It was not just Laodicea that was a major city that acquired a considerable Christian presence. Papias became the bishop here, and Philip and his prophesying daughters settled here, and he was later martyred. There is considerable irony here in that there is a huge necropolis, but also the thermal pools here were thought to bring health. What it actually did was slightly delay the inevitable. People died. In this post I wanted to show you main street, beyond the Frontenus Gate (see the previous post on Flavius Zeuxsis). We build streets that wear out in a few years. They built streets that lasted millenia!
This is looking from the ancient gate towards the later Byzantine gate, which was not by any means as well built as the Roman one, and it shows.
Here is where the shops were on main street just beyond the Frontinus triple gate.
The Byzantine knew how to repurpose things, but they were not nearly the engineers the Romans were. One interesting feature of this city is the water courses that made their own calcium carbonate channels coming down from the hills and then spilling over the cliffs.
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