the Sea," it became an important military artery of the Roman Empire and was known as the Via Maris.
Messana
City in the island of Sicily (Messina)
Founded by Greek colonists in the 8th century BC, Messina was originally called Zancle, meaning "scythe" because of the shape of its natural harbor.. A commune of its province, located at the southern entrance of the Strait of Messina, is to this day called 'Scaletta Zanclea'.
In 264 BC, Roman troops were deployed to Sicily, the first time a Roman army acted outside the Italian Peninsula. At the end of the First Punic War it was a free city allied with Rome. In Roman times Messina, then known as Messana, had an important pharos (lighthouse). Messana was the base of Sextus Pompeius, during his war against Octavian.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the city was successively ruled by Goths from 476, then by the Byzantine Empire in 535, by the Arabs in 842, and in 1061 by the Norman brothers Robert Guiscard and Roger Guiscard (later count Roger I of Sicily).
Messina was most likely the harbor at which the Black Death entered Europe: the plague was brought by Genoese ships coming from Caffa in the Crimea. In 1548 St. Ignatius founded there the first Jesuit college of the world, which later gave birth to the Studium Generale (the current University of Messina).
Mount Gerizim
A mountain close to the city of Shechem (Nablus)
Mount Silpius
High hill close to Antioch
Mount Tabor
High hill in Galilee
Mount Zion
Hill within the city walls of Jerusalem
Museum
An institution dedicated to learning
Nazareth
City in Galilee
Nazareth is the largest city in the North District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel"; the population is made up predominantly of Arab citizens of Israel, almost all of whom are either Muslim (69%) or Christian (30.9%).
Archaeological research has revealed that there was a funerary and cult center at Kfar HaHoresh, about two miles (3 km) from current Nazareth, dating back roughly 9000 years to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic era.
According to the Gospel of Luke, Nazareth was the home village of Mary and also the site of the Annunciation (when Mary was told by the Angel Gabriel that she would have Jesus as her son). In the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph and Mary resettled in Nazareth after returning from the flight from Bethlehem to Egypt. The differences and possible contradictions between these two accounts of the nativity of Jesus are part of the Synoptic Problem. According to the Bible, Nazareth was also where Jesus grew up from some point in his childhood. However, some modern scholars argue that Nazareth was also the birthplace of Jesus.
Neapolis
City in Italy (Naples)
The Naples area has been inhabited since the Neolithic period. The earliest Greek settlements were established in the Naples region in the 2nd millennium BC. Sailors from the Greek island of Rhodes established a small commercial port on the island of Megaride in the 9th century BC. In the 8th century BC, a larger settlement called Parthenope was founded by settlers from Cumae as part of Italy's Magna Graecia region of Greek colonization.
In the 6th century BC, after the decline of Parthenope, the new urban zone of Neapolis was founded, eventually becoming one of the foremost cities of Magna Graecia.
The new city grew rapidly due to the influence of the powerful Greek city-state of Syracuse, and became an ally of the Roman Republic against Carthage; the strong walls surrounding Neapolis stopped the invading forces of the Carthaginian general Hannibal from entering. During the Samnite Wars, the city, now a bustling center of trade, was captured by the Samnites; however, the Romans soon captured the city from them and made it a Roman colony.
During the Roman era, the people of Naples maintained their Greek language and customs, while the city was expanded with elegant Roman villas, aqueducts, and public baths. Landmarks such as the Temple of Dioscures were built, and many powerful emperors chose to holiday in the city, including Claudius and Tiberius. Naples became a major Roman cultural center; Virgil, the author of Rome's national epic, the Aeneid, received part of his education in the city, and later resided in its environs.
It was during this period that Christianity first arrived in Naples; the apostles Peter and Paul are said to have preached in the city.
Ostia
City and main harbor in Italy
Ostia may have been Rome's first colonia. An inscription says that Ostia was founded by Ancus Marcius, the semi-legendary fourth king of Rome, in the 7th century BC. The most ancient buildings currently visible are from the 3rd century BC, notably the Castrum (military camp); of a slightly later date is the Capitolium (temple of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva).
In 68 BC, the town was sacked by pirates. During the sack, the port was set on fire, the consular war fleet was destroyed, and two prominent senators were kidnapped. Pompey the Great raised an army and destroyed the pirates. The town was then re-built, and provided with protective walls by the statesman and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero.
The town was further developed during the first century AD under the influence of Tiberius, who ordered the building of the town's first Forum. The town was also soon enriched by the construction of a new harbor on the northern mouths of the Tiber.
Ostia itself was provided with all the services a town of the time could require; in particular, a famous lighthouse. Ostia contained the Ostia Synagogue, the earliest synagogue yet identified in Europe
Paestum
City in Italy (Campania/Italy)
Paestum is the classical Roman name of a major Greco-Roman city in the Campania region of Italy. It is located in the north of Cilento, near the coast about 85 km SE of Naples in the province of Salerno.
Founded around the end of the 7th century BC by colonists from the Greek city of Sybaris, and originally known as Poseidonia. It is not until the end of the fifth century BC that the city is mentioned, when according to Strabo the city was conquered by the Lucani. Later became the Roman city of Paestum in 273 BC after the Greco-Italian Poseidonians sided with the loser, Pyrrhus, in war against Rome during the first quarter of the third century BC.
