LAODICEA.

By: Richard Gottheil, Samuel Krauss

Town in Phrygia on the River Lycus. Jews lived there, Antiochus the Great having transported 2,000 Jewish families from Babylonia to Phrygia (Josephus, "Ant." xii. 3, § 4). Flaccus ordered the confiscation of Temple money contributed by the Jews of Laodicea, to the value of more than twenty pounds of gold (Cicero, "Pro Flacco," § 28). There was also a Syrian element among the population (Ramsay, "The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," i. 33). A Christian community was founded there at an early date (Rev. i. 11, iii. 14), to which John wrote a letter (comp. Col. iv. 16). In the year 62 Laodicea was destroyed by an earthquake, but it was soon rebuilt. To-day the village of Eski-Hissar stands on its site.

Flourishing commercial town in Upper Syria, situated southwest of Antioch; now called Ladiḳiyyah. Herod the Great built water-works for it (Josephus, "B. J." i. 21, § 11). The Laodiceans were commanded by the Romans to allow their Jewish fellow citizens to celebrate the Sabbath and to practise their other religious observances ("Ant." xiv. 10, § 20). Jewish scholars lived in Laodicea who were counted among the tannaites (Sifre, Deut. 335). According to B. M. 84a, certain tannaites emigrated thither, also, unless the city of the same name in Phrygia is referred to. Sandals were brought from Laodicea (Kelim xxvi. 1); and as a city situated near Palestine it is mentioned frequently by the Rabbis (Krauss, "Lehnwörter," ii. 309, Berlin, 1899).