LATAKIA (anc.

See also:

• LAODICEA
• LAODICEA, SYNOD OF

Laodicea)  , the chief town of a sanjak in the Beirut vilayet of Syria, situated on the coast, opposite the island of Cyprus . The oldest name of the town, according to Philo Herennius, was Paµa8a or Aeviil aKTi]; it received that of Laodicea (ad mare) from Seleucus Nicator, who re-founded it in honour of his mother as one of the four " sister " cities of the Syrian Tetrapolis (Antioch, Seleucia, Apamea, Laodicea) . In the Roman period it was favoured by Caesar, and took the name of Julia; and, though it suffered severely when the fugitive Dolabella stood his last siege within its walls (43 B.C.), Strabo describes it as a flourishing port, which supplied, from the vineyards on the mountains, the greater part of the wine imported to Alexandria . The town received the privileges of an Italian colony from Severus, for taking his part against Antioch in the struggle with Niger . Laodicea was the seat of an ancient bishopric, and even had some claim to metropolitan rights . At the time of the crusades, " Liche," as Jacques de Vitry says it was popularly called, was a wealthy city . It fell to Tancred with Antioch in 1102, and was recovered by Saladin in 1188 . A Christian settlement was afterwards permitted to establish itself in the town, and to protect itself by fortifications; but it was expelled by Sultan Kala`tin and the defences destroyed . By the 16th century Laodicea had sunk very low; the revival in the beginning of the 17th was due to the new trade in tobacco . The town has several times been almost destroyed by earthquakes—in 1170, 1287 and 1822 . The people are chiefly employed in tobacco cultivation, silk and oil culture, poultry rearing and the sponge fishery . There is a large export of eggs to Alexandria; but the wealth of the place depends most on the famous " Latakia " tobacco, grown in the plain behind the town and on the Ansarieh hills .

There are three

main varieties, of which the worst is dark in colour and strong in flavour; the best, grown in the districts of Diryus and Amamareh, is light and aromatic, and is exported mainly to Alexandria; but much goes also to Constantinople, Cyprus and direct to Europe . After the construction of a road through Jebel Ansarieh to Hamah, Latakia drew a good deal of traffic from upper Syria; but the Hamah-Homs railway has now diverted much of this again . The products of the surrounding district, however, cause the town to increase steadily, and it is a regular port of call for the main Levantine lines of steamers . The only notable object of antiquity is a triumphal arch, probably of the early 3rd century, in the S.E. quarter of the modern town . Latakia and its neighbourhood formerly produced a very beautiful type of rug, examples of which are highly prized . (D . G .