Berytus

Early history

In 140 BCE the Phoenician village called "Biruta" was destroyed by Diodotus Tryphon in his contest with Antiochus VII Sidetes for the throne of the Macedonian Seleucid monarchy. Later it was rebuilt on a more conventional Hellenistic plan—the exact date is unclear but prosperous Berytian merchants were recorded in Delos by 110–109 BCE^[5]—under the name of Laodicea in Phoenicia (Greek: Λαοδίκεια ἡ ἐν Φοινίκῃ) or Laodicea in Canaan in honor of a Seleucid Laodice.

During the late decades of the Roman Republic the city was conquered by the Romans of Pompey in 64 BCE and renamed "Berytus", as a reference to the name of the old original Phoenician port-village. The city was assimilated into the Roman Empire, many veteran soldiers were sent there, and large building projects were undertaken.^[6][7][8]

Roman colonia

In 14 BCE, during the reign of Herod the Great, Berytus became an important Roman colonia. The city was named Colonia Iulia Augusta Felix Berytus in honor of Julia, the only daughter of Augustus (according to Theodore Mommsen, Res gestae divi Augusti, II, 119). The veterans of two Roman legions were established in the city of Berytus by emperor Augustus: the fifth Macedonian and the third Gallic.^[9] The city quickly became Romanized, with two third of the inhabitants being descendants of the Roman veterans. Large public buildings and monuments were erected and Berytus enjoyed full status as a part of the empire.^[10]

...(Berytus) was made a Roman colony about 14 B.C. Herod the Great, Agrippa I and II, and Queen Berenice built exedras, porticos, temples, a forum, a theater, amphitheater, and baths here. In the 3d c. A.D. the city became the seat of a famous school of law and continued to flourish until the earthquake of A.D. 551 ravaged the city....Its streets, laid out on a grid plan, are spaced at roughly the same intervals as those of Damascus and Laodicea. The new Roman city spread farther S and W (of the port), with its Forum near the (actual) Place de l'Etoile. On its N side was a civic basilica 99 m long with a Corinthian portico of polychrome materials..., dating from the 1st c. A.D. Some large baths have been uncovered on the E slope of the (actual) Colline du Sérail, and the hippodrome lay on the NW side of the same hill. Some villas in a S suburb facing the sea had mosaic floors (now in the Beirut Museum).Some 12 km upstream on the Beirut river are the ruined arches of an aqueduct.^[11]

Berytus was considered the most Roman city in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.^[12] It was one of four Roman colonies in the Syria-Phoenicia region and the only one with full Ius Italicum (meaning: exemption from imperial taxation).

Map showing the Berytus district

Its territory/district under Claudius reached the Bekaa valley and included Heliopolis; it was the only area mostly Latin-speaking in the Syria-Phoenicia region, because of the Roman colonists who promoted agriculture in the fertile lands around Yammoune. From the 1st century BCE the Bekaa valley served as a source of grain for the Roman provinces of the Levant and even for the same Rome (today the valley makes up to 40 percent of Lebanon's arable land): Roman colonists created there even a "country district" called Pagus Augustus, where are located the famous Niha temples with Latin inscriptions.^[13]

Agrippa greatly favoured the city of Berytus, and adorned it with a splendid theatre and amphitheatre, beside baths and porticoes, inaugurating them with games and spectacles of every kind, including shows of gladiators. Now only minor ruins remain, in front of the Catholic Cathedral of Beirut. Four large bath complexes as well as numerous private baths increased the city's water consumption: the Romans constructed an aqueduct fed by the Beirut River whose main source was 10 km from the city. The aqueduct crossed the river at Qanater Zbaydeh and the water finally reached Riad Al Solh Square; there, at the foot of the Serail Hill, it was stored in large cisterns. An intricate network of lead or clay pipes and channels distributed the water to the various pools of the Roman Baths.

