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103-603: The national name "Syrian" was used in antiquity to denote the inhabitants of the Levant. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant, Arab identity became dominant and the ethnonym "Syrian" was used mainly by Christians who spoke Syriac. In the 19th century, the name "Syrian" was revived amongst the Arabic speakers of the Levant. Following the establishment of the Arab Kingdom of Syria in 1920,

206-653: A Phoenician -speaking majority well into the end of 2nd century, and their main urban centers included Tyre , Sidon and Berytus . On the other hand, Greeks comprised a majority in Hellenistic urban centers such Antioch , Apamea , Cyrrhus and the Decapolis , which had been settled by Greeks under Seleucid patronage. Estimates for the population of the entire Levant in the 1st century vary from 3.5–4 million to 6 million, levels only matched even by 19th century levels. Urban centers peaked and so did population density in

309-434: A res publica as long as it continued to use Latin as its official language. Rome acquired imperial character de facto from the 130s BC with the acquisition of Cisalpine Gaul , Illyria , Greece and Hispania , and definitely with the addition of Iudaea , Asia Minor and Gaul during the 1st century BC. At the time of the empire's maximal extension during the reign of Trajan (AD 117), Rome controlled

412-474: A liturgical language by Syriac Christians . English, and to a lesser extent French, is widely understood and used in interactions with tourists and other foreigners. Religious differences in Syria have historically been tolerated, and religious minorities tend to retain distinct cultural, and religious identities. Sunni Islam is the religion of 74% of Syrians. The Alawites , a variety of Shia Islam , make up 12% of

515-421: A mosaic of West and East. Conservative and liberally minded people will live right next to each other. Like the other countries in the region, religion permeates life; the government registers every Syrian's religious affiliation. However, the number of non-believers in Syria is increasing but there is no credible source or statistics to support this information. Syrian cuisine is dominated by ingredients native to

618-727: A result of the crisis of the third century . During Late antiquity Christianity became increasingly popular, finally ousting the Roman imperial cult with the Theodosian decrees of 393. Successive invasions of Germanic tribes finalized the weakening of the Western Roman Empire during the 5th century, while the Eastern Roman Empire persisted throughout the Middle Ages , in a state called Romania by its citizens, and designated

721-623: A series of conflicts of the 4th and 3rd centuries, the Samnite Wars , Latin War , and Pyrrhic War . Roman victory in the Punic Wars and Macedonian Wars established Rome as a super-regional power by the 2nd century BC, followed by the acquisition of Greece and Asia Minor . This tremendous increase of power was accompanied by economic instability and social unrest, resulting in the Catiline conspiracy ,

824-467: Is often considered to begin with the earliest recorded Epic Greek poetry of Homer (8th–7th-century BC) and ends with the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. Such a wide span of history and territory covers many disparate cultures and periods. Classical antiquity may also refer to an idealized vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe 's words, "the glory that was Greece, and

927-692: Is the most recurrent in Levantines (42–68%); the Peninsular Arabian and East African ancestral components represent around 25% of Syrian genetic make-up. The paternal Y-DNA haplogroup J1, which reaches its highest frequencies in Yemen 72.6% and Qatar 58.3%, accounted for 33.6% of Syrians. The J2 group accounted for 20.8% of Syrians; other Y-DNA haplogroups include the E1B1B 12.0%, I 5.0%, R1a 10.0% and R1b 15.0%. The Syrians are closest to other Levantine populations:

1030-556: Is usually served with Arab-style tea – highly concentrated black tea, which is often highly sweetened and served in small glass cups. Another popular drink, especially with Christians and non-practicing Muslims, is the arak , a liquor produced from grapes or dates and flavored with anise that can have an alcohol content of over 90% ABV (however, most commercial Syrian arak brands are about 40–60% ABV). [REDACTED] Media related to People of Syria at Wikimedia Commons Classical antiquity Classical antiquity , also known as

1133-656: The Akkadian word Aššūrāyu ( Assyria ) in northern Mesopotamia , modern-day Iraq. However, during the Seleucid Empire , this term was also applied to The Levant , and henceforth the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of north Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant. The Greeks used the terms "Syrian" and "Assyrian" interchangeably to indicate the indigenous Arameans , Assyrians and other inhabitants of

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1236-505: The Armenian genocide and the Assyrian genocide and settled in Syria. There are also roughly 500,000 Palestinians , who are mostly descendants of refugees from the 1948 Israeli-Arab War. The community of Syrian Jews inside Syria once numbered 30,000 in 1947, but has only 200 today. The Syrian people's beliefs and outlooks, similar to those of most Arabs and people of the wider Middle-East, are

1339-543: The Byzantine Empire by later historians. Hellenistic philosophy was succeeded by continued development of Platonism and Epicureanism , with Neoplatonism in due course influencing the theology of the Christian Church Fathers . Many writers have attempted to name a specific date for the symbolic "end" of antiquity, with the most prominent dates being the deposing of the last Western Roman Emperor in 476,

