Antioch
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Antioch. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
an'ti-ok, once a name ranking with Rome, Athens, Alexandria, and Babylon; now an obscure city of Syria. It is situated on the Orontes, fifteen miles from the Mediterranean. It was founded in the midst of a beautiful fertile plain, 300 B. C. When Alexander's kingdom broke into fragments, the capital of the eastern or Babylonian kingdom was located finally at Antioch. The city was noted for the splendor and magnificence of its public buildings. A straight street four miles in length led eastward through its center. A covered portico, supported by a double row of marble pillars, rose along each side. The river Orontes and a dark cypress grove sacred to Daphne added to the beauty of the vicinity. "Antioch, the Beautiful," "The Crown of the East," were favorite names. Thirteen successive monarchs were proud to be called Antiochus. A royal palace, senate house, gilded temple of Jupiter, theater, amphitheater, aqueduct, public gardens, and baths were erected in a style exhibiting the combined influence of Grecian art, eastern luxury, and unlimited wealth. Situated only fifteen miles from a safe seaport at the mouth of the little river, favored by the government, Antioch became the western terminus of the eastern caravan trade. The city has had a varied history. Under the Roman Empire it was a city of importance, and became a center of the Christian faith. Antioch is referred to in Acts xi: 26: "And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." Many Christian churches were erected. Ten general councils of the church were held here. Antioch passed successively into the hands of the Saracens, the Greek emperors, the Crusaders, the Mamelukes of Egypt, and finally in 1516, into the hands of the Turks. Earthquakes and hovel builders have left little of the old splendor standing. The present city is a squalid place of 20,000 people. There is some export trade in silks, leather, carpets, goat's wool, and beeswax; but, with a better day dawning on the Orient, Antioch may again become a city of importance. See Smyrna
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a famous city of ancient times, es the the capital capi of the Greek kings of Syria, on the left bank of the Orontes, about 21 miles from the sea, in a beautiful and fertile plain; founded by Seleucus Nicator in 300 B. c., and named after his father, Antiochus. In Roman times it was the seat of the Syrian governors, and the center of a widely extended commerce. In the first half of the 7th century it was taken by the Saracens, and in 1098 by the Crusaders. They established the principality of Antioch, of which the first ruler was Bohemond, and which lasted till 1268, when it was taken by the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt. In 1516 it passed into the hands of the Turks. The modern Antioch, or Antakieh, occupies but a small porti of the site of the ancient Antioch. Pop. ⚫about 30,000. There was another Antioch, in Pisidia, at which Paul preached on his first missionary journey.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts place Antioch in Ottoman-then-Turkish Syria; the political map moved first. After the First World War the city fell under French Mandate Syria, and in 1939 the Sanjak of Alexandretta was annexed by Turkey, so "the squalid place of 20,000" of Aiton's 1910 entry is now Antakya, capital of Turkey's Hatay province, a city of roughly 200,000. Aiton's hope that "Antioch may again become a city of importance" was partly answered by Princeton-led excavations in the 1930s, which uncovered the spectacular Roman floor mosaics now central to the Hatay Archaeology Museum. On 6 February 2023 an earthquake devastated Antakya, flattening much of the historic center in a disaster that killed tens of thousands across Turkey and Syria — the latest in the long series of quakes both entries allude to.
Written for this edition, 2026.