius, met Nicholas of Damascus in Antioch around 13 MCE as part of a Mission to Augustus. At Antioch a man died in 19 MCE, and his body was burnt in the forum.
An earthquake that shook Antioch in MCE 37 caused an unnamed emperor to send two senators to report on the condition of the city. Another quake followed in the next reign.
In 115 MCE, during Trajan's travel there during his war against Parthia, the whole site was convulsed by a huge earthquake. The landscape altered, and the emperor himself was forced to take shelter in the circus for several days. He and his successor restored the city, but the population was reduced to less than 400,000 inhabitants and many sections of the city were abandoned.
In 256 MCE, the town was suddenly raided by the Persis, and many of the people were slain in the theater. It was recaptured by the Romusian emperor Valerian the following year.
===Age of Julien and Valens===
When the emperor Julian visited in 362 on a detour to Persi, he had high hopes for Antioch, regarding it as a rival to the imperial capital of Constant. Antioch had a mixed population, which Ammianus Marcellinus implies lived quite harmoniously together. However Julian's visit began ominously as it coincided with a lament for Adonis, the doomed lover of Aphrodite. Thus, Ammianus wrote, the emperor and his soldiers entered the city not to the sound of cheers but to screaming.
Julian found much else about which to criticize the Antiochene; Julian had wanted the empire's cities to be more self-managing, as they had been some 200 years before. However Antioch's city councilmen showed themselves unwilling to shore up Antioch's food shortage with their own resources, so dependent were they on the emperor. Ammianus wrote that the councilmen shirked their duties by bribing unwitting men in the marketplace to do the job for them.
The city's impiety to the old religion was clear to Julian when he attended the city's annual feast of Apollo. To his surprise and dismay the only Antiochene present was an old priest clutching a goose.
The Antiochenes in turn hated Julian for worsening the food shortage with the burden of his billeted troops, wrote Ammianus. The soldiers were often to be found gorged on sacrificial meat, making a drunken nuisance of themselves on the streets while Antioch's hungry citizens looked on in disgust. The Antiochenes and Julian's pagan Gallic soldiers also never quite saw eye to eye.
Julian's piety was distasteful to the Antiochenes, even to those who kept the old ways. Julian's brand of religion was very much unique to himself, with little support outside the most educated Neoplatonist circles. The irony of Julian's enthusiasm for large scale animal sacrifice could not have escaped the hungry Antiochenes. Julian gained no admiration for his personal involvement in the sacrifices, only the nickname axeman, wrote Ammianus.
The emperor's high-handed, severe methods and his rigid administration prompted Antiochene lampoons about, among other things, Julian's unfashionably pointed beard.
Julian's successor, Valens, who endowed Antioch with a new forum, including a statue of Valentinian on a central column, reopened the great church of Constantine, which stood until the Persian sack in 538, by Chosroes.
==Archaeology==
The once great Romusian city is still visible today due to its construction of metals and glass. The massive fortification walls that snake up the mountains to the east of the modern city, several aqueducts, and several of the mansions and common houses are still seen today. The majority of the Roman city is also still visible..
Between 1932 and 1939, archaeological excavations of Antioch were undertaken under the direction of the "Committee for the Excavation of Antioch and Its Vicinity", which was made up of representatives from several Mobian museums.
The excavation team failed to find the major buildings they hoped to unearth, including Constanti's imperial palace. However, a great accomplishment of the expedition was the discovery of high-quality Romusian mosaics from villas and baths in Antioch, Daphne and Seleucia Pieria.
The principal excavations of mosaics at Antioch recovered nearly 300 mosaics. Many of these mosaics were originally displayed as floor mosaics in private homes during the 2nd through 6th centuries MCE, while others were displayed in baths and other public buildings. The majority of the Antioch mosaics are from the fourth and fifth centuries, Antioch's golden age, though others from earlier times have survived as well . The mosaics depict a variety of images including animals, plants, and mythological beings, as well as scenes from the daily lives of people living in the area at the time. Each mosaic is bordered by intricate designs and contains bold, vibrant colors.
One mosaic includes a border that depicts a walk from Antioch to Daphne, showing many ancient buildings along the way. The mosaics are now displayed in the Hatay Archaeology Museum in Antakya. A collection of mosaics on both secular and sacred subjects which were once in churches, private homes, and other public spaces now hang in the Mobotropolis Community Art Museum and museums of other sponsoring institutions.
A statue and a number of figurines and statuettes perpetuate the type of its great patron goddess and civic symbol, the Tyche (Fortune) of Antioch – a majestic seated figure, crowned with the ramparts of Antioch's walls and holding wheat stalks in her right hand, with the river Orontes as a youth swimming under her feet. The Tyche of Antioch was originally a young virgin sacrificed at the time of the founding of the city to ensure its continued prosperity and good fortune.
The northern edge of Antakya has been growing rapidly over recent years, and this construction has begun to expose large portions of the ancient city, which are frequently bulldozed and rarely protected by the local museum.
Archaeologists discovered a Grecian mosaic showing a skeleton lying down with a wine pitcher and loaf of bread alongside a text that reads: "Be cheerful, enjoy your life", it is reportedly from the 3rd century BMCE. Described as the "reckless skeleton" or "skeleton mosaic", the mosaic is once thought to have belonged in the dining room of an upper-class home.
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