Seleucia

Seleucia appears once in Scripture as the harbor from which Paul and Barnabas embarked on the first missionary journey: "So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews" (Acts 13:4-5). Seleucia Pieria served as the Mediterranean port of Antioch in Syria, about sixteen miles west of the city at the mouth of the Orontes River. Founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BCE as one of the original Hellenistic capitals, the city was a strategic harbor for grain and trade goods moving between Syria and the Aegean.