Antioch

Antioch lies on the Orontes at the foot of Mount Silpius, founded by Seleucus I Nicator around 300 BC and once one of the three greatest cities of the Roman world, a cradle of Christianity where the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. By the Middle Ages warfare, repeated earthquakes and shifting trade routes had reduced it, and silt from the Orontes buried much of the old city. Its massive walls climbed the mountain east of the town.

On 18 May 1268 the Mamluk sultan Baibars captured Antioch, broke his promise to spare it, razed the city and killed or enslaved nearly all its Christians, ending the principality of Antioch. The city dwindled, and by 1432 only about 300 inhabited houses stood within the walls, mostly occupied by Turkmen. The Ottomans took it with the conquest of Syria in 1516 and made it a district of the province of Aleppo. After 1831, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt made Antioch his military headquarters during the Egyptian occupation of Syria.