Ancient Antioch

C H A P T E R II T H E CITY OF SELEUCUS T H E C O N Q U E R O R ACCORDING to the account of Libanius, the celebrated pane­ gyrist of Antioch, the plan for the foundation of the city did not originate with Seleucus the Conqueror but with Alexander the Great himself. After defeating Darius at the battle of Issus, on the gulf of Alexandretta (October, 333 B.C), Alexander moved on toward Phoenicia.1 En route he stopped at a spot east of the future site of Antioch where there was a spring of remarkably sweet water beside the mountain. Drinking this, Alexander exclaimed that it was like his mother's milk, and gave her name, Olympias, to the spring and built a fountain on the spot. Perceiving the beauty of the site, Libanius goes on, Alexander desired to build a city there, though of course he could not interrupt his campaign. However, he made a beginning by founding a Temple of Zeus Bottiaios, named for the Bottiaei who lived in the region called Emathia, Alexander's homeland in Thrace. He also established a citadel named Emathia. 2 Malalas mentions a village named Bottia, which was on the level ground near the Orontes where Seleucus later founded Antioch.3 The story of Alexander's visit and his declared intention appears only in Libanius, and it may seem to have the sound of a legend designed to secure for Antioch the claim to glory enjoyed by the cities that had actually been founded by 1 ArHaIi, Anabasis, π, 13, 7ff. 2 Libanius, Antiochi\os, 72-77, 87, 250. Malalas (p. 234, 11) records the visit of Alexander but does not mention the plan to found a city. Libanius mentions that in his own day the spring Olympias was converted into a shrine. Malalas notes that the Emperor Tiberius built a public bath near it An anonymous epigram in the Gree\ Anthology, ix, 699, purports to be an inscription set up at the spring to record Alexander's naming of it. 8 Malalas, p. 200, 14. 27 CITY OF SELEUCUS THE CONQUEROR Alexander; every city in Syria would have been glad to boast of such a visit. Nevertheless there is nothing improbable in Libanius' account. The region of Antioch lay on a route which Alexander very likely followed in his march from Issus to Phoenicia, and the planting of a small colony and garrison of his Macedonian troops in such a strategic spot would be consistent with his actions elsewhere. It is not unlikely that Alexander, if he visited the region, perceived the possibilities of the site, and that the project for the foundation of a city there would have been formulated at that time in the minds of Alexander and his staff.* About the foundation of Antioch we have fairly detailed information. After Alexander's death (323 B.C.) his generals divided up the territory he had conquered, and Seleucus, surnamed from his successes The Conqueror, eventually won Syria for his share. He proceeded to found, in the region which came to be known as the Seleukis in northwestern Syria, four "sister cities"—Antioch, Seleucia Pieria, Apamea and Laodicea-on-the-Sea—all named for Seleucus or for members of his family. The establishment of these four foundations —two seaports matched by two inland cities—represented a unified plan, and the archaeological evidence for the plan of the streets and for the size of the city-blocks suggests that at least two of the cities, Antioch and Laodicea, either were planned by the same architect or followed the same general specifications in their design. Seleucia Pieria, named for Seleucus himself, was originally the Seleucid royal headquarters and capital city in northwestern Syria, but before long Antioch eclipsed it and the other cities of the Seleukis. When these four cities were built, they formed a 4 On Alexander's activities in colonization, see M. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World, Oxford, 1941, 1, pp. 130134 , 158, 472; A. H. M. Jones, Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, Oxford, 1937, pp. 238f; W. W. Tarn, Alexander the Great, Cambridge, England, 1948,11, pp. 232-259. 28 [3.15.202.214] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 06:08 GMT) CITY OF SELEUCUS THE CONQUEROR part of the practical Seleucid plan of colonization for military purposes, in which the establishment of cities inhabited by Macedonians and Greeks was to assure the domination of the new...