punished by the loss of
its metropolitan status. Zeno, who renamed it Theopolis, restored many
of its public buildings just before the great earthquake of 526, whose
destructive work was completed by the Persian Chosroes twelve years
later. Justinian made an effort to revive it, and Procopius describes
his repairing of the walls; but its glory was past.

The chief interest of Antioch under the empire lies in its relation to
Christianity. Evangelized perhaps by Peter, according to the tradition
upon which the Antiochene patriarchate still rests its claim for primacy
(cf. Acts xi.), and certainly by Barnabas and Saul, its converts were
the first to be called "Christians." They multiplied exceedingly, and by
the time of Theodosius were reckoned by Chrysostom at about 100,000
souls. Between 252 and 300 A.D. ten assemblies of the church were held
at Antioch and it became the residence of the patriarch of Asia. When
Julian visited the place in 362 the impudent population railed at him
for his favour to Jewish and pagan rites, and to revenge itself for the
closing of its great church of Constantine, burned down the temple of
Apollo in Daphne. The emperor's rough and severe habits and his rigid
administration prompted Antiochene lampoons, to which he replied in the
curious satiric _apologia_, still extant, which he called _Misopogon_.
His successor, Valens, who endowed Antioch with a new forum having a
statue of Valentinian on a central column, reopened the great church,
which stood till the sack of Chosroes in 538. Antioch gave its name to a
certain school of Christian thought, distinguished by literal
interpretation of the Scriptures and insistence on the human limitations
of Jesus. Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia were the leaders
of this school. The principal local saint was Simeon Stylites, who
performed his penance on a hill some 40 m. east. His body was brought to
the city and buried in a building erected under the emperor Leo. In A.D.
635, during the reign of Heraclius, Antioch passed into Saracen hands,
and decayed apace for more than 300 years; but in 969 it was recovered
for Byzantium by Michael Burza and Peter the Eunuch. In 1084 the Seljuk
Turks captured it but held it only fourteen years, yielding place to the
crusaders, who besieged it for nine months, enduring frightful
sufferings. Being at last betrayed, it was given to Bohemund, prince of
Tarentum, and it remained the capital of a Latin principalit