speedy as a chariot

(from Antiochus)-

1. IN SYRIA. The capital of the Greek kings of Syria, and afterwards the residence of the Roman governors of the province which bore the same name. Situation . --This metropolis was situated where the chain of Lebanon, running northward, and the chain of Taurus, running eastward. are brought to an abrupt meeting. Here the Orontes breaks through the mountains; and Antioch was placed at a bend of the river, 16 1/2 miles from the Mediterranean, partly on an island, partly on the levee which forms the left bank, and partly on the steep and craggy ascent of Mount Silpius, which, rose abruptly on the south. It is about 300 miles north of Jerusalem. In the immediate neighborhood was Daphne the celebrated sanctuary of Apollo 2 Macc. 4:33; whence the city was sometimes called Antioch by Daphne , to distinguish it from other cities of the same name. Destruction . --The city was founded in the year 300 B.C., by Seleucus Nicator. It grew under the successive Seleucid kings till it became a city of great extent and of remarkable beauty. One feature, which seems to have been characteristic of the great Syrian cities,--a vast street with colonnades, intersecting the whole from end to end,--was added by Antiochus Epiphanes. By Pompey it was made a free city, and such it continued till the time of Antoninus Pius. The early emperors raised there some large and important structures, such as aqueducts, amphitheatres and baths. (Antioch, in Paul's time, was the third city of the Roman empire, and contained over 200,000 inhabitants. Now it is a small, mean place of about 6000.--ED.) Bible History . --No city, after Jerusalem, is so intimately connected with the history of the apostolic church. Jews were settled there from the first in large numbers, were governed by their own ethnarch, and allowed to have the same political privileges with the Greeks. The chief interest of Antioch, however, is connected with the progress of Christianity among the heathen, Here the first Gentile church was founded, (Acts 11:20,21) here the disciples of Jesus Christ were first called Christians (Acts 11:26) It was from Antioch that St. Paul started on his three missionary journeys.
2. IN PISIDIA, (Acts 13:14; 14:19,21; 2 Timothy 3:11) on the borders of Phrygia, corresponds to Yalobatch , which is distant from Aksher six hours over the mountains. This city, like the Syrian Antioch, was founded by Seleucus Nicator. Under the Romans it became a colonia , and was also called Caesarea.

The name of two cities mentioned in the New Testament. The first was situated on the river Orontes, twenty miles from its mouth, and was the metropolis of all Syria. It was founded by Seleucus Nicator, and called by him after the name of his father Antiochus. This city is celebrated by Cicero, as being opulent and abounding in men of taste and letters. It was at one time a place of great wealth and refinement, and ranked as the third city in the Roman Empire. Its situation, amid innumerable groves and small streams, midway between Alexandria and Constantinople, rendered it a place of great beauty and salubrity, as well as commercial importance. It was also a place of great resort for the Jews, and afterwards for Christians, to all of whom invitations and encouragements were held by Seleucus Nicator. The distinctive name of "Christians" was here first applied to the followers of Jesus, Acts 11:19,26 13:1 Ga 2:11. Antioch was highly favored by Vespasian and Titus, and became celebrated for luxury and vice. Few cities have suffered greater disasters. Many times it has been nearly ruined by earthquakes, one of which, in 1822, destroyed one-fourth of its population, then about twenty thousand. It is now called Antakia.

The other city, also found by Seleucus Nicator, was called Antioch of Pisidia, because it was attached to that province, although situated in Phrygia, Acts 13:14 14:19,21 2 Timothy 3:11.

an'-ti-ok, (Antiocheia).

(2) Antioch in Syria.-In 301 B.C., shortly after the battle of Ipsus, which made him master of Syria, Seleucus Nicator rounded the city of Antioch, naming it after his father Antiochus. Guided, it was said, by the flight of an eagle, he fixed its site on the left bank of the Orontes (the El-`Asi) about 15 miles from the sea. He also rounded and fortified Seleucia to be the port of his new capital.

The city was enlarged and embellished by successive kings of the Seleucid Dynasty, notably by Seleucus Callinicus (246-226 B.C.), and Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.). In 83 B.C., on the collapse of the Seleucid monarchy, Antioch fell into the hands of Tigranes, king of Armenia, who held Syria until his defeat by the Romans fourteen years later. In 64 B.C. the country was definitely annexed to Rome by Pompey, who granted considerable privileges to Antioch, which now became the capital of the Roman province of Syria. In the civil wars which terminated in the establishment of the Roman principate, Antioch succeeded in attaching itself constantly to the winning side, declaring for Caesar after the fall of Pompey, and for Augustus after the battle of Actium. A Roman element was added to its population, and several of the emperors contributed to its adornment. Already a splendid city under the Seleucids, Antioch was made still more splendid by its Roman patrons and masters. It was the "queen of the East," the third city, after Rome and Alexandria, of the Roman world. About five miles distant from the city was the suburb of Daphne, a spot sacred to Apollo and Artemis.

