History of Batroun

Batroun appears as "Batruna" in the Amarna letters dating to the 14th century BC, diplomatic correspondence between Egyptian pharaohs and Canaanite city-states. The city was mentioned by ancient geographers including Strabo, Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy, and Stephanus of Byzantium.

The Phoenicians founded Batroun on the southern side of the promontory called Theoprosopon(meaning "Face of God" in Greek) in classical antiquity. According to tradition, the city was founded by Ithobaal I (Ethbaal), king of Tyre around the 9th century BC.

Around 47 BC, Julius Caesar granted the people of Batroun Roman citizenship. After 31 BC, Augustus gave the city the privilege to strike its own coinage, which continued until the mid-third century AD. An autonomous coin of Botrys from 2 BC survives in historical records.

The Roman theatre, located to the east of the Phoenician settlement, served as the local artistic and cultural center. In 1977, excavations discovered a marble statue of a boy mounted on a dolphin and a mosaic.

During the Byzantine period, Batroun became a suffragan see of the Patriarch of Antioch. Three Greek Orthodox bishops are documented from Batroun: Porphyrius in 451, Elias around 512, and Stephen in 553.

Batroun was captured by the Crusaders in 1104, becoming a seignory fief of the County of Tripoli known as the Lordship of Botrun or the "Seignory of the Holy Mountain." The city was governed first by the Agout family from Provence in southern France, and later by Plebanus, a merchant from Pisa.

The Crusaders used the citadel, which had been largely destroyed by the 551 earthquake, as the seat of government. At Koubba they built St. Saviour's Church in the middle of the 12th century, as well as St. James's Church, of which only part of the wall and traces of the apse remain.

The Crusader period ended in 1289 when Batroun was conquered by the Mamluk Sultanate.

Under Ottoman rule, Batroun served as the center of a kaza (district) in the mutessariflik (province) of Lebanon and became the seat of a Maronite diocese, suffragan to the Maronite Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch. Since 1999, it has been the seat of the Maronite eparchy.

During this period, particularly under the Mutasarrifate (1861-1918), Batroun functioned as a small port and administrative center. Although its coastline was limited, the district's hinterland was extensive, covering localities from the coast to the mountains.