Laodicea

Laodicea, a name given to several cities—eight at least can be distinguished—founded or rebuilt by the Seleucid rulers of Syria; it is adapted from Laodice, a favourite name for the female relatives of these sovereigns. Of the cities so called, the most famous and most interesting was situated 2 miles from the banks of the river Lycus in Phrygia, and on the great commercial road leading from the Ionian cities to the Euphrates. The district in which it stands has frequently suffered from earthquakes, and the city was more than once in part overthrown by them. It finally began to decay at the period of the Osmanli invasions, and is now a heap of uninteresting ruins, known as Eski-Hissar. Art and science flourished among the ancient Laodiceans: it was the seat of a renowned medical school, produced some famous philosophers, and in its mint was struck a valuable series of coins, which come down to the time of Diocletian. But its greatest importance is due to the fact that it was one of the chief homes of early Christianity, designated one of the seven churches of the Apocalypse, but doomed to unhappy memory as 'lukewarm and neither cold nor hot' (Rev. iii. 16). Probably the fact is traceable to the settlement here of great numbers of Jews at that period. The important ecclesiastical council of Laodicea, held here in 363, adopted resolutions concerning the canon of the Old and New Testaments, and concerning ecclesiastical discipline. A second council, held here in 476, condemned the Eutychians.—Another of these cities Laodicea will be found described under Latakia (q.v.).