1442-597: The Byzantine Papacy . The Eastern Roman empire's capital city Constantinople remained the only unconquered large urban site of the original Roman empire, as well as being the largest city in Europe. Yet many classical books, sculptures, and technologies survived there along with classical Roman cuisine and scholarly traditions, well into the Middle Ages, when much of it was "rediscovered" by visiting Western crusaders. Indeed,

1545-513: The Catholic Church in particular maintained Latin language, culture, and literacy for centuries; to this day the popes are termed Pontifex Maximus which during the classical period was a title belonging to the emperor, and the ideal of Christendom continued the legacy of a united European civilization even after its political unity had ended. The political idea of an Emperor in the West to match

1648-558: The Comnenii . However, by that time the city was regarded as part of Asia Minor and not of Syria. Provinicia Syria had a diverse demographic distribution. The rural inland was mostly populated by Aramaic speakers descended from various West Semitic peoples who inhabited Syria. Arabs were settled throughout Hauran , Trachonitis and Emesa which they controlled. Arabs were also part of Palmyra 's composition, which included Aramaeans, Arabs and Amorites . The Phoenician coast maintained

1751-595: The Cretans and Lebanese Armenians . Studying the genetic relation between Jews and Syrians showed that the two populations share a close affinity. Apparently, the cultural influence of Arabian expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean in the seventh century was more prominent than the genetic influx. However, the expansion of Islam did leave an impact on Levantine genes; religion drove Levantine Muslims to mix with other Muslim populations, who were close culturally despite

1854-636: The Diocese of the East . Sometime between 330 and 350 (likely c. 341), the province of Euphratensis was created out of the territory of Syria Coele along the western bank of the Euphrates and the former Kingdom of Commagene , with Hierapolis as its capital. After c. 415, Syria Coele was further subdivided into Syria I (or Syria Prima ), with its capital remaining at Antioch , and Syria II ( Syria Secunda ) or Syria Salutaris , with its capital at Apamea on

1957-688: The First Jewish–Roman War of 66–70 AD. In 66 AD, Cestius Gallus , legate of Syria, brought the Syrian army, based on Legio XII Fulminata , reinforced by auxiliary troops, to restore order in Judaea and quell the revolt. The legion, however, was ambushed and destroyed by Jewish rebels at the Battle of Beth Horon , a result that shocked the Roman leadership. The future emperor Vespasian was then put in charge of subduing

2060-666: The Lebanese , the Palestinians and Jordanians ; this closeness can be explained by the common Canaanite ancestry and geographical unity which was broken only in the twentieth century with the advent of British and French mandates. Regarding the genetic relation between the Syrians and the Lebanese based on Y-DNA, Muslims from Lebanon show closer relations to Syrians than their Christian compatriots. The people of Western Syria show close relations with

2163-701: The Levant and Mesopotamia , Herodotus considered "Syria" west of the Euphrates . Starting from the 2nd century BC onwards, ancient writers referred to the ruler of the Seleucid Empire as the King of Syria or King of the Syrians. The Seleucids designated the districts of Seleucis and Coele-Syria explicitly as Syria and ruled the Syrians as indigenous populations residing west of the Euphrates ( Aramea ) in contrast to Assyrians who had their native homeland in Mesopotamia east of

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2266-563: The Muslim conquests of the 7th century finalized the irreversible loss of all the largest Eastern Roman imperial cities besides the capital itself. The emperor Heraclius in Constantinople , who reigned during this period, conducted his court in Greek, not Latin, though Greek had always been an administrative language of the eastern Roman regions. Eastern-Western associations weakened with the ending of

2369-589: The Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, resulting the integration of Latins and Sabines. Archaeological evidence indeed shows first traces of settlement at the Roman Forum in the mid-8th century BC, though settlements on the Palatine Hill may date back to the 10th century BC. According to legend, the seventh and final king of Rome was Tarquinius Superbus . As the son of Tarquinius Priscus and

2472-755: The Social War and the First Triumvirate , and finally the transformation to the Roman Empire during the latter half of the 1st century BC. The precise end of the Republic is disputed by modern historians; Roman citizens of the time did not recognize that the Republic had ceased to exist. The early Julio-Claudian Emperors maintained that the res publica still existed, albeit protected by their extraordinary powers, and would eventually return to its earlier Republican form. The Roman state continued to term itself

2575-563: The West Indies , Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Six million refugees of the Syrian Civil War also live outside Syria now, mostly in Turkey , Jordan , and Lebanon . Various sources indicate that the name Syria itself is derived from Luwian term "Sura/i", and the derivative ancient Greek name: Σύριοι , Sýrioi , or Σύροι , Sýroi , both of which originally derived from

2678-460: The ancient Near East . The Seleucids ruled the indigenous peoples of the Levant, whom they named "Syrians", as a conquered nation; Syrians were not assimilated into Greek communities, and many local peasants were exploited financially as they had to pay rent for Greek landlords. Outside Greek colonies , the Syrians lived in districts governed by local temples that did not use the Greek civic system of poleis and colonies. The situation changed after

