Antigoneia (Syria)

Antigoneia was an ancient city in the northern Levant, founded around 307 to 306 BC by Antigonus I Monophthalmus, one of the successors of Alexander the Great. It stood on the Orontes River on the trade routes from Syria to Anatolia, Palestine and Mesopotamia, and served as an administrative centre for Antigonus's eastern territories alongside Celaenae in Phrygia. Diodorus Siculus gives it a perimeter of seventy stades, about 12 kilometres, and the historian Richard Billows estimates a Greco-Macedonian population of about 20,000. Events there included the acclamation of Antigonus as king after the Battle of Salamis in 306 BC and his coronation in the royal palace. After Antigonus was killed at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC the city lost its standing: Seleucus I moved its people to his new foundations at Seleucia Pieria and Antioch, and he is said to have destroyed it, though one source shows it still existing in 53 BC. Its exact site is unknown; a plateau about 8 kilometres northeast of Antioch has been proposed but is not supported by material evidence.