Roman Berytus was a city of nearly 50,000 inhabitants during the reign of Trajan and had a huge forum and necropolis.^[14] The Hippodrome of Berytus was the largest known in the Levant, while literary sources indicate there was a theatre.^[15][13] Scholars like Linda Hall write that the hippodrome was still working in the fifth century.^[16]

Roman coin minted in Berytus^[17]

Berytus had a monumental "Roman Gate" with huge walls (recently discovered^[18]) and was a trade center of silk and wine production, well connected by efficient Roman roads to Heliopolis and Caesarea. According to Kevin Butcher,^[13] the Latin character of Berytus remained dominant until the fifth century: the city was a center for the study of Latin literature and – after Septimius Severus – of Roman Law. Under Nero the son of a Roman colonist, Marcus Valerius Probus (born in Berytus around CE 25), was known in all the empire as a Latin grammarian and literature master philologist.

Roman emperors promoted the development of high-level culture in the fully Romanized city (even in Greek language as with Hermippus of Berytus).

The Law School of Berytus

The Berytian law school was widely known in the Roman Empire;:^[19] it was famous the Latin motto Berytus Nutrix Legum ("Beirut, Mother of Laws"). Indeed, 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 sixth century, a large part of the "Corpus of Laws" -all in Latin- was derived from these two jurists, and in 533 CE Justinian recognized the school as one of the three official law schools of the empire.

The flag of Beirut features an open book with the motto "Berytus Nutrix Legum" (Beirut, Mother of Laws) on one side and its Arabic translation "بيروت أم الشرائع" on the other.

The law school of Beirut supplied the Roman Empire, especially its eastern provinces, with lawyers and magistrates for three centuries until the school's destruction in a powerful earthquake. After the 551 Beirut earthquake^[20] the students were transferred to Sidon.^[21]

Since the third century, the city had an important law college. It was here that the great codification of Roman Law, which was to be propagated by emperors like Theodosius II and Justinian, was prepared.^[22]

Early Byzantine rule

Under the Eastern Roman Empire, some intellectual and economic activities in Berytus continued to flourish for more than a century, even if the Latin language started to be replaced by the Greek language and become Hellenised again.

However, in the sixth century a series of earthquakes demolished most of the temples of Heliopolis (actual Baalbek) and destroyed the city of Berytus, leveling its famous law school and killing nearly 30,000 inhabitants (according to Anonymous pilgrim of Piacenza^[23]). Furthermore, the ecumenical Christian councils of the fifth and sixth centuries CE were unsuccessful in settling religious disagreements within the surviving community.

Berytus became a "Christian See" at an early date, and was a suffragan of Tyre in "Phoenicia Prima", a province of the "Patriarchate of Antioch". In antiquity its most famous bishop was Eusebius, afterwards Bishop of Nicomedia, the courtier-prelate and strong supporter of Arianism in the fourth century....In 450 CE Berytus obtained from Theodosius II the title of metropolis, with jurisdiction over six sees taken from Tyre; but in 451 CE the "Council of Chalcedon" restored these to Tyre, leaving, however, to Berytus its rank of metropolis (Mansi, VII, 85–98). Thus, from 451 CE Berytus was an exempt metropolis depending directly on the Patriarch of Antioch.^[24]

This turbulent Byzantine period weakened the already Hellenised (and fully Christian) population and made it easy prey to the newly converted Muslim Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula.^[25][26] Eastern Roman Berytus -reduced to the size of a village- fell to the Arabs in 635 CE.^[27]

Discover more about History related topics

Diodotus Tryphon

Diodotus Tryphon

Diodotus Tryphon, nicknamed "The Magnificent" was a Greek king of the Seleucid Empire. Initially an official under King Alexander I Balas, he led a revolt against Alexander's successor Demetrius II Nicator in 144 BC. He rapidly gained control of most of Syria and the Levant. At first, he acted as regent and tutor for Alexander's infant son Antiochus VI Dionysus, but after the death of his charge in 142/141 BC, Diodotus declared himself king. He took the royal name Tryphon Autocrator and distanced himself from the Seleucid dynasty. For a period between 139 and 138, he was the sole ruler of the Seleucid empire. However, in 138 BC Demetrius II's brother Antiochus VII Sidetes invaded Syria and brought his rule to an end.

