Antioch and Northern Syria in the Sixth Century

Abstract This chapter analyses Antioch and northern Syria in the sixth century, the setting for Symeon the Younger’s life and cult. It explores the series of disasters, including earthquakes, plague, and Persian invasion, which hit the city during Symeon’s lifetime. It summarizes the literary evidence relating to these disasters, which presents a picture of catastrophe, before considering archaeology, which offers some, albeit limited, support for a picture of decline. It considers new archaeological perspectives on crisis, including the paradigm of ‘resilience’. It explores social and cultural tensions in the Antiochene region, including conflicts over paganism, and divisions between Chalcedonians and miaphysites. It argues that Christian communities in Antioch were fractured as much by tensions and disagreement over proper Christian identity and attitudes towards the pagan past as they were by Christological divisions. It addresses the scholarly debate about the state of the Roman empire in this period, arguing that the severity (or otherwise) of the economic and practical consequences of disasters did not necessarily correlate to the scale of their cultural, psychological, and ideological ramifications.