During the Crusades , Antioch served as the capital of the Principality of Antioch , one of four Crusader states that were founded in the Levant. Its inhabitants were known as Antiochenes. Any remains of the ancient city of Antioch are mostly buried beneath alluvial deposits from the Orontes River.
The modern city of Antakya, in Hatay Province , lies in its place. Antioch was founded near the end of the fourth century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great 's generals, as one of the tetrapoleis of Seleucis of Syria.
Seleucus encouraged Greeks from all over the Mediterranean to settle in the city. During the late Hellenistic and Roman Principate periods, Antioch's population may have reached a peak of over , inhabitants most generally estimate between , and , , [ 4 ] making the city the third largest in the Roman Empire after Rome and Alexandria and one of the most important cities in the eastern Mediterranean. From the early fourth century, Antioch was the seat of the Count of the Orient , head of the Diocese of the East.
The Romans provided the city with walls that encompassed almost hectares 1, acres , of which one quarter was mountainous, leaving ha acres — about one-fifth the area of Rome within the Aurelian Walls. The city was also the main center of Hellenistic Judaism at the end of the Second Temple period. As one of the cities of the pentarchy , Antioch was called "the cradle of Christianity " as a result of its longevity and the pivotal role that it played in the emergence of early Christianity.
The city still lends its name to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch , one of the most important modern churches of the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean. Two routes from the Mediterranean Sea , lying through the Orontes river gorge and the Belen Pass , converge in the plain of the Antioch Lake, now called Lake Amik , and are met there by:. A settlement called "Meroe" pre-dated Antioch.
