page_title: Orontes River
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Orontes River / History
caption_attribution_description: The city of Antioch on the Orontes is identified with Tyche, goddess of fortune and protector of the town. She is represented seated on a rock, wearing a crown with crenelated towers. At her feet the bust of a young swimmer emerges from the waves: he is a personification of the river Orontes, beside which the town was founded. &lt;a href="http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/tyche-antioch" rel="nofollow"&gt;www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/tyche-antioch&lt;/a&gt;
context_page_description: The Orontes or Asi is a 571-kilometer-long river in Western Asia which begins in Lebanon, flowing northwards through Syria before entering the Mediterranean Sea near Samandağ in Turkey.
  As the chief river of the ancient Levant region, the Orontes was the site of several major battles. Among the most important cities located on the river nowadays are Homs, Hama, Jisr al-Shughur, and Antakya.
context_section_description: The Orontes is not easily navigable and the valley derives its historical importance 
  as a road for north/south traffic; from Antioch south to Homs and thence to Damascus via al-Nabek. The Orontes has long been a boundary marker. For the Egyptians it marked the northern extremity of Amurru, east of Phoenicia. On the Orontes was fought the major Battle of Kadesh (circa 1274 BCE) between the Egyptian army of Ramesses II from the south and the Hittite army of Muwatalli II from the north. The river was also the site of the Battle of Qarqar fought in 853 BCE, when the army of Assyria, led by king Shalmaneser III, encountered an allied army of 12 kings led by Hadadezer of Damascus.
  Seleucid cities founded on the Orontes included Seleucia ad Belum, Antigonia, and Antioch. Several Hellenistic artefacts feature the Tyche of Antioch with a male swimmer personifying the Orontes at her feet. Lake Homs Dam was built by the Roman emperor Diocletian in 290 AD.
  In 637 CE the Battle of the Iron Bridge was fought between the forces of the  Rashidun Caliphate and the  Byzantine Empire near the Iron bridge on the river made by Romans.
  For the Crusaders in the 12th century, the Orontes River became the permanent boundary between the Principality of Antioch and that of Aleppo.
  The construction of a Syria–Turkey Friendship Dam began but was postponed because of the Syrian Civil War.
caption: Bronze copy from Tartus of Eutychides' Tyche of Antioch, 1st or 2nd century CE, Louvre Museum; at the goddess' feet a male swimmer personifying the Orontes is represented.
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