Shahba

Shahba (Arabic: شهبا‎ Šahbā), known in Late Antiquity as Philippopolis, is a city located 87 km south of Damascus in the Jabal el Druze in As-Suwayda Governorate of Syria, but formerly in the Roman province of Arabia Petraea. The oasis settlement now named, Shahba, had been the native hamlet of Philip the Arab. After Philip became the emperor of Rome in 244 CE, he dedicated himself to rebuilding the little community as a colonia. The contemporary community that was replaced with the new construction was so insignificant that one author states that the city can be considered to have been built on virgin soil, making it the last of the Roman cities founded in the East. The city was renamed Philippopolis in dedication to the emperor. The...