This suburb, beautified by groves and fountains, and embellished by the Seleucids and the Romans with temples and baths, was the pleasure resort of the city, and "Daphnic morals" became a by-word. From its foundation Antioch was a cosmopolitan city. Though not a seaport, its situation was favorable to commercial development, and it absorbed much of the trade of the Levant. Seleucus Nicator had settled numbers of Jews in it, granting them equal rights with the Greeks (Ant., XII, iii, 1). Syrians, Greeks, Jews, and in later days, Romans, constituted the main elements of the population. The citizens were a vigorous, turbulent and pushing race, notorious for their commercial aptitude, the licentiousness of their pleasures, and the scurrility of their wit. Literature and the arts, however, were not neglected.

In the early history of Christianity, Antioch occupies a distinguished place. The large and flourishing Jewish colony offered an immediate field for Christian teaching, and the cosmopolitanism of the city tended to widen the outlook of the Christian community, which refused to be confined within the narrow limits of Judaism. Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch, was one of the first deacons (Acts 6:5). Antioch was the cradle of GentileChristianity and of Christian missionary enterprise. It was at the instance of the church at Antioch that the council at Jerusalem decided to relieve GentileChristians of the burden of the Jewish law (Acts 15). Antioch was Paul's starting-point in his three missionary journeys (Acts 13:1; Acts 15:36; 18:23), and thither he returned from the first two as to his headquarters (Acts 14:26; Acts 18:22). Here also the term "Christian," doubtless originally a nickname, was first applied to the followers of Jesus (Acts 11:26). The honorable record of the church at Antioch as the mother-church of GentileChristianity gave her a preeminence which she long enjoyed. The most distinguished of her later sons was John Chrysostom. The city suffered severely from earthquakes, but did not lose its importance until the Arab conquest restored Damascus to the first place among Syrian cities. Antioch still bears its ancient name (Antakiyeh), but is now a poor town with a few thousand inhabitants.

C. H. Thomson

ANTIOCH, OF PISIDIA

an'-ti-ok, pi-sid'-i-a (Antiocheia pros Pisidia, or aAntiocheia he Pisidia = "Pisidian").

1. History:

(1) Antioch of Pisidia was so called to distinguish it from the many other cities of the same name founded by Seleucus Nicator (301-280 B.C.) and called after his father Antiochus. It was situated in a strong position, on a plateau close to the western bank of the river Anthios, which flows down from the Sultan Dagh to the double lake called Limnai (Egerdir Gol). It was planted on the territory of a great estate belonging to the priests of the native religion; the remaining portions of this estate belonged later to the Roman emperors, and many inscriptions connected with the cult of the emperors, who succeeded to the Divine as well as to the temporal rights of the god, have survived. (See Sir W. M. Ramsay's paper on "The Tekmoreian Guest-Friends" in Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 1906.) The plateau on which Antioch stood commands one of the roads leading from the East to the Meander and Ephesus; the Seleucid kings regularly founded their cities in Asia Minor at important strategical points, to strengthen their hold on the native tribes.

There is no evidence that a Greek city existed on the site of Antioch before the foundation of Seleucus. Ramsay must be right in connecting Strabo's statement that Antioch was colonized by Greeks from Magnesia on the Meander with the foundation by Seleucus; for it is extremely unlikely that Greeks could have built and held a city in such a dangerous position so far inland before the conquest of Alexander. Pre-Alexandrian Greek cities are seldom to be found in the interior of Asia Minor, and then only in the open river valleys of the west. But there must have been a Phrygian fortress at or near Antioch when the Phrygian kings were at the height of their power. The natural boundary of Phrygian territory in this district is the Pisidian Mts., and the Phrygians could only have held the rich valley between the Sultan Dagh and Egerdir Lake against the warlike tribes of the Pisidian mountains on condition that they had a strong settlement in the neighborhood. We shall see below that the Phrygians did occupy this side of the Sultan Dagh, controlling the road at a critical point.

The Seleucid colonists were Greeks, Jews and Phrygians, if we may judge by the analogy of similar Seleucid foundations. That there were Jews in Antioch is proved by Acts 13:14, 50, and by an inscription of Apollonia, a neighboring city, mentioning a Jewess Deborah, whose ancestors had held office in Antioch (if Ramsay's interpretation of the inscription, The Cities of Paul, 256, is correct). In 189 B.C., after the peace with Antiochus the Great, the Romans made Antioch a "free city"; this does not mean that any change was made in its constitution but only that it ceased to pay tribute to the Seleucid kings. Antony gave Antioch to Amyntas of Galatia in 39 B.C., and hence it was included in the province Galatia (see GALATIA) formed in 25 B.C. out of Amyntas' kingdom. Not much before 6 B.C., Antioch was made a Roman colony, with the title Caesareia Antiocheia; it was now the capital of southern Galatia and the chief of a series of military colonies founded by Augustus, and connected by a system of roads as yet insufficiently explored, to hold down the wild tribes of Pisidia, Isauria and Pamphylia.

