Roman Syria

The eastern command, containing the empire's third city and facing its only equal. Pompey annexed Syria in 64 BC, ending the last of the Seleucid kingdom, and the province immediately became the most important military posting in the east because it faced Parthia and later Sasanian Persia - the one neighbour Rome could not defeat and did not pretend to govern. Its governor commanded four legions and was watched carefully by emperors for that reason. Antioch was the capital and among the largest cities in the empire, with a reputation for luxury, chariot factions and sedition. The province was extraordinarily wealthy: caravan trade from the Persian Gulf and the silk routes came through Palmyra, an oasis city that grew rich enough to raise its own army and, under Zenobia, briefly take Egypt and Anatolia before Aurelian destroyed it in 273. Syria supplied Rome with glass, purple dye, wine and, in the third century, emperors: the Severan dynasty was half Syrian and one of its members imported a Syrian sun cult to Rome. Christianity spread here first outside Judaea, and the followers of Jesus were called Christians at Antioch. Dura-Europos on the Euphrates preserved the earliest known Christian house church and a synagogue with figurative paintings. The province was repeatedly invaded by Persia, which sacked Antioch more than once. Arab armies took it in 636. The Umayyads then made Damascus the capital of a far larger empire. Antioch stood on the Orontes with a population in the hundreds of thousands. Palmyra and Bosra are both World Heritage sites. The province was divided by Septimius Severus to reduce its governor's power.

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