The site of Laodicea is now utterly deserted. The ruins are not conspicuous or imposing; the site has been rifled to build and repair Denizli, and in recent years much injury has thus been done to the old city.
The city Laodicea was founded to be a garrison and centre of Seleucid power in the country, and
* See quotations Cities and Bish. of Phr. i. pp. 82, 37, 38, 44, 47,54. The form Λαοδικίας occurs chiefly in the genitive case, ἢ which the accent of ΛαοΣικείας falls on the same syllable as that of Λαοδικίας.
t+ Op. cit. p. 26. Ladhik implies an original Aae3/xua, not
Δαοδικία..
t Op. cit. p. 901.
population was selected and planted there likely to be loyal to the Seleucid kings. Hence there are some traces of a Syrian element in the population.* Jews also formed part of the citizens; these may have been brought there by the founder, or been settled there by Antiochus the Great towards B.C. 200, when he sent 2000 Jewish families from Babylonia to the cities of Phrygia and Lydia (Josephus, Ant. XU. iii. 4). In B.C. 62 Flaceus, the governor of the province Asia, refused to let the money which was regularly sent to Jerusalem by the Jews go out of the country, because he feared
that the loss of specie might be dangerous. At Laodicea, by the governor’s orders, 20 pounds weight of gold, which had been collected by the
Jews, was seized; and at Apameia 100 pounds weight (Cicero, pro Flacco, 68). A letter of the Laodicean magistrates is preserved by Josephus (Ant. χιν. x. 20), promising to obey the Roman orders, and grant full religious freedom to the Jews.
Laodicea was a small city until after the Roman period had begun; then it rapidly became great and rich. Destroyed by an bag in A.D. 60, it disdained to seek help from the liberality of the Emperors, as many of the greatest cities of Asia had done ; propriis opibus revaluit (Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 27). Hence its boast, Rev 3” ‘I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing.’ It was renowned for the beautiful glossy black wool of its sheep, and carried on a great trade in garments manufactured from this wool. Owing to its central position at the point where the great trade-route from the East was joined by several branch-roads, and its importance as chief city of the Cibyratic conventus, to which, at stated inter- vals, the people of many cities and a large district flocked, it became a centre of banking and financial transactions; and Cicero intended to cash there his bills of exchange (Zp. ad Fam. iii. 5. 4). Hence Rey 318 ‘I counsel thee (not to take the gold of thy bankers, but) to buy of me gold refined by fire, and (not the glossy black garments made in the city, but) white garments.’
Δ πὰ was not far east of the temple of Men Karou, connected with which was a famous school of medicine in the century immediately before and after Christ. There was an article called ‘Phrygian Powder,’ used to cure weakness of the eyes; it is very probable that this was made at Laodicea.t Hence ‘I counsel thee (not to use thy ‘Phrygian Powder,’ but) to buy of me eyesalve to anoint thine eyes that thou mayst see’ (Rev 318).
Very little is known about the history of Christianity in Laodicea. Timothy, Mark, and above all Epaphras (Col 1’), are likely to have been first instrumental in spreading the new religion in the Lycos valley; atter them came Philip the Apostle, and (according to late tradition) John. Archippus, Nymphas (Col 4°), and Diotrephes (3 Jn*), are named by untrustworthy tradition as the first bishops of Laodicea. Sagaris, a bishop of Laodicea, died a martyr about A.D. 166. Sisinnius, a bishop, and Artemon a presbyter, under Dio- cletian, are mentioned in the Acta S. Artemonis (Oct. 8), a late and poor production. Few Chris- tian inscriptions are known. _Laodicea was repre- sented by its bishop Nounechios at the Council of Nicwa, A.D. 325; and a council was held in the city about 344-363. It was the leading bishopric
* Op. cit. Ῥ. 33.
+ On the τες, of the Phrygian Jews (who seem to have been far more numerous in Apameia and Central Phrygia than in Laodicea) see op. cit. pt. ii. ch. xv.
tSo the famous Polemon of Laodicea was called ‘the
Phrygian’ by his admirer Herodes Atticus, op. cit pp. 44, 52. § Other martyrs at Laodicea, op. cit. pt. ii. pp. 494, 512 Add Trophimus and Thallus, Acta Sanct., 11th March.
LAODICEANS
of Phrygia throughout the Christian period. The subscription at the end of 1 Ti, ἐγράφη ἀπὸ Λαοδικείας, has no authority, and is certainly false. The Epistle called ἡ ἐκ Λαοδικείας (Col 41°) is perhaps the existing Epistle to the Ephesians (wh. see). The so-called istola ad Laodicenses is a late and worthless forgery. St. Paul himself had never visited the Lycos valley (Col 91).
Laodicea is classified by NT writers under the eographical name Asia. Zahn, however, and lass consider that St. Luke reckoned it, not
under Asia, but under Phrygia (see Lyp1A, against this view).
Lirgraturz.—Most of what has been learned about Laodicea {s collected by Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, pt. i. Bp. 1-83, 342f.; pt. 11. pp. 512ff., 5421%., 785f. Anderson in