10.32.1-2

A brief description of Antioch.

10.32.1

quāttuor montaneae maximae et nimis altae: Mount Stauris, Mount Cassius, and the two peaks of Mount Silpius.

In altiōrī = in altiōre (montaneā).

castellum: the citadel, built high on Mount Silpius.

Dē deorsum: below the castellum and the highest mountain.

Trecenta et sexāgintā monastēria: the number is absurdly high, unless it refers to all the monasteries in Syria more generally.  At some level the figure of 360 is probably, since the "prophetic year" in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament had 360 days (12 x 30).

Sub suō iugō ...  epīscopōs: = patriarcha continet sub suō iugō centum quīnquāgintā trēs epīscopōs. This number too seems too large, and may be symbolic: "Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three" (John 21.11). The patriarch of Antioch at this time was John the Oxite. From the 6^th century on the bishops of Rome, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Antioch were designated “patriarchs,” and could ordain and had authority over the bishops under them.

10.32.2

duōbus mūrīs: these walls had been built by the Byzantines in the 6^th century.

quater centum et quīnquāgintā turrēs: 450 towers seems like a lot; the number might be symbolic, as with the monasteries and bishops in 10.32.1 above, but there seems to be nothing special about 450.

Ab oriente, clauditur quātuor magnīs montaneīs: the mountains are actually SE.

Ab occidente ... flūmen, cui nōmen Farfar: known to the Greeks and Romans as the Orontes; it runs roughly north-south to the west of the city.

Nam eam prius septuāgintā quīnque rēgēs cōnstituērunt: this story is apocryphal.

Antiochus rēx: the founder of Antioch was actually Seleucus I, who named the city after his father Antiochus.

per octo mēnsēs et ūnum diem: the siege actually lasted 7.5 months, from 21 October 1097 to 3 June 1098.

dēvictīs illīs ā Chrīstiānīs Deī: “when they (the Turks and other pagans) had been defeated by God’s Christians.”