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Unusual Historic Crises and Calamities

Khalid Elhassan April 16, 2020 34 min

6. A Prosperous City in an Unfortunate Location

Digital reconstruction of ancient Antioch. History of Byzantium

In 115 AD, Antioch was a flourishing and economically vibrant Greco-Roman city on the Orontes River. It was the Roman Empire’s third-biggest metropolis after Rome and Alexandria. The city owed its success to its location at the closest terminus of the Persian Royal Road, which linked the Mediterranean with Mesopotamia and Persia.

That made Antioch a trading center and entrepot for goods between the Roman and Persian worlds. Unfortunately, Antioch’s location had the misfortune of being near the junction of three tectonic plates – the African, Anatolian, and Arabian – whose friction made the region particularly susceptible to large earthquakes.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.