ABSTRACT
Antioch is a city that in Late Antiquity was the centre of military administration for the eastern frontier, the seat of civic administration for the vast diocese of Oriens, the provincial capital of Syria, at times the residence of the eastern emperor and his court, and an important conduit of trade from Syria and the far east to Constantinople and the west. As such, economic, administrative, imperial, and military power were a prominent part of its identity. It was home to a substantial Jewish community, one of the oldest Christian sees, and a city in whose Olympic games, civic calendar, and private life the influences of Greco-Roman cults long persisted. As a result, religious pluralism was a dominant part of its landscape. It also had a long history of factionalism within its Christian community that reached extremes in the fourth and sixth centuries, making it inevitable that at Antioch the domains of religion and power would at times merge to a point where the boundary between the two became difficult to determine. In this article two examples of how these two domains could overlap are explored by showing how place-more specifically religious buildings-could play a role in the discourse of power.
