City
Bostris
Busra esh-Sham
Listen to the story
Bostris is the Roman city of Bostra, today Busra esh-Sham in Syria. The emperor Trajan made it the capital of the province of Arabia and the base of the Third Cyrenaican Legion, and the city counted its own years from AD 105. In AD 111 a new road was completed from here towards Petra and the Red Sea. Alexander Severus raised it to a Roman colony, and under the emperor Philip, who was born here, it bore the title of metropolis. The historian Ammianus Marcellinus called it large, populous and well fortified, and remains of great colonnaded streets survive.