2781-638: The classical era , classical period , classical age , or simply antiquity , is the period of cultural European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the interwoven civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome known together as the Greco-Roman world , centered on the Mediterranean Basin . It is the period during which ancient Greece and ancient Rome flourished and had major influence throughout much of Europe , North Africa , and West Asia . Conventionally, it

2884-584: The classical orders of architecture. The philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas was derived largely from that of Aristotle , despite the intervening change in religion from Hellenic Polytheism to Christianity . Greek and Roman authorities such as Hippocrates and Galen formed the basis of the practice of medicine even longer than Greek thought prevailed in philosophy. In the French theater , playwrights such as Molière and Racine wrote plays on mythological or classical historical subjects and subjected them to

2987-599: The red-figure style , developed by the Andokides Painter in about 530 BC. Greek colonisation refers to the expansion of Archaic Greeks , particularly during the 8th–6th centuries BC , across the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea . The Etruscans had established political control in the region by the late 7th-century BC, forming the aristocratic and monarchial elite. The Etruscans apparently lost power in

3090-723: The 1880s for the name to begin to be widely used by the inhabitants to refer to themselves. Both Muslims and Christians agreed that the Muslims were not Syrians because they belonged to the Arabs while the Christians retained the Syrianism of antiquity. The spread of the Syrian "idea" amongst the Muslims can be traced to the efforts of Rashid Rida who contributed to the formulation of the Syrian Union Party's manifesto in 1918, demanding that Syria, in

3193-477: The 18th and 19th centuries. The earliest period of classical antiquity occurs during a time of gradual resurgence of historical sources after the Late Bronze Age collapse . The 8th and 7th centuries BC are still largely protohistorical , with the earliest Greek alphabetic inscriptions appearing during the first half of the 8th century. The legendary poet Homer is usually assumed to have lived during

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3296-562: The 19th century. John Milton and even Arthur Rimbaud received their first poetic educations in Latin. Genres like epic poetry, pastoral verse, and the frequent use of characters and themes from Greek mythology affected Western literature greatly. In architecture, there have been several Greek Revivals , which seem more inspired in retrospect by Roman architecture than Greek. Washington, DC has many large marble buildings with façades made to look like Greek temples , with columns constructed in

3399-897: The 8th or 7th century BC, and his lifetime is often considered as the beginning of classical antiquity. During the same period is the traditional date for the establishment of the Ancient Olympic Games , in 776 BC. The Phoenicians originally expanded from ports in Canaan , by the 8th century dominating trade in the Mediterranean . Carthage was founded in 814 BC, and the Carthaginians by 700 BC had established strongholds in Sicily , Italy and Sardinia , which created conflicts of interest with Etruria . A stele found in Kition , Cyprus commemorates

3502-477: The Arameans, whom he calls Aramaei , indicating an extant ethnicity. Posidonius noted that the people called Syrians by the Greeks refer to themselves as Arameans. In his book The Great Roman-Jewish War , Josephus , a Hebrew native to the Levant, mentioned the Syrians as the non-Hebrew, non-Greek indigenous inhabitants of Syria. Syrians are mainly descended from the various ancient Semitic-speaking peoples of

3605-631: The Dark Ages). In pottery, the Archaic period sees the development of the Orientalizing style , which signals a shift from the geometric style of the later Dark Ages and the accumulation of influences derived from Egypt, Phoenicia and Syria . Pottery styles associated with the later part of the Archaic age are the black-figure pottery , which originated in Corinth during the 7th-century BC and its successor,

3708-589: The Eastern Roman capital ( first in 674–78 and then in 717–18 ) severed the economic, cultural, and political links that had traditionally united the classical cultures around the Mediterranean, ending antiquity (see Pirenne Thesis ). The original Roman Senate continued to express decrees into the late 6th century, and the last Eastern Roman emperor to use Latin as the language of his court in Constantinople

3811-564: The Elder , and Ptolemy , reported that Arabs inhabited many parts of Syria, which according to modern historians indicate either an ethnic group or a nomadic way of life. The urheimat of the Arab ethnos is unclear; the traditional 19th century theory locates this in the Arabian Peninsula, while some modern scholars, such as David Frank Graf, note that the epigraphic and archaeological evidence render

3914-522: The Emperor in the East continued after the Western Roman Empire's collapse; it was revived by the coronation of Charlemagne in 800; the self-described Holy Roman Empire ruled central Europe until 1806. The Renaissance idea that the classical Roman virtues had been lost as a result of medievalism was especially powerful in European politics of the 18th and 19th centuries. Reverence for Roman republicanism

