City
Laudicium Pilycum
Eski Hisar bei Denizil
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Laudicium Pilycum is a badly garbled rendering of a famous city, Laodicea on the Lycus, and this mangled form appears nowhere else. King Antiochus founded the town in the mid third century BC and named it after his wife Laodice. Under Rome it became a leading trading centre of inner Asia Minor, known for wool and, as the orator Cicero noted, for large money dealings. After earthquakes struck under Tiberius, the historian Tacitus records, the city rebuilt itself from its own funds. It was home to one of the earliest Christian communities, and its ruins lie at Eski Hisar near Denizli in Turkey.