Antiochus VII Sidetes

Antiochus VII Sidetes

Antiochus VII Euergetes, nicknamed Sidetes, also known as Antiochus the Pious, was ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire from July/August 138 to 129 BC. He was the last Seleucid king of any stature. After Antiochus was killed in battle, the Seleucid realm was restricted to Syria.

Greek language

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy, southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.

Laodice of Macedonia

Laodice of Macedonia

Laodice of Macedonia was a Greek noblewoman and wife of Antiochus, a general of distinction in the service of Philip II of Macedon. She was the mother of Seleucus, the founder of the Seleucid Empire and Seleucus' sister Didymeia. It was pretended, in consequence of a dream which she had, that Apollo was the real father of her child. No less than five cities were founded by Seleucus in different parts of his dominions, which bore in her honour the name of Laodicea.

Pompey

Pompey

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a leading Roman general and statesman. He played a significant role in the transformation of Rome from republic to empire. Early in his career, he was a partisan and protégé of the Roman general and dictator Sulla; later, he became the political ally, and finally the enemy, of Julius Caesar.

Phoenician port of Beirut

Phoenician port of Beirut

The Phoenician port of Beirut, also known as the Phoenician Harbour of Beirut and archaeological site BEY039 is located between Rue Allenby and Rue Foch in Beirut, Lebanon. Studies have shown that the Bronze Age waterfront lay around 300 metres (330 yd) behind the modern port due to coastal regularisation and siltation. It was excavated and reported on by Josette Elayi and Hala Sayegh in 2000 and determined to date to the Iron Age III and Persian periods. Two nineteenth-century Ottoman docks were also unearthed during construction, just to the north of this area at archaeological sites BEY018 and BEY019.

Herod the Great

Herod the Great

Herod I, also known as Herod the Great, was a Roman Jewish client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including his renovation of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the expansion of the Temple Mount towards its north, the enclosure around the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the construction of the port at Caesarea Maritima, the fortress at Masada, and Herodium. Vital details of his life are recorded in the works of the 1st century CE Roman–Jewish historian Josephus.

Colonia (Roman)

Colonia (Roman)

A Roman colonia was originally a Roman outpost established in conquered territory to secure it. Eventually, however, the term came to denote the highest status of a Roman city. It is also the origin of the modern term colony.

Augustus

Augustus

Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Principate, which is the first phase of the Roman Empire, and is considered one of the greatest leaders in human history. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult as well as an era associated with imperial peace, the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. The Roman world was largely free from large-scale conflict for more than two centuries despite continuous wars of imperial expansion on the empire's frontiers and the year-long civil war known as the "Year of the Four Emperors" over the imperial succession.

Legio V Macedonica

Legio V Macedonica

Legio V Macedonica was a Roman legion. It was probably originally levied in 43 BC by consul Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus and Gaius Iulius Caesar Octavianus. It was based in the Balkan provinces of Macedonia, Moesia and Dacia. In the Notitia Dignitatum records from beginning of the fifth century, the legion was still stationed in Dacia, with detachments stationed in the east and Egypt.

Legio III Gallica

Legio III Gallica

Legio III Gallica was a legion of the Imperial Roman army. The cognomen Gallica suggests that its earliest recruits came from veterans of the Gallic legions of Gaius Julius Caesar, a supposition supported by its emblem, a bull, a symbol associated with Caesar. The legion was based for most of its existence at Raphanea, Roman Syria, and was still active in Egypt in the early 4th century.

Claudius

Claudius

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor at Lugdunum in Roman Gaul, where his father was stationed as a military legate. He was the first Roman emperor to be born outside Italy. Nonetheless, Claudius was an Italian of Sabine origins.

Roman ruins in the Roman Baths Garden

General view of the Roman Baths Garden

Recently at the Garden of Forgiveness the two main streets of Roman Berytus, the cardo and decumanus, were discovered in the Beirut Central District. Their shaded colonnades became busy markets on festival days. At other times, these streets would have been frequented by Law School students and citizens passing to the Forum or visiting temples and churches.

