The RomanColoniaeof the Near East period of the creation of nominalcoloniae, but from a citizen of one of them,
Domitius Ulpianus from Tyre (text to n. and following it).
Berytus, however, represents a quite different case.^12 Strabo’s contempo-
rary account of its settlement, though not entirely clear as to the precise
extent of itsterritorium, provides all the essentials: ‘‘But though Berytus was
razed to the ground by Tryphon, it has now been restored by the Romans;
and it received two legions, which were settled there by Agrippa, who also
added to it much of the territory of Marsyas as far as the Orontes river.’’^13 Of
the history of Berytus as a Hellenised Phoenician city in the late Hellenis-
tic and then Roman republican periods very little can be known; but Strabo
records, just before the passage quoted above, that robbers established on
Mount Lebanon had been able to ravage both Berytus and Byblos (, ,
[]); and the coinage of Berytus indicates that the city had been included
in Antonius’ grant of the coast of Phoenicia to Cleopatra, made perhaps in
/..^14 The evidence is sufficient to make clear that Berytus will have
shared in the generally disturbed history of the region in the mid-first cen-
tury..,^15 without providing any conclusive reason why the one Roman
coloniashould have been placed there rather than anywhere else. But Strabo’s
words suggest a military purpose, in relation to the unsubdued mountain
zone behind; or rather two mountain zones, the chain of Mount Lebanon
and to the east that of Anti-Lebanon, with the Marsyas, or Bekaa valley, and
the sources of the Orontes, in between.
Jerome’s Chronicle offers a firm date for the foundation of thecolonia,asof
thecoloniaof Patras, ..^16 Since Strabo (above) attributes the foundation
to Agrippa, and this was a period when he was present in the Syrian region,
the dating can be accepted. It is not impossible, however, in the case of Patras
. For the history of the city, see R. Mouterde and J. Lauffray,Beyrouthvilleromaine:his-
toire et monuments(); R. Mouterde, ‘‘Regards sur Beyrouth phénicienne, hellénistique et
romaine,’’Mél.Univ.St.Joseph (): ; N. Jidejian,BeirutthroughtheAges(); J. Lauf-
fray, ‘‘Beyrouth Archéologie et Histoire, époques gréco-romaines I. Période hellénistique
et Haut-Empire romain,’’ANRWII. (), . For Berytus as acolonia, see B. Isaac,The
Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East(), –, a study to which this paper
owes much.
.Geog. , , (), Loeb trans.
. For the details, see Schürer, Vermes, and Millar,HistoryI (), –.
. For an excellent survey of the history of the region, to which what follows owes
much, see J.-P. Rey-Coquais, ‘‘Syrie romaine, de Pompée à Dioclétien,’’JRS (): .
. R. Helm,Die Chronik des Hieronymus(), :Coloniae Berytum (sic) et Patras de-
ductae. Bosforum Agrippa capit.