Emesa > Homs Hims Syria

The Orontes River in Syria, today mainly unnavigable and of little use for irrigation, derives its historical importance solely from the convenience of its valley for traffic from north to south; roads from the north and northeast, converging at Antioch, follow the course of the stream up to Homs where the roads fork to Damascus and to Syria and the south.

Along its valley pass the armies and traffic bound to and from Egypt in all ages.

On the Orontes is fought the Battle of Kadesh during the reign of Ramesses II (1279 – 1213 BCE).

Emesa in antiquity is a very wealthy city.

The city is a part of a trade route from the East, heading via Palmyra that passes through Emesa on its way to the coast.

Apart from Antioch, a very important city for the Romans as the Syrian port city, Emesa prospers under its Roman vassal rulers.

The economy of the Emesani Kingdom is based on agriculture.

With fertile volcanic soil in the Orontes Valley and a great lake, as well as a dam across the Orontes south of Emesa, which provides ample water, Emesa’s soil is ideal for cultivation.

Farms in Emesa provide wheat, vines and olives.

Each year neighborhood princes and rulers send generous gifts honoring and celebrating Emesa’s cult and its Temple of the Sun.

The priesthood of the cult of El-Gebal in Emesa is held by a family that may be assumed to be descended from Sampsiceramus I or the later Priest King Sohaemus, either by the priest-king or another member of the dynasty.

The priest that serves in the cult of El-Gebal wears a costume that is very similar to the dress of a Parthian Priest: an Emesani priest wears a long-sleeved and gold-embroidered purple tunic reaching to his feet, gold and purple trousers and a jeweled diadem on his head.

When Sampsiceramus I died in 48 BCE, he had been succeeded by Iamblichus I, during whose reign the prominence of Emesa grows after Iamblichus establishes it as the new capital of the Emesani dynasty.

Prior to succeeding his father, Iamblichus I had been considered by Cicero in 51 BCE (then Roman Governor of Cilicia), as a possible ally against Parthia.

Shortly after Iamblichus I becomes priest-king, he prudently supports the Roman politician Julius Caesar in his Alexandrian war against Pompey, sending troops to aid Caesar.

The surviving members of the Severan dynasty, headed by Julia Maesa (Caracalla's aunt) and her daughters, foster this discontent.

When Macrinus came to power, he suppressed the threat against his reign by the family of his assassinated predecessor by exiling them—Julia Maesa, her two daughters, and her eldest grandson Elagabalus—to their estate near Emesa in Syria, where the Severan women plot, with Julia Maesa’s eunuch advisor and Elagabalus' tutor Gannys, to place another Severan on the imperial throne.

They use their hereditary influence over the cult of sun-deity Elagabalus (the Latinized form of El-Gabal) to proclaim Soaemias' son Elagabalus (named for his family's patron deity) as the true successor to Caracalla.

The false rumor is spread by Elagabalus, with the assistance of the Severan women, that he is Caracalla's illegitimate son and thus the child of a union between first cousins.

He is therefore due the loyalties of Roman soldiers and senators who had sworn allegiance to Caracalla.

Born around the year 203, as Varius Avitus Bassianus to the family of Sextus Varius Marcellus and Julia Soaemias Bassiana, his father had initially been a member of the equestrian class, but had later been elevated to the rank of senator.

His grandmother Julia Maesa is the widow of the Consul Julius Avitus, the sister of Julia Domna, and the sister-in-law of emperor Septimius Severus.

Her daughter Julia Soaemias is a cousin of Caracalla.

Other relatives include his aunt Julia Avita Mamaea and uncle Marcus Julius Gessius Marcianus and their son Alexander Severus.

Elagabalus's family holds hereditary rights to the priesthood of the sun god El-Gabal, of whom Elagabalus is the high priest at Emesa (modern Homs) in Syria.

Elagabalus was initially venerated at Emesa.

The name is the Latinized form of the Syrian Ilāh hag-Gabal, which derives from Ilāh ("god") and gabal ("mountain"), resulting in "the God of the Mountain" the Emesene manifestation of the deity.

The cult of the deity had spread to other parts of the Roman Empire in the second century.

For example, a dedication has been found as far away as Woerden (Netherlands).

The god is later imported and assimilated with the Roman sun god, who was known as Sol Indiges in republican times and as Sol Invictus during the second and third centuries.

Vasudeva may have been the Indian king who returned the relics of the Apostle St. Thomas from Mylapore, India in 232 CE, on which occasion his Syriac Acts (the third century Acts of Thomas) were written.

The relics were transferred in triumph to the town of Edessa, Mesopotamia.

The Indian king is named as "Mazdai" in Syriac sources, "Misdeos" and "Misdeus" in Greek and Latin sources, which has been connected to the "Bazdeo" on the Kushan coinage of Vasudeva, the transition between "M" and "B" being a current one in Classical sources for Indian names.

The Palmyrenes withdraw into Emesa, but Zenobia is unable to remove her treasury here as Aurelian successfully enters and besieges the city.

She and her son, escaping on camel back with help from the Sassanids, are overtaken on the Euphrates River by Aurelian’s cavalry.

Numerian lingers in the East.

The Roman retreat from Persia is orderly and unopposed, for the Persian King is still struggling to establish his authority.

Numerian has by March 284 only reached Emesa (Homs) in Syria, where he is apparently still alive and in good health, as he issues the only extant rescript in his name there. (Coins are issued in his name in Cyzicus at some time before the end of 284, but it is impossible to know whether he is still in the public eye by this point.)

After Emesa, Numerian's staff, including the prefect Aper, report that Numerian suffers from a disabling inflammation of the eyes, and has to travel in a closed coach.

Bacchus, the Greco-Roman god associated with nature, wine, and ecstasy, is installed in the Christian basilicas of Emesa (modern Hims, Syria) and …

…Homs under the command of his brother Sa'id (where they are soon besieged by Marwan's forces), Sulayman flees from Homs to …

Marwan, taking Homs in early 746 after a bitter ten-month siege, razes the walls of the city, then …