4017-590: The Euphrates. However, the interchangeability between Assyrians and Syrians persisted during the Hellenistic period . In one instance, the Ptolemaic dynasty of the Hellenistic kingdom of Egypt applied the term "Syrian Village" as the name of a settlement in Fayoum . The Ptolemies referred to all peoples originating from Modern Syria and Palestine as Syrian. The term Syrian was imposed upon Arameans of modern Levant by

4120-442: The French who established a mandate in 1920, but the formation of a Syrian consciousness amongst the members of the Syrian Arab national movement solidified and spread amongst the Muslims as well as the Christians. Genetic tests on Syrians were included in many genetic studies. The genetic marker which identifies descendants of the ancient Levantines is found in Syrians in high proportion. Modern Syrians exhibit "high affinity to

4223-463: The Great had the Seleucid king Antiochus XIII Asiaticus executed and deposed his successor Philip II Philoromaeus . Pompey appointed Marcus Aemilius Scaurus to the post of governor of Syria. Following the fall of the Roman Republic and its transformation into the Roman Empire , Syria became a Roman imperial province, governed by a Legate . During the early empire, the Roman army in Syria accounted for three legions with auxiliaries who defended

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4326-418: The Great in 323 BC. In 510, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow the tyrant Hippias , son of Peisistratos . Cleomenes I , king of Sparta, established a pro-Spartan oligarchy conducted by Isagoras . The Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BC), concluded by the Peace of Callias ended with not only the liberation of Greece, Macedon , Thrace , and Ionia from Persian rule , but also with

4429-432: The Great , who had become the protector of the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria . Following the partition of the Herodian Kingdom of Judea into a tetrarchy in 4 BC, it was gradually absorbed into Roman provinces, with Roman Syria annexing Iturea and Trachonitis . By the late 2nd century AD, the province was divided into Coele Syria and Syria Phoenice . Syria was annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC, when Pompey

4532-470: The Greeks. Fathers had great power over their children, and husbands over their wives. In fact, the word family, familia in Latin, actually referred to those who were subject to the authority of a male head of household. This included non-related members such as slaves and servants. By marriage, both men and women shared property. Divorce was allowed first during the first century BC and could be done by either man or woman. The Roman Empire began to weaken as

4635-504: The Jewish revolt. In the summer of 69, Vespasian, with the Syrian units supporting him, launched his bid to become Roman emperor. He defeated his rival Vitellius and ruled as emperor for ten years when he was succeeded by his son Titus . Based on an inscription recovered from Dor in 1948, Gargilius Antiquus was known to have been the governor of a province in the eastern part of the Empire, possibly Syria, between his consulate and governing Asia. In November 2016, an inscription in Greek

4738-473: The Levant" based on studies comparing modern and ancient DNA samples. Syrians cluster closely with ancient Levantine populations of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. A Levantine ancestral genetic component was identified; it is estimated that the Levantine, the Arabian and East African ancestral components diverged 23,700–15,500 years ago, while the divergence between the Levantine and European components happened 15,900–9,100 years ago. The Levantine ancestral component

4841-411: The Levant; this helped to further strengthen the development of the Syrian national consciousness. Initially, most inhabitants were against the establishment of Syria as they considered this a step against Arab unity, but gradually, Faisal's Syria, which was declared an independent kingdom in 1920, prompted the Syrians to begin exploring the notion of Syrianism instead of pan-Arabism. Faisal was deposed by

4944-438: The Orontes . In 528, Justinian I carved out the small coastal province Theodorias out of territory from both provinces. The region remained one of the most important provinces of the Byzantine Empire . It was occupied by the Sasanians between 609 and 628, then reconquered by the emperor Heraclius , but lost again to the advancing Muslims after the Battle of Yarmouk and the fall of Antioch . The city of Antioch

5047-469: The Roman conquest in 64 BC; Semitic-speaking Syrians obtained the citizenship of Greek poleis , and the line separating the Greeks and the natives blurred. The idioms Syrian and Greek were used by Rome to denote civic societies instead of separate ethnic groups. Ancient Syria of the first millennium BC was dominated by the Aramaeans; they originated in the Northern Levant as a continuum of the Bronze Age populations of Syria. The Aramaeans assimilated most of

5150-429: The Romans. Pompey created the province of Syria , which included modern-day Lebanon and Syria west of the Euphrates, framing the province as a regional social category with civic implications. Plutarch described the indigenous people of this newly created Roman province as "Syrians", so did Strabo , who observed that Syrians resided west of the Euphrates in Roman Syria, and he explicitly mentions that those Syrians are

5253-413: The Senate and had Superbus and the monarchy expelled from Rome in 510 BC. After Superbus' expulsion, the Senate in 509 BC voted to never again allow the rule of a king and reformed Rome into a republican government . The classical period of Ancient Greece corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries BC, in particular, from the end of the Athenian tyranny in 510 BC to the death of Alexander

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5356-416: The aftermath of World War I and the Ottoman withdrawal from the region, become an independent state and not part of larger Arab one ruled by the Hashemites of the Kingdom of Hejaz . Rida did not reject the Arab identity but recognized a Syrian uniqueness and advocated the idea of a Syrian state. In the end, Syria did become a separate state but under the Hashemite king Faisal . He entered Damascus in 1918 in

