This article lists historical events that occurred between 301–400 in modern-day Lebanon or regarding its people.
Administration
While sometime before 328, when it is mentioned in the Laterculus Veronensis, Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) created the new province of Augusta Libanensis (lit.'Lebanese Augusta') out of the eastern half of the old province of Phoenice, encompassing the territory east of Mount Lebanon.[1]
Governors
In the fourth century, as a whole, almost 30 governors of Phoenicia are known with 23 governors of Phoenicia being in office between 353 and 394.[2] Amongst them was Sossianus Hierocles, who was a praeses at some time between 293 and 303.[3] The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE) states that, as praeses, he governed Phoenice Libanensis,[4] the province on the eastern side of Mount Lebanon. The district included Palmyra, where the inscription attesting to Hierocles' career is located.[5]
In the late fourth century an edict to draft the sons of veterans was issued from
Berytus.[7]
Events
300s
Piece of the Edict on Maximum Prices in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin
The Edict on Maximum Prices is issued by the emperor Diocletian in 301 AD, with the prices and simulated sailing times from Nicomedia to Beirut reported to be 12 denarii for 9.9 days of duration with the ratio (price/duration) being 0.83.[8]
Beginning of the Diocletianic Persecutions, 303 AD.[9]
Five young Christians are martyred at Tyre in 303.[10]
The Governor Urbanus, shortly after Easter 307, orders the virgin Theodosia of Tyre to be thrown to the sea for conversing with Christians attending trial and refusing sacrifice.[15]
Miniature painting of the martyrdom of Pamphilus
Pamphilus of Caesarea, a biblical scholar from a rich and honorable family of Beirut, is martyred in February 16, 309.[16][17]
In 315 AD, the cathedral of Paulinus in Tyre is inaugurated by the Bishop Eusebius, who recorded his speech and thus a detailed account of the site in his writings.[19]
Religious imagery of Frumentius
In 316, the Tyrian-born Frumentius and his brother, Edesius accompanied their uncle Metropius on a trip to the Kingdom of Axum by ship, the crew was massacred in a port on the Red Sea and the boys taken as slaves to the King of Axum. Frumentius and Edesius, who were both christian, gained favor with the king and his family, signaling the birth of Christianity in Ethiopia.[20]
The First Synod of Tyre or the Council of Tyre (335 AD), a gathering of bishops, in which the first historically documented bishop of Tripoli, Hellanicus,[25] took part, for the primary purpose of evaluating charges brought against Athanasius, the Patriarch of Alexandria, is called together by Emperor Constantine,[26] with the former governor of Phoenice, Flavius Dionysius, taking charge of the council.[27]
Emperor Constantine is baptized by the once-bishop of Beirut, Eusebius of Nicomedia, right before his death on 22 May 337.
340s
Marcellinus, is attested as praeses of Phoenice in 342 AD.[28]
350s
The Letter 492 of Rhetorician Libanius to Vindonius Anatolius of Beirut is written in 356, in the letter, Libanius writes that Anatolius, a native of Phoenicia, had spent some time “among us”, (i.e. in Antioch).[29]
360s
In 360, Dominus the Elder, a law school professor, declines the invitation of Libanius to leave the Law School at Beirut and to teach with him at the rhetoric school of Antioch.[30]
In 365 AD, Tyre and Sidon alongside several other coastal cities are damaged by a tsunami caused by the Crete earthquake.[33]
370s
The remains of the temple of Jupiter
The Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek, already greatly damaged by earthquakes,[34] is demolished under Theodosius in 379 and replaced by another basilica (now lost), using stones scavenged from the pagan complex.[35]
380s
The Edict of Thessalonica is issued on 27 February AD 380, making Christianity the sole official religion of the Roman empire.
In the 4th century, the Greek rhetoricianLibanius reported that the school attracted young students from affluent families and deplored the school's instructional use of Latin, which was gradually abandoned in favor of Greek in the course of the century.[38][39][40][41]
Historically, Roman stationes or auditoria, where teaching was done, stood next to public libraries housed in temples. This arrangement was copied in the Roman colony at Beirut. The first mention of the school's premises dates to 350.[42]
Chariot racing
A lead tablet, cursing the blue faction, was found in Beirut
in 1929 and has now been dated to the fourth century CE.[43]
Economy
During the fourth-century abundant crops of grain, wine, oil, and other products were attributed to the cities of Berytus, Byblos, Tyre, and Sarepta.[44] Further evidence of agricultural production near Berytus is found in the fourth-century journal of the bureaucrat Theophanes, who traveled between Antioch and Egypt from 317 to 324 AD. In Berytus, Theophanes noted buying two types of bread ("pure white" for officials amongst his party and "coarse" for the servants), as well as grapes, figs, pumpkins or squashes, peaches, apricots, and cleaning supplies such as natron, bath oil, and soap. Similar purchases of bread, fresh produce, wine, and even snow to cool the wine (in Byblos) were made during each stop along the journey. They also came to Sidon on the following day and bought eggs.[45]
^A.H.M. Jones, J.R. Martindale, J. Morris, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. I:
AD 260–395, Cambridge 1971 (hereinafter: PLRE I), pp. 1105–1110 (fasti). For the reviews, often negative, and corrections to the first volume of PLRE, cf. A.H.M. Jones, “Fifteen years of Late Roman Prosopography in the West” (1981–95), [in:] Medieval Prosopography 17/1, 1996, pp. 263–274.
^Martindale, J. R. & A. H. M. Jones, "Nicentius 1", The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Vol. I AD 260-395 (Cambridge: University Press, 1971), p. 628
^Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics, Explaining the maritime freight charges in Diocletian’s Price Edict, Version 1.0, April 2013, Walter Scheidel, Stanford University.
^Christa Müller-Kessler, The Unknown Martyrdom of Patriklos of Caesarea in Christian Palestinian Aramaic from St Catherine’s Monastery (Sinai, Arabic NF 66), Analecta Bollandiana 137, 2019, pp. 63-71
^Eusebius, De Martyribus Palestinae 4.8; Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 152; Keresztes, 384; Mitchell, p. 117.
^Medlej, Youmna Jazzar; Medlej, Joumana (2010). Tyre and its history. Beirut: Anis Commercial Printing Press s.a.l. pp. 1–30. ISBN978-9953-0-1849-2.
^RUFINUS, Historia Ecclesiastica, lib. I, cap. ix, in P.L., XXI, 478-80; Acta SS. Oct., XII, 257-70; DUCHESNE, Les missiones chrétienne au Sud de l'empire romain in Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire (Rome, 1896), XVI, 79-122; THEBAUD, The Church and the Gentile World (New York, 1878), I, 231-40; BUTLER, Lives of the Saints, 27 Oct.; BARING-GOULD, Lives of the Saints (London, 1872), 27 Oct.
Sadowski, Piotr (2010). "Szkoła prawa w Bejrucie w świetle listów i mów Libaniusza" [Beirut law school in the light of letters and sayings of Libanius] (PDF). Studia Prawnoustrojowe (in Polish). 12: 203–218. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2019-08-27 – via Czasopisma humanistyczne.
Simmons, Michael Bland. "Graeco-Roman Philosophical Opposition". In The Early Christian World, edited by Philip Francis Esler, 2.840–868. New York: Routledge, 2000.
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