During the invasion of Italy by Hannibal the city remained faithful to Rome and afterwards was granted special favors such as the minting of its coinage. The city continued to prosper during the Roman imperial period, but started to go into decline between the 4th and 7th centuries. It was abandoned during the Middle Ages.
Palatine Hill
One of the seven hills of Rome
The Palatine Hill (Latin: Collis Palatium or Mons Palatinus) is the centermost of the Seven Hills of Rome and is one of the most ancient parts of the city. It stands 40 meters above the Forum Romanum, looking down upon it on one side, and upon the Circus Maximus on the other.
It is the etymological origin of the word "palace" and its cognates in other languages (Italian "Palazzo", French "Palais" etc.).
Many affluent Romans of the Republican period (c.509 BC - 44 BC) had their residences there. During the Empire (27 BC - 476 AD) several emperors resided there; in fact, the ruins of the palaces of Augustus (27 BC -14 AD), Tiberius (14 - 37) and Domitian (81 - 96) can still be seen. Augustus also built a temple to Apollo here, beside his own palace.
Pamphylia
Roman territory in Asia Minor (Turkey)
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus (modern day Antalya province, Turkey). It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of about 30 miles. Under the Roman administration the term Pamphylia was extended so as to include Pisidia and the whole tract up to the frontiers of Phrygia and Lycaonia.
Patras
City in Achaea (in Greece)
Patras is Greece's third largest urban area and the regional capital of W
est Greece, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 km (134 mi) west of Athens. The city is built at the foothills of Mount Panachaikon, overlooking the Gulf of Patras.
The first traces of settlement in Patras date to as early as the 3rd millennium BC, in the area of modern Aroe. Patras flourished for the first time during the Post-Helladic or Mycenean period. Ancient Patras was formed by the unification of three Mycenaean villages located in modern Aroe; namely Antheia (from mythological Antheia) and Mesatis.
After 280 BC and prior to the Roman occupation of Greece, Patras played a significant role in the foundation of the second "Achaean League", along with the cities of Dyme, Triteia and Pharai. Later on, and following the Roman occupation of Greece in 146 BC, Patras played a key role, and Augustus founded a Roman colony in its area. In addition, Patras has been a Christian center since the early days of Christianity, and it is the city where St. Andrew was crucified.
Perea
Territory east of the Jordan river (Jordan)
Perea ("the country beyond" in Greek), a portion of the kingdom of Herod the Great occupying the eastern side of the Jordan River valley, from about one third the way down from the Sea of Galilee to about one third the way down the eastern shore of the Dead Sea; it did not extend too far inland. Traditionally its limits have been considered to be the eastern bank of the Jordan River between the rivers Arnon (Wadi Mujib) and Hieromax (Yarmouk River).
Perga
City in Pamphylia
Perga was an ancient Greek city in Anatolia and the capital of Pamphylia, now in Antalya province on the southwestern Mediterranean coast of Turkey.
Perga was founded around 1000 BC and is nearly 20 kilometers (12 mi) inland. It was sited inland as a defensive measure in order to avoid the pirate bands that terrorized this stretch of the Mediterranean.
In 546 BC, the Achaemenid Persians defeated the local powers and gained control of the region. In 333 BC, the armies of Alexander the Great arrived in Perga during his war of conquest against the Persians. Alexander's was followed by the Diadochi empire of the Seleucids. Perga's most celebrated ancient inhabitant, the mathematician Apollonius (c.262 BC - c.190 BC), lived and worked there.
Roman rule began in 188 BC, and most of the surviving ruins today date from this period. From the beginning of the Imperial era, work projects were carried out in Perga, and in the second and third centuries A.D., it grew into one of the most beautiful cities, not just in Pamphylia, but in all of Anatolia.
In 46 A.D., according to the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul journeyed to Perga, from there continued on to Antiocheia in Pisidia, then returned to Perga where he delivered a sermon.
Persepolis
City in Persia (in Iran)
Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (ca. 550 - 330 BCE). Persepolis is situated 70 km northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran.
Archaeological evidence shows that the earliest remains of Persepolis date from around 515 BC. Cyrus the Great (Ka´rosh) chose the site of Persepolis, and Darius the Great (Daryush) built the terrace and the great palaces.
Darius ordered the construction of the Apadana Palace and the Council Hall (the Tripylon or three-gated hall), the main imperial Treasury and its surroundings. These were completed during the reign of his son, King Xerxes the Great (Khashayar). Further construction of the buildings on the terrace continued until the downfall of the Achaemenid dynasty.
Pharos
Islet in Alexandria, site of the famous lighthouse
The Lighthouse of Alexandria, sometimes called the Pharos of Alexandria, was a lofty tower built by the Ptolemaic Kingdom between 280 and 247 BC on the coastal island of Pharos at Alexandria, Egypt for the purpose of guiding sailors into the port.
With a height variously estimated at somewhere between 393 and 450 ft (120 and 140 m), it was one of the tallest man-made