Ras al-Bassit (Arabic: رأس البسيط), the classical Posidium or Posideium (Ancient Greek: Ποσιδήιον and Ποσείδιον[1], Posidḗion), is a small town in Syria named for a nearby cape.

Ras al-Bassit is located, however, about 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of the later Syrio-Cilician border at the line between the Syrian Gates in the Nur Mountains and Myriandrus on the coast.

[8] The oldest known settlement at Ras al-Bassit was a Bronze-Age outpost with a fortified citadel established by Ugarit between 1550 and 1200 BC.

[3] Greek legends credited the establishment of Posideion to the wandering Argive king and seer Amphilochus[4][11] or his identically-named nephew.

Both supposedly lived during the generations that fought in the Trojan War; the actual Greek colony at the site seems to have been established during the 7th century BC.

[3] It marked the northern border of the 5th Satrapy of the Persian Empire at the time of Herodotus,[7] but archaeologists have found that the town was destroyed at some point in the 5th or 4th centuries BC.

[12] Alexander the Great's decisive battle at Issus occurred nearby in 333 BC, after which his empire administered and hellenized the area.

Posideion was apparently rebuilt with a fortified acropolis under his reign at some point after 312 BC,[3][10] when the existing settlement was razed by Ptolemy.

The Roman emperors Hadrian and Julian may have used Posidium's port, as they are recording having climbing the nearby Mount Aqra to perform sacrifices.

[3] In the early 1970s, the Ministry of Tourism seized ownership of the entire Syrian coast to a distance of 3 km (1.9 mi), offering only nominal compensation.

[15] Ras al-Bassit, however, was a model area that saw construction of several hundred chalets and, in 1991, a small hotel run by the Syrian Workers Union.