LAODICEA, a name common to four places,—one in the western part of Phrygia, on the borders of Lydia; a second in the eastern part of the same country, denominated Laodicea Combusta; a third on the coast of Syria, called Laodicea ad Mare, and serving as the port of Aleppo; and a fourth in the same country, called Laodicea ad Libanum, from its proximity to that mountain. The first-named, lying on the confines of Phrygia and Lydia, about 40 miles E. of Ephesus, is the Laodicea of Scripture.
Laodicea was the capital of Greater Phrygia, and is supposed to have received its name from Laodice, wife of Antiochus Theos. Before this time it had been called Diospolis and Rhos. It was a very considerable city at the time it was named in Scripture (Strabo, p. 578); but the frequency of earthquakes, to which this district has always been liable, demolished, some ages after, great part of the city, destroyed many of the inhabitants, and eventually obliged the remainder to abandon the spot altogether. Smith, in his Journey to the Seven Churches (1671), was the first to describe the site of Laodicea. He was followed by Chandler and Pococke; and the locality has, within the present century, been visited by Mr Hartley, Mr Arundell, and Colonel Leake.
Laodicea is now a deserted place, called by the Turks Eskihissar (old castle), a Turkish word equivalent to Paleokastro, which the Greeks so frequently apply to ancient sites. From its ruins, Laodicea seems to have been situated upon six or seven hills, taking up a large extent of ground. To the N. and N.E. runs the River Lycus, about a mile and a half distant; but nearer it is watered by two small streams, the Asopus and Caprus, the one to the W., and the other to the S.E., both passing into the Lycus, which last flows into the Maander (Smith, p. 85).
Laodicea preserves great remains of its importance as the residence of the Roman governors of Asia under the emperors,—namely, a stadium, in uncommon preservation; three theatres, one of which is 450 feet in diameter; and the ruins of several other buildings (Antiq. of Ionit., part ii., p. 32; Chandler's Asia Minor, c. 67). Colonel Leake says, "There are few ancient sites more likely than Laodicea to preserve many curious remains of antiquity beneath the surface of the soil; its opulence, and the earthquakes to which it was subject, rendering it probable that valuable works of art were often there buried beneath the ruins of the public and private edifices (Cicero, Epist. ad Amic., ii. 17; iii. 5; v. 20. Tacit. Annal., xiv. 27). And a similar remark, though in a lesser degree, perhaps, will apply to the other cities of the vale of the Maander, as well as to some of
Laodicea those situated to the N. of Mount Tmolus; for Strabo (pp. 579, 628, 630) informs us that Philadelphia, Sardis, and Magnesia of Sipylus, were, not less than Laodicea and the cities of the Maeander, as far as Apameia, at the sources of that river, subject to the same dreadful calamity" (Geography of Asia Minor, p. 253).