In 1968 were discovered the "Roman Baths" Gardens, a landscaped public space that lies on the eastern slope of the Serail Hill. It consists of a garden and a set of uncovered ruins of the ancient Roman Baths (hence the name of the place). These ruins underwent a thorough cleaning and further excavation in 1995–1997. Designed by the British landscaping firm Gillespies, the Gardens' layout is dominated by low-slung glass walls and lookout platforms that can be turned into concert venues, thus giving a 21st-century touch without harming the area's historical fabric.^[28]

At the turn of the 20th century, the area where existed the famous school of Roman law at Berytus was identified. Archaeological excavations in the area between the Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral and Saint George Cathedral of the Maronites unearthed a funerary stele etched with an epitaph to a man named Patricius, "whose career was consecrated for the study of law".^[29] The epitaph was identified as being dedicated to the famous 5th-century law school professor.^[30] In 1994, archaeological diggings underneath the Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Beirut Central District's Nejmeh Square identified structural elements of the Anastasis cathedral, but they were restricted to an area of 316 square metres (3,400 sq ft) and failed to unearth the school.^[31] In the 5th century, Zacharias Rhetor reported that the school stood next to the "Temple of God", the description of which permitted its identification with the Byzantine Anastasis cathedral.^[32]

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Garden of Forgiveness

Garden of Forgiveness

The Garden of Forgiveness is a garden in Beirut, close to Martyrs’ Square and the wartime Green Line (1975-1990).

Cardo

Cardo

A cardo was a north–south street in Ancient Roman cities and military camps as an integral component of city planning. The cardo maximus, or most often the cardo, was the main or central north–south-oriented street.

Decumanus Maximus

Decumanus Maximus

In Roman city planning, a decumanus was an east–west-oriented road in a Roman city or castrum. The main decumanus was the Decumanus Maximus, or most often simply "the Decumanus". In a military camp this connected the Porta Praetoria to the Porta Decumana.

Beirut Central District

Beirut Central District

The Beirut Central District (BCD) or Centre Ville is the historical and geographical core of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. Also called downtown Beirut, it has been described the “vibrant financial, commercial, and administrative hub of the country.” It is thousands of years old, traditionally a focus of business, finance, culture and leisure.

Roman Baths, Beirut

Roman Baths, Beirut

The Roman Berytus are located in the middle of downtown Beirut, Lebanon between Banks Street and Capuchin Street. The remains of a Roman bath of Berytus now surrounded by government buildings were found and conserved for posterity.

Stele

Stele

A stele, or occasionally stela, when derived from Latin, is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument. The surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both. These may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted.

• Hermippus of Berytus (fl. 2nd century CE)
• Marcus Valerius Probus (c. 20/30 – 105 CE)
• Vindonius Anatolius
• Eudokia of Heliopolis

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Hermippus of Berytus

Hermippus of Berytus

Hermippus of Berytus, also known as Hermippus Berytius or Hermippus the Berytian was a Greek grammarian from Berytus who flourished under Trajan and Hadrian. By birth he was a slave, but having become the disciple of Philo of Byblos, he was recommended by him to Herennius Severus, and attained to great eminence by his eloquence and learning. He wrote many works, among which were an account of dreams in five books, and a book Περὶ Ἑβδομάδος. He wrote a work on famous slaves, which included Parthenius of Nicaea. He is also quoted by Clement of Alexandria, and by Stephanus of Byzantium.

Marcus Valerius Probus

Marcus Valerius Probus

Marcus Valerius Probus, also known as M. Valerius Probus Berytius or Probus the Berytian, was a Roman grammarian and critic, who flourished during Nero's reign.

Vindonius Anatolius

Vindonius Anatolius

Vindonius Anatolius of Beirut or Vindonius Anatolius Berytius, also known as Vindanius, Vindanionius, was a Greek author of the 4th century, and may be identical with the praetorian prefect of Illyricum mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus.

Eudokia of Heliopolis

Eudokia of Heliopolis

Eudokia was a Samarian woman who lived in Heliopolis of Phoenicia.