5459-414: The aftermath of the Ottomans' evacuation of the Levant at the end of World War I. His entry ignited the Syrian national consciousness after he declared an Arab government in the Levant centred in Damascus with him as prince. In June 1919, the Syrian National Congress , which included representatives from Palestine and Lebanon, demanded the full independence of Syria, within borders that encompass more or less

5562-412: The area by the late 6th-century BC, and at this time, the Italic tribes reinvented their government by creating republics , with greater restraints on the ability of individual rulers to exercise power. According to legend, Rome was founded on 21 April 753 BC by twin descendants of the Trojan prince Aeneas , Romulus and Remus . As the city was bereft of women, legend says that the Latins invited

5665-498: The border with Parthia . In 6 AD, Emperor Augustus deposed the ethnarch Herod Archelaus and united Judea , Samaria and Idumea into the Roman province of Judea ; such province was placed under the direct authority of the Legate of Syria Publius Sulpicius Quirinius , who appointed Coponius as Prefect of Judea. Following the death of Herod Philip II (34 AD) and the removal of Herod Antipas (39 AD) Ituraea , Trachonitis , Galilee and Perea were also transferred under

5768-401: The closing of the last Platonic Academy in Athens by the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I in 529, and the conquest of much of the Mediterranean by the new Muslim faith from 634 to 718. These Muslim conquests, of Syria (637), Egypt (639), Cyprus (654), North Africa (665), Hispania (718), Southern Gaul (720), Crete (820), and Sicily (827), Malta (870), as well as the sieges of

5871-455: The creation of a new Greek state in 1832. After the capture of Constantinople in 1453, the Russian Czars (a title derived from Caesar) claimed the Byzantine legacy as the champion of Orthodoxy ; Moscow was described as the " Third Rome ", and the Czars ruled as divinely appointed Emperors into the 20th century. Despite the fact that the Western Roman secular authority disappeared entirely in Europe, it still left traces. The Papacy and

5974-494: The cultures of Persia , the Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah , Central Asia and Egypt . Significant advances were made in the sciences ( geography , astronomy , mathematics , etc.), notably with the followers of Aristotle ( Aristotelianism ). The Hellenistic period ended with the increase of the Roman Republic to a super-regional power during the 2nd century BC and the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC. The Republican period of Ancient Rome began with

6077-421: The disappearance of imperial authority in the west. This tendency reached its maximum when Charlemagne was crowned "Roman Emperor" in the year 800, an act which resulted in the formation of the Holy Roman Empire . The notion that an emperor is a monarch who outranks a king dates from this period. In this political ideal, there would always be a Roman Empire, a state the jurisdiction of which extended through

6180-412: The dominance of Athens in the Delian League , which resulted in conflict with Sparta and the Peloponnesian League , resulting in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), ending with a Spartan victory. Greece began the 4th century with Spartan hegemony , but by 395 BC the Spartan rulers dismissed Lysander from office, and Sparta lost its naval supremacy. Athens , Argos , Thebes and Corinth ,

6283-469: The earlier Levantine populations through their language. With the adoption of a common religion, Christianity , most of the inhabitants turned into Syrians (Aramaeans). Islam and the Arabic language had a similar effect where the Aramaeans themselves became Arabs regardless of their ethnic origin following the Muslim conquest of the Levant . The presence of Arabs in Syria is recorded since the 9th century BC, and Roman period historians, such as Strabo , Pliny

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6386-406: The early periods of the conquest, and formed an isolated aristocracy. The Arabs of the caliphate accommodated many new tribes in isolated areas to avoid conflict with the locals; caliph Uthman ordered his governor, Muawiyah I , to settle the new tribes away from the original population. Syrians who belonged to Monophysitic denominations welcomed the Muslim Arabs as liberators. The Abbasids in

6489-471: The eighth and ninth centuries sought to integrate the peoples under their authority, and the Arabization of the administration was one of their methods. Arabization gained momentum with the increasing numbers of Muslim converts from Christianity ; the ascendancy of Arabic as the formal language of the state prompted the cultural and linguistic assimilation of Syrian converts. Some of those who remained Christian also became Arabized, while others stayed Aramean, it

6592-411: The entire Mediterranean as well as Gaul, parts of Germania and Britannia , the Balkans , Dacia , Asia Minor, the Caucasus , and Mesopotamia . Culturally, the Roman Empire was significantly Hellenized , but also incorporated syncretic "eastern" traditions, such as Mithraism , Gnosticism , and most notably Christianity . Classical Rome had vast differences within their family life compared to

6695-465: The entire civilized western world. That model continued to exist in Constantinople for the entirety of the Middle Ages, where the Byzantine Emperor was considered the sovereign of the entire Christian world. The Patriarch of Constantinople was the Empire's highest-ranked cleric, but even he was subordinate to the emperor, who was "God's Vicegerent on Earth". The Greek-speaking Byzantines and their descendants continued to call themselves " Romioi " until

