35ｺ 30' nearly, occupying the slope of a hill facing the sea, with chalky cliffs on either side, that, like those of Dover, whiten the sea, and with Mount Casius in the background, lay the most northern of all the Phoenician cities in a fertile and beautiful territory.[498] The original appellation was, we are told, Ramantha,[499] a name intended probably to mark the _lofty_ situation of the place;[4100] but this appellation was forced to give way to the Greek term, Laodicea, when Seleucus Nicator, having become king of Syria, partially rebuilt Ramantha and colonised it with Greeks.[4101] The coins of the city under the Seleucidae show its semi-Greek, semi-Phoenician character, having legends in both languages.

One of these, in the Phoenician character, is read as _l'Ladika am b'Canaan_, i.e."of Laodicea, a metropolis in Canaan," and seems to show that the city claimed not only to be independent, but to have founded, and to hold under its sway, a number of smaller towns.[4102] It may have exercised a dominion over the entire tract from Mount Casius to Paltos, where the dominion of Aradus began.
Laodicea is now Latakia, and is famous for the tobacco grown in the neighbourhood.

It still makes use of its ancient port, which would be fairly commodious if it were cleared of the sand that at present chokes it.[4103] It has been said that Phoenicia was composed of "three worlds" with distinct characteristics;[4104] but perhaps the number of the "worlds" should be extended to five.

First came that of Ramantha, reaching from the Mons Casius to the river Badas, a distance of about fifty miles, a remote and utterly sequestered region, into which neither Assyria nor Egypt ever thought of penetrating.

Commerce with Cyprus and southern Asia Minor was especially open to the mariners of this region, who could see the shores of Cyprus without difficulty on a clear day.