Phoenicia under Roman rule

The area around Berytus (and to a lesser degree around Heliopolis) was the only Latin speaking and Romanized part of Aramaic-speaking Phoenicia.

These ended in 63 BCE, when the Roman General Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, more commonly known as Pompey the Great, lead his military and defeated the Seleucid Empire.

These cities were centers of the pottery, glass, and purple dye industries; their harbors also served as warehouses for products imported from Syria, Persia, and India.

This prosperity meant Phoenicia became a notable destination for intellectuals, tradesmen and merchants; even farmers, from all over the empire and especially the east.

Economic prosperity led to a revival in construction and urban development; temples and palaces were built throughout the country, as well as paved roads that linked the main cities like Heliopolis and Berytus.

Indeed, starting in the last quarter of the 1st century BCE (reign of Augustus) and over a period of two centuries (reign of Philip the Arab), the Romans built a huge temples complex in Heliopolis on a pre-existing tell dating to the PPNB,[1] consisting of three temples: Jupiter, Bacchus and Venus.

[2] 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).

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 settled by Roman colonists who even promoted agriculture in the fertile lands around actual 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.

The city of Heliopolis (now called Baalbek) was made a colonia by Septimius Severus (193–211) in 193 CE, having been part of the territory of Berytus on the Phoenician coast since 15 BCE.

Large public buildings and monuments were erected and Berytus enjoyed full status as a part of the empire.

[6] Two of Rome's most famous jurists, Papinian and Ulpian, both natives of Phoenicia, taught at the law school under the Severan emperors.

Under the Byzantine Empire, intellectual and economic activities in Beirut, Tyre, and Sidon continued to flourish for more than a century.

However, in the sixth century a series of earthquakes demolished the temples of Baalbek and destroyed the city of Beirut, leveling its famous law school and killing nearly 30,000 inhabitants.

This turbulent period weakened the empire and made it easy prey to the newly converted Muslim Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula.

On the other hand, Romans provided economic activity for local Phoenician cities in which they traded agricultural and craft products (wine, oil, glass, purple, silk, textiles, ceramics) that were exported to Rome and other surrounding areas.

Additionally, evidence from cemeteries and death-related practices along the coast of Lebanon showed to be a combination of indigenous cultures, Roman influence, and also contained Hellenistic components as well.

Berytus, Byblos, Sidon, Tyre, Tripolis, Botrys (Batroon), Caesarea ad Libanum (Arka), were all prosperous enough to have mints and to strike coins under the Romans.

But in these urban surroundings, ashlars and column drums were too useful to lie unused; from the Byzantines to the Ottomans, temple debris – particularly the dressed blocks – was utilized in buildings.

Even a cursory examination of the medieval fortifications along the coast – at Byblos, for instance – will reveal the extent of the pilfering from Roman buildings.

Door frames, lintels, architraves, even altars and inscribed stelae, can be seen in the lower courses of castle and church walls.

[11]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.

The (Jupiter) temple was begun in the last quarter of the 1st century B.C., and was nearing completion in the final years of Nero's reign (37–68 A.D.).

At the end of the 4th century, the Emperor Theodosius tore down the altars of Jupiter's Great Court and built a basilica using the temple's stones and architectural elements.

The remnants of the three apses of this basilica, originally oriented to the west, can still be seen in the upper part of the stairway of the Temple of Jupiter.

[14] Under Constantine the Great Christianity was declared officially the religion of the Roman empire and the pagan Temples started to be neglected.

In recent years, experts and archeologists excavated multiple burial places, or necropolises, in the city of Cádiz that helped Roman Empire decent.

Scholars have made the prediction that these burial cities were performed by the Bomans but the individuals buried are of Phoenician descent.

Carthage fought Rome on the basis of the burdensome demands and lack of peace that the treaties were supposed to impose.