6798-414: The eve of the Rashidun Caliphate conquest of the Levant, 634 AD, Syria's population mainly spoke Aramaic as the Lingua franca , while Greek was the language of administration. Arabization and Islamization of Syria began in the 7th century, and it took several centuries for Islam, the Arab identity, and language to spread; the Arabs of the caliphate did not attempt to spread their language or religion in

6901-448: The first rank. [...] It was only in the course of the second century that a diminution of his prerogatives occurred, when Hadrian took one of the four legions from the governor of Syria and handed it over to the governor of Palestine . Septimius Severus divided the province of Syria proper into Syria Coele and Syria Phoenice , with Antioch and Tyre as their respective provincial capitals. As related by Theodor Mommsen , It

7004-448: The former, which was called Coele-Syria , two legions, to the governor of the latter, the province of Syro-Phoenicia , one [legion]. From the later 2nd century, the Roman Senate included several notable Syrians, including Claudius Pompeianus and Avidius Cassius . Syria was of crucial strategic importance during the Crisis of the Third Century . In 244 AD, Rome was ruled by a native Syrian from Philippopolis (modern day Shahba ) in

7107-425: The fringes of India . The classical Greek period conventionally ends at the death of Alexander in 323 BC and the fragmentation of his empire, which was at this time divided among the Diadochi . Greece began the Hellenistic period with the increasing power of Macedon and the conquests of Alexander the Great . Greek became the lingua franca far beyond Greece itself, and Hellenistic culture interacted with

7210-412: The geographic distance, and this produced genetic similarities between Levantine Muslims and Moroccan and Yemeni populations. Christians and Druze became a genetic isolate in the predominantly Islamic world. Arabic is the mother tongue of the majority of Syrians as well as the official state language. The Syrian variety of Levantine Arabic differs from Modern Standard Arabic . Western Neo-Aramaic ,

7313-451: The grandeur that was Rome". The culture of the ancient Greeks , together with some influences from the ancient Near East , was the basis of art, philosophy, society, and education in the Mediterranean and Near East until the Roman imperial period . The Romans preserved, imitated, and spread this culture throughout Europe, until they were able to compete with it. This Greco-Roman cultural foundation has been immensely influential on

7416-596: The inhabitants of Constantinople continued to refer to themselves as Romans, as did their eventual conquerors in 1453, the Ottomans (see Romaioi and Rûm .) The classical scholarship and culture that was still preserved in Constantinople were brought by refugees fleeing its conquest in 1453 and helped to begin the Renaissance (see Greek scholars in the Renaissance ). Ultimately, it was a slow, complex, and graduated change of

7519-415: The jurisdiction of the province of Syria. From 37 to 41 AD, much of the southern region was separated from Syria and transformed into a client kingdom under Herod Agrippa I . After Agrippa's death, his kingdom was gradually re-absorbed into the Roman Empire, until it was officially transformed into a Roman province following the death of Herod Agrippa II . Syrian province forces were directly engaged in

7622-461: The language, politics, law, educational systems, philosophy , science, warfare, literature, historiography, ethics, rhetoric, art and architecture of both the Western , and through it, the modern world. Surviving fragments of classical culture helped produce a revival beginning during the 14th century which later came to be known as the Renaissance , and various neo-classical revivals occurred during

7725-522: The latter two of which were formerly Spartan allies, challenged Spartan dominance in the Corinthian War , which ended inconclusively in 387 BC. Later, in 371 BC, the Theban generals Epaminondas and Pelopidas won a victory at the Battle of Leuctra . The result of this battle was the end of Spartan supremacy and the establishment of Theban hegemony . Thebes sought to maintain its dominance until it

7828-687: The name "Syrian" began to spread amongst its Arabic speaking inhabitants. The term gained more importance during the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon , becoming the accepted national name for the Arabic speakers of the Syrian Republic. Most Arabic speaking Syrians identify as Arabs. There is no contradiction between being an Arab and a Syrian since the Syrian Arab identity is multi-layered and being Syrian complements being Arab. In addition to denoting Syrian Arabs,

7931-523: The only surviving Western Aramaic dialect, is still spoken in three villages ( Maaloula , Bakh'a and Jubb'adin ) in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains by both Muslim and Christian Arameans (Syriacs) . Syriacs in the northeast of the country are mainly Turoyo-Aramaic speakers but there are also some speakers of Suret-Aramaic , especially in the Khabour Valley . Classical Syriac is also used as

8034-520: The ousting of the Byzantines from most parts of Syria. However, Antioch and other northern parts of Syria remained in the empire and other parts were under the protection of the emperors through their Hamdanid, Mirdasid , and Marwanid proxies, until the Seljuk arrival, who after three decades of incursions, conquered Antioch in 1084. Antioch was captured again during the 12th century by the revived armies of

