As a Roman colony, it was notionally refounded and given the formal name Colonia Aurelia Pia Sidon to honour its imperial sponsor.

[10][11] The magnitude of Sidon's purple dye production was evident through a considerable mound of discarded Murex trunculus shells discovered near the southern harbor.

In exchange for supporting his conquest of Egypt, King Cambyses II of Persia awarded Sidon with the territories of Dor, Joppa, and the Plain of Sharon.

During the Byzantine Empire, when the great earthquake of AD 551 destroyed most of the cities of Phoenice, the law school of Berytus took refuge in Sidon.

[24][25][26] During the 12th century, Benjamin of Tudela noted the presence of approximately twenty Jews, possibly families, in Sidon, which he described as a "large city.

With roots in mountain traditions, they introduced citrus cultivation on the outskirts of Sidon, leading to the construction of a new synagogue in 1860 to meet the needs of the expanding community.

The refugee camps constituted de facto neighborhoods of Sidon, but had a separate legal and political status which made them into a kind of enclaves.

On Easter Sunday, 19 April 1981, at least sixteen people were killed in Sidon after the (South Lebanon Army) SLA's long-range artillery indiscriminately shelled the city centre.

[34] On 8 June 1999 two gunmen entered the Palais de Justice, Sidon's main courthouse, and shot dead three magistrates and a chief prosecutor.

No group claimed responsibility but suspicion focused on Osbat al-Ansar whose leader had been sentenced to death in absentia for the murder of the head of the Sufi Al-Ahbash movement and the attempted assassination of the mufti of Tripoli.

This sectarian and demographic division rose to the surface during the Lebanese Civil War, when armed clashes erupted between Sunni Muslims and Christians.

These four brothers were businessmen and politicians who dominated the political life of the city up till the late 1940s, using traditional inherited forms of governance since Ottoman times.

The El-Bizri were since the Ottoman rule bent on serving the state, and this continued with their loyalty and support to the successive governments of Lebanon since the times of independence.

They also became involved in the civil war as part of the left wing politics of the Lebanon (Al-Haraka al-Wataniyya) with PLO connections, and they actively contributed to resisting the Israeli occupation after 1982.

While the El-Bizri were Levantine in their Arabism (namely focused mainly on Bilad al-Shaam in regional politics), and the Solh being also similar to them in this, the Saad were leaning more towards a broader pan-Arabism (Nasserite, Libyan, and then Syrian).

According to a 2013 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report "data also point to an increase in urban poverty especially in Lebanon's largest cities suburbs such as Beirut, Tripoli and Saida, as illustrated by poverty-driven symptoms (child labour, over-crowding and deteriorated environment conditions).

"[36] In another UNDP report, the author discusses the development predominance of Beirut over the rest of the regions of Lebanon (North, South and Beqaa) is a well-known imbalance that can be dated to the early 19th century.

Even though the public policies elaborated by the young Lebanese State were attempting to have regional perspectives, the early urban planning schemes reveal a development approach exclusively axed[dubious – discuss] on Beirut and its suburbs.

Near the southern entrance to the city used to be a 'rubbish mountain' called at the time by the locals the Makab; namely, a 600,000 cubic metre heap that reached the height of a four-story building.

[citation needed] Sidon politicians, including the Hariri family, failed for decades to resolve the Makab crisis—which has endangered residents' health (especially during episodic burning).

In 2004, Engineer Hamzi Moghrabi, a Sidon native, conceived the idea to establish a treatment plant for the city's decades-old chronic waste problem.

Qamla beach in Sidon, a coast in close proximity to the Sea Castle, witnessed a large municipal cleanup in May 2011, as it was an easy target of rubbish being washed up by the Makab.

The collection included narrow axes or chisels that were polished on one side and flaked on the other, similar to ones found at Ain Cheikh, Nahr Zahrani and Gelal en Namous.

[9] Sidon III was found by E. Passemard  [fr] in the 1920s, who made a collection of material that is now in the National Museum of Beirut marked "Camp de l'Aviation".

[9] In the area of this ruined Crusader castle, recent excavations uncovered a late Early Bronze Age I (EB I) settlement on bedrock.

Previously, there was a big gap in the history of this whole coastal area from the end of the Early Bronze Age until the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, when Sidon is first mentioned in the historical texts.

This same site received renewed attention in 1998 when the Directorate General of Antiquities in Lebanon authorized the British Museum to begin excavations on this area of land that was specifically demarcated for archaeological research.

The fieldwork was also interrupted during the long civil war period, and it is now resumed but at a timid and slow scale, and not involving major international expeditions or expertise.

Perhaps this is also indicative of the general lack in cultural interests among the authorities of this city, and almost of the non-existence of notable intellectual activities in its modern life.

There are signs that the locals are beginning to recognize the value of the medieval quarters, but this remains linked to minor individual initiatives and not a coordinated collective effort to rehabilitate it like it has been the case with Byblos, even though the old district of Sidon contains a great wealth in old and ancient architecture.