Phoenice (Roman province) in the context of "Berytus"

Syria (Arabic: ٱلشَّام, romanized: Ash-Shām or Shām), also known as Greater Syria or Syria-Palestine, is a historical region located east of the Mediterranean Sea in West Asia, broadly synonymous with the Levant. Throughout history, the term Syria-Palestine referred to the area between the Taurus Mountains in the north and Arabia-Sinai in the south, however in modern times the term "Syria" is used to refer solely to the Syrian Arab Republic.

The term is originally derived from Assyria, an ancient Semitic-speaking civilization centered in northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq. During the Hellenistic period, the term Syria was applied to the entire Levant as Coele-Syria. Under Roman rule, the term was used to refer to the province of Syria, later divided into Syria Phoenicia and Coele Syria, and to the province of Syria Palaestina. Under the Byzantines, the provinces of Syria Prima and Syria Secunda emerged out of Coele Syria. After the Muslim conquest of the Levant, the term was superseded by the Arabic equivalent Shām, and under the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates, Bilad al-Sham was the name of the metropolitan province encompassing most of the region. In the 19th century, the name Syria was revived in its modern Arabic form to denote the whole of Bilad al-Sham, either as Suriyah or the modern form Suriyya, which eventually replaced the Arabic name of Bilad al-Sham.

Roman Syria was an early Roman province annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of King of Armenia Tigranes the Great, who had become the protector of the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria.

Following the partition of the Herodian Kingdom of Judea into a tetrarchy in 4 BC, it was gradually absorbed into Roman provinces, with Roman Syria annexing Iturea and Trachonitis. By the late 2nd century AD, the province was divided into Coele Syria and Syria Phoenice.

Porphyry (/ˈpɔːrfɪri/; Koine Greek: Πορφύριος, romanized: Porphýrios; c. 234 – c. AD 305) was a Phoenician Neoplatonic philosopher born in Tyre, Roman Phoenicia during Roman rule. He edited and published the Enneads, the only collection of the work of Plotinus, his teacher.

He wrote original works in the Greek language on a wide variety of topics, ranging from music theory to Homer to vegetarianism. His Isagoge or Introduction, an introduction to logic and philosophy, was the standard textbook on logic throughout the Middle Ages in its Latin and Arabic translations. Porphyry was, and still is, also well known for his anti-Christian polemics. Through works such as Philosophy from Oracles and Against the Christians (which was banned by Constantine the Great), he was involved in a controversy with early Christians.

Phoenice Libanensis (Greek: Φοινίκη Λιβανησία, lit. 'Lebanese Phoenicia', also known in Latin as Phoenice Libani, or Phoenice II/Phoenice Secunda), was a province of the Roman Empire, covering the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and the territories to the east, all the way to Palmyra. It was officially created c. 392, when the Roman province of Phoenice was divided into Phoenice proper or Phoenice Paralia, and Phoenice Libanensis, a division that persisted until the region was conquered by the Muslim Arabs in the 630s.