Like most other cities of the Levantine coast, Latakia was occupied by all of Syria’s conquerors, playing a role in the Arab Conquest and in the Crusades. It only came to prominence in the wake of Alexander the Great conquest, when it was transformed into a major city of the Seleucid empire.
In the late Bronze Age of the second millennium BC the site was small Phoenician settlement called Ramitha, one of fifty prosperous Phoenician coastal colonies along the Mediterranean coast.
Initially, the settlement was dependent on the nearby city of Ugarit, a powerful metropolis and the first international port. With the arrival of the marauding tribes, known as the Sea Peoples at the beginning of the Iron Age, around 1200 BC the region was thrown onto chaos but the Phoenician colonies survived.
The original settlement became part of the Assyrian Empire, later falling to the Persians, who incorporated it into their fifth satrapy Abar Nahara.
It was taken in 333 BC by Alexander the Great, just after the great battle with the Persians at Issus not far to the north. After the death of Alexander in Babylon in 323 BC, Northern Syria fell under the control of Seleucus I Nicator.
Seleucus built the town of Latakia under the name of Laodicea, in honor of his mother.
In 638 AD, Latakia was lost to Byzantium after the Arab armies swept into Syria. The Byzantines mounted a devastating road in 705 but it was not until 968hat they reasserted their control in the area.
Ancient history of Latakia
