Antioch

Antioch (Antakya), Turkey, USA1. Turkey: also sometimes called Hatay. A city of ancient Syria and a part of Syria until 1939, it was founded in 301 bc by Seleucus I Nicator^† who named the city Antiochia (on the Orontes) after his 24‐year‐old son, Antiochus I Soter (‘Saviour’), Seleucid King of Syria (281–261 bc); some sources claim, however, that it was named after the father of Seleucus, Antiochus. The name Antiochus meant ‘swift runner’ from the Greek anti ‘equal to’, and okhos ‘chariot’. When the younger son of Antiochus I Soter, Antiochus II (c.287–246 bc), captured the city of Miletus and overthrew its dictator, he was worshipped as a god, attracting the title Theos, ‘God’; thus the city was renamed Theopolis, the ‘City of God’. Antioch was the capital of the Seleucid Empire between 281 and 64 bc, and then of the Roman province of Syria. The Arabs held the city from 638 until 969 when it was retaken by the Byzantines. It was captured by the Seljuk Turks in 1084, by the Crusaders in 1098 during the First Crusade, and sacked by the Mamlūks in 1268. It fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1517 and was occupied by the French 1918–39.2. Turkey: another ancient city called Antioch was located in Phrygia (now west‐central Turkey). It became a Roman colony in 25 bc and was given the name Caesarea Antiochia.3. USA: there are three cities of the same name in the USA (in California, Illinois, and Nebraska), all named after the city in Turkey, because of the desire to recognize the importance of Antioch in the early Christian Church.