The city was under the name Antigoneia on the Orontes 307 BC by I. Antigonus. After its defeat by Seleucus I was 300 BC to the present office and relocated in Antioch renamed. The city was named in honor of Seleucus' father Antiochus. The city became one of the capitals of Seleukidenreiches and became one of the most important cities of the ancient world. Once there were sacred games out, with the Olympic competition. Daphne Antiochias suburban city was a major Apollo sanctuary and a famous Hains, the many (pagan) and attracted pilgrims at least to the 6th Century. Antioch was at the crossroads of various trade routes, making the development of the town very accelerated. After 64 BC seleukidische the fuselage State eliminated by the Romans, was Antioch capital of the Roman province of Syria.
In Roman times counted Antioch probably up to 500,000 residents and was one of the five main cities of the Roman Empire. The city, but also in the history of Christianity an important position, see some Antiochenische school. From Antioch came Nicholas, one of the first seven deacons. According to tradition gathered in St. Peter Cave, the first Christian church to Paul, Barnabas, Peter and then the first bishops of the city. The Apostle Paul preached for the first time in a synagogue, here were the disciples of Christ first Christians (christianoi, see Acts). With the establishment of the Christian church was Antioch, apparently already in the middle of the 4th Christianisiert century was largely right (see the reaction to the visit Apostatas Julian), seat of the original three, five later altkirchlichen Patriarchate, together with Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria and Jerusalem. As Rome referred it to the Apostle Peter as the founder Bishop, after church tradition only later went to Rome and suffered martyrdom. Today, several churches claiming the legitimate successor of the Patriarchate, see Patriarchate of Antioch.
In the late Antioch remained, despite some severe earthquake and several looting by the Sassanid a very important city in the (Eastern) Roman Empire. So were the rhetorical schools in the city in the 4th Schools next century Athens, Alexandria and Constantinople to the leading of the empire; several important teachers are known by name, such as Ulpianus of Antioch, Eusebius Arabs, Aedesius Rhetor and his disciple Zenobius Rhetor and especially the famous Libanios. Even the (next Procopius) most important late historian Ammianus Marcellinus, a contemporary of Libanios, probably came from Antioch. The decline of the metropolis began in the 6th Age: After the devastating earthquake of 526, which, according to John Malalas up to 250,000 people fell victim to, and the collection and destruction of the city by the Sassanid king Khosrau I. (540), a large part of the inhabitants and deported in a separate Ktesiphon City ( "Chosrauantiochia") ansiedelte, the city was under Emperor Justinian I. rebuilt (new name Theoupolis, "City of God"), but now they comprised only a part of the former area. At the end of the late Antioch was 638-41 conquered by the Arabs (see Islamic expansion), which also began in the Middle Ages.