8137-722: The overthrow of the Monarchy c. 509 BC and lasted more than 450 years until its subversion through a series of civil wars , into the Principate form of government and the Imperial period. During the half millennium of the Republic, Rome increased from a regional power of the Latium to the dominant force in Italy and beyond. The unification of Italy by the Romans was a gradual process, brought about by

8240-638: The people of Northern Lebanon. Mitochondrial DNA shows the Syrians to have an affinity with Europe; main haplogroups are H and R . Based on Mitochondrial DNA, the Syrians, Palestinians, Lebanese and Jordanians form a close cluster. Compared to the Lebanese, Bedouins and Palestinians, the Syrians have noticeably more Northern European component, estimated at 7%. Regarding the HLA alleles , Syrians, and other Levantine populations, exhibit "key differences" from other Arab populations; based on HLA-DRB1 alleles, Syrians were close to eastern Mediterranean populations, such as

8343-844: The population and mostly live in and around Tartus and Latakia . Christians make up 10% of the country. Most Syrian Christians adhere to the Byzantine Rite ; the two largest are the Antiochian Orthodox Church and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church . The Druze are a mountainous people who reside in Jabal al-Druze who helped spark the Great Syrian Revolt . The Ismailis are an even smaller sect that originated in Asia. Many Armenian and Assyrian Christians fled Turkey during

8446-452: The province of Arabia Petraea. The emperor was Marcus Iulius Philippus, more commonly known as Philip the Arab . Philip became the 33rd emperor of Rome upon its millennial celebration. Roman Syria was invaded in 252/253 (the date is disputed) after a Roman field army was destroyed in the Battle of Barbalissos by the King of Persia Shapur I which left the Euphrates river unguarded and the region

8549-647: The region, with many of its speakers having become Arabs. Those who retained the Aramaic language are divided among two groups: The Arabs in Arabia called the region of Syria region al-Sham ( Arabic : بِـلَاد الـشَّـام , romanized :  Bilād al-Šām , lit.   'the country of Sham') which became the dominant name of the Levant under the Rashidun Caliphate and its successors. The geographic designation "Syria" returned in 1864 when Ottoman Syria

8652-484: The region. Olive oil , garlic , olives , spearmint , and sesame oil are some of the ingredients that are used in many traditional meals. Traditional Syrian dishes enjoyed by Syrians include, tabbouleh , labaneh , shanklish , wara' 'enab , makdous , kebab , Kibbeh , sfiha , moutabal , hummus , mana'eesh , bameh , and fattoush . A typical Syrian breakfast is a meze . It is an assortment platter of foods with cheeses, meats, pickles, olives, and spreads. Meze

8755-583: The rural settlements. Antioch and Palmyra reached a peak of 200,000–250,000 inhabitants, while Apamea counted 117,000 'free citizens' circa AD 6. Combined with their dependancies and villages, Apamea and Cyrrhus may have counted as high as 500,000 each. The Syrian Coastal Mountain Range , marginal hill country, were less densely settled and had a population of around 40–50,000. The inhabitants of Syria adopted Greek customs while maintaining elements of Near Eastern culture. The continuity of pre-Hellenistic cultures

8858-532: The socio-economic structure in European history that resulted in the changeover between classical antiquity and medieval society and no specific date can truly exemplify that. In politics, the late Roman conception of the Empire as a universal state, commanded by one supreme divinely appointed ruler, united with Christianity as a universal religion likewise headed by a supreme patriarch , proved very influential, even after

8961-624: The son-in-law of Servius Tullius , Superbus was of Etruscan birth. It was during his reign that the Etruscans reached their apex of power. Superbus removed and destroyed all the Sabine shrines and altars from the Tarpeian Rock , enraging the people of Rome. The people came to object to his rule when he failed to recognize the rape of Lucretia , a patrician Roman, by his own son. Lucretia's kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus (ancestor to Marcus Brutus ), summoned

9064-717: The state, as can be seen in the architecture of the Panthéon , the Arc de Triomphe , and the paintings of Jacques-Louis David . During the revolution, France transitioned from kingdom to republic to dictatorship to Empire (complete with Imperial Eagles) that the Romans had experienced centuries earlier. Classical antiquity is a general term for a long period of cultural history . Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many rather disparate cultures and periods. "Classical antiquity" often refers to an idealized vision of later people, of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe 's words, "the glory that

9167-548: The strict rules of the classical unities derived from Aristotle's Poetics . The desire to dance in a manner allegedly similar to the manner of the ancient Greeks caused Isadora Duncan to create her brand of ballet . Roman Syria Roman Syria was an early Roman province annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of King of Armenia Tigranes

9270-658: The term "Syrian" also refer to all Syrian citizens, regardless of their ethnic background. In 2018, Syria had an estimated population of 19.5 million, which includes, aside from the aforementioned majority, Kurds , Assyrians , Turks , Armenians and others. Before the Syrian Civil War , there was quite a large Syrian diaspora that had emigrated to North America ( United States and Canada ), European Union member states (including Sweden, France, and Germany), South America (mainly in Brazil , Argentina , Venezuela , and Chile ),

