Seleucia Pieria - History

History

According to Pausanias and Malalas, there appears to have been a previous city here named Palaeopolis ("Old City").

Seleucia Pieria was built by Seleucus I Nicator in ca. 300 BC. It lay near the mouth of the Orontes not far from Mount Casius, and functioned as the commercial and naval seaport of Antioch on the Orontes (now Antakya). Its first colonists were the Greeks of Antigonia and some Jews. Seleucia was of great importance in the struggle between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies; it was captured by Ptolemy Euergetes in 246. As the Ptolemies (Lagids) and Seleucids fought over the city, it changed hands several times until 219 BC, when the Seleucid Antiochus III the Great recaptured it. Then it obtained its freedom and kept it even to the end of the Roman occupation. It had long enjoyed the right of coinage.

As the port of Antioch of Syria, "Seleucia on sea"--so called to distinguish it from other cities of the same name--is most notable as the precise point of embarkation from which the Apostle Paul set forth on the first of his great missionary journeys, as chronicled in the Bible (Acts 13:4). At the end of that same journey he must have made landfall at Seleucia before going to Antioch (see Acts 14:26). His route at the beginning of the second journey was by land and probably bypassed Seleucia (see Acts 15:40-41), though on returning, he must have passed through it again (see Acts 18:22). Once more taking a land route when setting out on his third journey, Paul may have missed Seleucia (see Acts 19:1), and at that journey's end he did not return to Antioch and so missed Seleucia again (see Acts 21:7-8). This means that Paul passed through Seleucia at least three times, and probably several more on pre-missionary visits to Antioch of Syria (see Acts 11:26; 12:25).

Famous residents included Apollophanes, a physician of Antiochus I Soter (third century), and Firmus who aroused Palmyra and Egypt against Rome in 272 AD.

Seleucia became a city of great importance, and was made a "free city" by Pompey. The harbour was enlarged several times under Diocletian and Constantius.

The city had two ports, but both were continually being silted up. In the fifth century the fight to keep them open was finally given up. It suffered severely in the devastating 526 Antioch earthquake, and when the Sasanians captured the city around 540, it was undefended. It never recovered as a port, but Al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik, Ummayad Caliph from 705-715, built a fortress in the city. St Symeon, the modern Samandağ, became the port of Antioch in the Crusader period.