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Ptolemaic versus Seleucid Rivalry in Southern Syria Ptolemaic versus Seleucid Rivalry in Southern Syria
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Roman Rule Roman Rule
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The Eastern Threat The Eastern Threat
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Security Security
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Being Roman Being Roman
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Temple of Jupiter Temple of Jupiter
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The Region under Rome The Region under Rome
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Urban Development Urban Development
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Foreign Trade and Entrepreneurship Foreign Trade and Entrepreneurship
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Competing Faiths Competing Faiths
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New Challenges New Challenges
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Wars with Persia Wars with Persia
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The Coming of Islam The Coming of Islam
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Bibliography Bibliography
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37 Damascus and the Region Fourth Century bc–Eighth Century ad
Get accessRoss Burns has published a range of books on the history and archaeology of Syria including Monuments of Syria (London: I. B. Tauris, 1992, 1999, 2009), histories of Damascus (Routledge, 2005, 2nd ed. 2019) and Aleppo (Routledge, 2017), and his study titled the Origins of the Colonnaded Streets in the Cities of the Roman East (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently participating in a study on the reuse of sacred spaces during the centuries of transition from Roman, through Byzantine, and into Islamic times as well as a short history of Syria told through forty monumental sites or buildings. His website www.monumentsofsyria.com provides a visual survey of the sites surveyed in the book of that name.
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Published:22 April 2025
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Abstract
For a thousand years, Damascus played a central role in the consolidation in Syria of the dominant culture of the Mediterranean world. Though of largely Aramaean extraction, Damascene society reflected the influence of Greek and later Roman civilization without losing numerous elements of its Semitic past. The pivotal role of the city in the consolidation of Greek and Roman rule in southern Syria continued into Byzantine times when Syria played an active part in fending off incursions from Persia to the east. The Sasanian invasion launched in 609 brought Persian occupation of Damascus from 613. Byzantine rule was restored under Heraclius following the collapse of Persian forces at the Battle of Nineveh in 627 but Byzantine Syria had less than six years’ reprieve before it faced a new challenge: the arrival of new rulers from a previously neglected quarter, Arabia.
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