Berytus - Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Berytus - Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Berytus (;Worcester, Joseph E. (1861) An Elementary Dictionary of the English Language, Boston: Swan, Brewer & Tileston, page 326 ; ; ; Arabic: بِيرِيتُوس), briefly known as Laodicea in Phoenicia () or Laodicea in Canaan from the 2nd century to 64 BCE, was the ancient city of Beirut (in modern-day Lebanon) from the Roman Republic through the Roman Empire and Early Byzantine period/late antiquity. The city had been rebuilt by the Seleucids in the 2nd century BCE over the ruins of an older settlement centred on a Phoenician port dating back to Iron Age III and Persian periods Berytus became a Roman colonia that would be the center of Roman presence in the eastern Mediterranean shores south of Anatolia.Theodore Mommsen."The Provinces of the Roman Empire" Chapter: Phoenicia The veterans of two Roman legions under Augustus were established in the city (the fifth Macedonian and the third Gallic), that afterward quickly became Romanized and was the only fully Latin-speaking city in the Syria-Phoenicia region until the fourth century. Although Berytus was still an important city after earthquakes, around 400 CE Tyre was made the capital of the Roman province of Phoenicia. "Of the great law schools of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus", the law school of Berytus stood "pre-eminent". The Code of Justinian (one part of the Corpus Juris Civilis, the codification of Roman law ordered early in the 6th century CE by Justinian I and fully written in Latin) was mostly created in this school. Read more on Wikipedia
Source: en.wikipedia.org