Arsuz had many names throughout history, including: Rhosus, Rhossos, Rhossus, Rhopolis, Port Panel/Bonnel, Kabev and Arsous.

Under the name Rhosus, it was a city and bishopric (see below) in the late Roman province of Cilicia Secunda, with Anazarbus as its capital.

[13][14] Some Christians in Rhosus accepted as truth the Docetic Gospel of Peter and for them in around AD 200 Serapion of Antioch composed a treatise condemning the book.

[15] Theodoret[16] relates the history of the hermit Theodosius of Antioch, founder of a monastery in the mountain near Rhosus, who was forced by the inroads of barbarians to retire to Antioch, where he died and was succeeded by his disciple Romanus, a native of Rhosus; these two religious are honoured by the Greek Orthodox Church on 5 and 9 February.

[21] Rhosus was a diocese in the sway of the Patriarchate of Antioch, originally as a suffragan of its Metropolitan in provincial capital of Cilicia Secunda, the Archdiocese of Anazarba, as mentioned in the Notitiae Episcopatuum in the 6th century[22] and one dating from about 840.