Berytus

Berytus was the ancient city on the site of modern Beirut, Lebanon, which grew from a Phoenician port called Beerut into a major Roman center. Destroyed in 140 BC during a Seleucid succession dispute and rebuilt on a Hellenistic plan, it was conquered by Rome under Pompey in 64 BC, renamed Berytus, and made a Roman colony around 14 BC as Colonia Iulia Augusta Felix Berytus, honoring Julia, daughter of the emperor Augustus. Under the reign of Trajan it held about 50,000 people and was called the most Roman city in the eastern provinces, home to one of the leading law schools of the empire, until a devastating earthquake in AD 551 destroyed much of the city and the school, and Arab forces took the reduced Byzantine settlement in 635.