Object description

Berytus , briefly known as Laodicea in Phoenicia or Laodicea in Canaan from the 2nd century to 64 BCE, was the ancient city of Beirut from the Hellenistic period through the Roman 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. The veterans of two Roman legions under Augustus were established in the city , 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 an important city, 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 was mostly created in this school.