9373-415: The traditional theory inadequate to explain the Arabs' appearance in Syria. The Arabs mentioned in Syria by Greco-Roman writers were assimilated into the newly formed "Greco–Aramaean culture" that dominated the region, and the texts they produced were written in Greek and Aramaic. Old Arabic , the precursor of Classical Arabic , was not a literary language; its speakers used Aramaic for writing purposes. On

9476-561: The victory of King Sargon II in 709 BC over the seven kings of the island, marking an important part of the transfer of Cyprus from Tyrian rule to the Neo-Assyrian Empire . The Archaic period followed the Greek Dark Ages , and saw significant advancements in political theory , and the beginnings of democracy , philosophy , theatre , poetry , as well as the revitalization of the written language (which had been lost during

9579-581: Was Greece , the grandeur that was Rome !" During the 18th and 19th centuries AD, reverence for classical antiquity was much greater in Europe and the United States than it is now. Respect for the ancient people of Greece and Rome affected politics , philosophy , sculpture , literature , theatre , education , architecture , and sexuality . Epic poetry in Latin continued to be written and circulated well into

9682-402: Was Severus who at length withdrew the first place in the Roman military hierarchy from the Syrian governor. After having subdued the province—which had wished at that time to make Niger emperor, as it had formerly done with its governor Vespasian —amidst resistance from the capital Antioch in particular, he ordained its partition into a northern and a southern half, and gave to the governor of

9785-704: Was emperor Maurice , who reigned until 602. The overthrow of Maurice by his mutinying Danube army commanded by Phocas resulted in the Slavic invasion of the Balkans and the weakening of Balkan and Greek urban culture (resulting in the flight of Balkan Latin speakers to the mountains, see Origin of the Romanians ), and also provoked the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 in which all the great eastern cities except Constantinople were lost. The resulting turmoil did not end until

9888-695: Was finally ended by the increasing power of Macedon in 346 BC. During the reign of Philip II , (359–336 BC), Macedon expanded into the territory of the Paeonians , the Thracians and the Illyrians . Philip's son, Alexander the Great , (356–323 BC) managed to briefly extend Macedonian power not only over the central Greek city-states but also to the Persian Empire , including Egypt and lands as far east as

9991-519: Was inconsistent across different regions, and where it existed, it varied, including Aramean , Phoenician , and neo-Hittite influences. However, many areas documented exclusively Greek elements. In contrast to Jews , who shared collective historical memories, Syrians lacked a unified cultural or social identity. The unifying aspects in Roman Syria were Greek civic structures and narratives promoted by Roman imperial rule, suggesting that Syrian culture

10094-454: Was pillaged by the Persians. In 259/260 a similar event happened when Shapur I again defeated a Roman field army and captured the Roman emperor, Valerian, alive at the Battle of Edessa . Again, Roman Syria suffered as cities were captured, sacked and pillaged. From 268 to 273, Syria was part of the breakaway Palmyrene Empire . Following the reforms of Diocletian , Syria Coele became part of

10197-577: Was probably during the Abbasid period in the ninth century that Christians adopted Arabic as their first language; the first translation of the gospels into Arabic took place in this century. Many historians, such as Claude Cahen and Bernard Hamilton, proposed that the Arabization of Christians was completed before the First Crusade . By the thirteenth century, the Arabic language achieved complete dominance in

10300-621: Was reconquered by Nikephorus Phocas in 963, along with other parts of the country, at that time under the Hamdanids , although still under the official suzerainty of the Abbasid caliphs and also claimed by the Fatimid caliphs. After emperor John Kurkuas failed to conquer Syria up to Jerusalem, a Muslim reconquest of Syria followed in the late 970s undertaken by the Fatimid Caliphate that resulted in

10403-452: Was recovered off the coast of Dor by Haifa University underwater archaeologists, which attests that Antiquus was governor of the province of Judea between 120 and 130, possibly prior to the Bar Kokhba revolt . As related by Theodor Mommsen , The governor of Syria retained the civil administration of the whole large province undiminished, and held for long alone in all Asia a command of

10506-493: Was reorganized and the name was used for a vilayet encompassing generally the southern Levant. The use of the national designation "Syrian" however has its origin in the tense relationship between the Arabic-speaking Muslims and Christians of the Levant, where Christians wanted to distance themselves from the Muslims. Already in the 1830s, the Lebanese traveler As’ad Khayyat identified with the term Syria, but it took till

10609-715: Was strong among the Founding Fathers of the United States and the Latin American revolutionaries; the Americans described their new government as a republic (from res publica ) and gave it a Senate and a President (another Latin term), rather than use available English terms like commonwealth or parliament . Similarly in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, republicanism and Roman martial virtues were promoted by

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