Damascus in History |
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Finally, Damascus was taken by Tiglath Pileser II, called in by Achaz, king of Judea, in 732 B.C. and its inhabitants deported to Ourartou (in eastern Anatolia). Some years after the fall of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, the kingdom of Damascus was destroyed by Babylon. In 66 B.C., it was occupied by lieutenants of Pompey and belonged henceforth to the Province of Syria. The city became prosperous under the Romans. It was on the way to Damascus, in 34 or 36 A.D. that Saul, sent to put down Christians, had the sudden revelation of faith. Paul met Ananias and preached for Christ. During the Byzantine period, the city, on account of its location, retained some importance as a base for the watch of the Syrian desert, but its looting by the Sassanid Persians in 614 gave it a fatal blow. With the arrival of the Islamic faith fighters from the desert, Damascus was besieged in March 635, and resisted for six months before capitulating. Retaken by a Byzantine army under the command of the brother of Emperor Heraclius, it was finally conquered, by Khaled Ibn EI-Walid in August 636. The conquest of Syria in 636 and 637 meant, as we saw, a radical change of civilization for this country which henceforth veered towards the Orient and the Semitic world and no more toward Byzantium, the Greek world and Christianity. The rejection of Christianity by the Syrians in favour of Islam was very progressive albeit incomplete as evidenced by the important Syrian (and lebanese) minorities still clinging to the religion preached by Christ and his disciples.Conquered in 333 B.C. by Parmenion, one of Alexander's lieutenants, who took it from the Persians, the area fell to the Seleucids who fell into a bitter dispute for it with another dynasty born of the dismemberment of the empire of the Macedonian conqueror, the Lagides, who ruled Egypt.Super- seeled by Antioch, Damascus played second fiddle throughout the Seleucid period. |
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© UR Travel 2006