Laodicea in Syria

The Phoenician city of Ramitha was located in the coastal area where the modern port of Latakia is, known to the Greeks as Leukê Aktê or "white coast".

The sanctuaries, public baths, amphitheater, hippodrome, mentioned by ancient authors or by Greek inscriptions, and the rampart gates depicted on coins, have all disappeared...The town occupies a rocky promontory...Including the port, its area was ca.

220 ha...A wide avenue, bordered with porticos in Roman times, ran N-S across the town, from the tip of the peninsula to the gate where the road to Antioch started; perpendicular to this, three colonnaded streets ran from E to W. The one to the N was centered on the entry to the citadel on the high hill to the NE.

The S street began at the port and ended to the E at the long steep hill to the SE, where a monumental four-way arch, erroneously called a tetrapylon, closed off the view.

100 m. Princeton: Laodicea ad mareThe city enjoyed a huge economic prosperity thanks to the wine produced in the hills around the port and exported to all the empire.

[4] During the First Jewish–Roman War, Legio VI Ferrata was stationed in the city, which served as its winter quarters, before being joined to a larger army assembled to quell the rebellion in neighboring Judaea.

An earthquake damaged the city in 494 AD[5] and successively Justinian I made Laodicea the capital of the Byzantine province of "Theodorias" in the early sixth century.