2. Pisidian Antioch:

Much controversy has raged round the question whether Antioch was in Phrygia or in Pisidia at the time of Paul. Strabo defines Antioch as a city of Phrygia toward Pisidia, and the same description is implied in Acts 16:6, and 18:23. Other authorities assign Antioch to Pisidia, and it admittedly belonged to Pisidia after the province of that name was formed in 295 A.D. In the Pauline period it was a city of Galatia, in the district of Galatia called Phrygia (to distinguish it from other ethnical divisions of Galatia, e.g. Lycaonia). This view is certain on a study of the historical conditions (see Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 25); and is supported by the fact that Phrygian inscriptions (the surest sign of the presence of a Phrygian population, for only Phrygians used the Phrygian language) have been found around Antioch. See PISIDIA. This corner of Phrygia owed its incorporation in the province Galatia to the military situation in 39 B.C., when Amyntas was entrusted with the task of quelling the disorderly Pisidian tribes. No scheme of military conquest in the Pisidian mountains could omit this important strategical point on the Northwest. This fact was recognized by Seleucus when he rounded Antioch, by Antony when he gave Antioch to Amyntas, and by Augustus when he made Antioch the chief of his military colonies in Pisidia. A military road, built by Augustus, and called the Royal Road, led from Antioch to the sister colony of Lystra. According to the story preserved in the legend of "Paul and Thekla," it was along this road that Paul and Barnabas passed on their way from Antioch to Iconium (Acts 13:51; compare 2 Timothy 3:11; see Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 27-36).

3. Language and Religion:

Latin continued to be the official language of Antioch, from its foundation as a Roman colony until the later part of the 2nd century A.D. It was more thoroughly Romanized than any other city in the district; but the Greek spirit revived in the 3rd century, and the inscriptions from that date are in Greek. The principal pagan deities were Men and Cybele. Strabo mentions a great temple with large estates and many hierodouloi devoted to the service of the god.

4. Paul at Antioch:

Antioch, as has been shown above, was the military and administrative center for that part of Galatia which comprised the Isaurian, Pisidian and Pamphylian mountains, and the southern part of Lycaonia. It was hence that Roman soldiers, officials, and couriers were dispatched over the whole area, and it was hence, according to Acts 13:49, that Paul's mission radiated over the whole region. (On the technical meaning of "region" here, see PISIDIA.) The "devout and honorable women" (the King James Version) and the "chief men" of the city, to whom the Jews addressed their complaint, were perhaps the Roman colonists. The publicity here given to the action of the women is in accord with all that is known of their social position in Asia Minor, where they were often priestesses and magistrates. The Jews of Antioch continued their persecution of Paul when he was in Lystra (Acts 14:19). Paul passed through Antioch a second time on his way to Perga and Attalia (Acts 14:21). He must have visited Antioch on his second journey (Acts 16:6; Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 74), and on his third (Acts 18:23; ibid., 96).

LITERATURE.

Antioch was identified by Arundel, Discoveries in Asia Minor, I, 281, with the ruins north of Yalovadj. A full account of the city in the Greek and Roman periods is given in Ramsay,. The Cities of Paul, 247-314. The inscriptions are published in CIG, 3979-81; LeBas, III, 1189, 1815-25; CIL, III, 289; Sterrett, Epigraphical Journey in Asia Minor, 121; Wolfe Expedition in Asia Minor, 218; Ephem. Epigr., V, 575; Athen. Mirth., XIV, 114. Add to this list (borrowed from Pauly-Wissowa) the inscriptions published in Ramsay's article on "The Tekmoreian Guest-Friends," referred to above. For the Phrygian inscriptions of the Antioch district, see Ramsay's paper in Jahresh. Oest. Arch. Inst., VIII, 85.

W. M. Calder

(1.) In Syria, on the river Orontes, about 16 miles from the Mediterranean, and some 300 miles north of Jerusalem. It was the metropolis of Syria, and afterwards became the capital of the Roman province in Asia. It ranked third, after Rome and Alexandria, in point of importance, of the cities of the Roman empire. It was called the "first city of the East." Christianity was early introduced into it (Acts 11:19, 21, 24), and the name "Christian" was first applied here to its professors (Acts 11:26). It is intimately connected with the early history of the gospel (Acts 6:5; 11:19, 27, 28, 30; 12:25; 15:22-35; Galatians 2:11, 12). It was the great central point whence missionaries to the Gentiles were sent forth. It was the birth-place of the famous Christian father Chrysostom, who died A.D. 407. It bears the modern name of Antakia, and is now a miserable, decaying Turkish town. Like Philippi, it was raised to the rank of a Roman colony. Such colonies were ruled by "praetors" (R.V. marg., Acts 16:20, 21).

(2.) In the extreme north of Pisidia; was visited by Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey (Acts 13:14). Here they found a synagogue and many proselytes. They met with great success in preaching the gospel, but the Jews stirred up a violent opposition against them, and they were obliged to leave the place. On his return, Paul again visited Antioch for the purpose of confirming the disciples (Acts 14:21). It has been identified with the modern Yalobatch, lying to the east of Ephesus.