Batroun is likely the "Batruna" mentioned in the
Amarna letters (EA 078, EA 079, EA 081, EA 087, EA 088, EA 090, EA 093, EA 095, EA 124, EA 129), dating to the 14th century B.C. Batroun was mentioned by the ancient geographers
Strabo,
Pliny,
Ptolemy,
Stephanus of Byzantium, and
Hierocles.
Theophanes the Confessor called the city "Bostrys." The
Phoenicians founded Batroun on the southern side of the promontory called in
classical antiquity Theoprosopon and during the
Byzantine Empire, Cape Lithoprosopon. Batroun is said to have been founded by
Ithobaal I (Ethbaal), king of
Tyre (whose daughter
Jezabel married
Ahab). |left The city was under Roman rule to
Phoenice Province, and later after the region was Christianized became a
suffragan of the
Patriarch of Antioch. In 551, Batroun was destroyed by
an earthquake, which also caused mudslides and made the Cape
Lithoprosopon crack. Historians believe that Batroun's large
natural harbor was formed during the earthquake. Three
Greek Orthodox bishops are known to have come from Batroun: Porphyrius in 451,
Elias about 512 and Stephen in 553 (
Lequien, II, 827). According to a Greek
Notitia episcopatuum, the
Greek Orthodox See has existed in Batroun since the tenth century when the city was then called
Petrounion. After the Muslim conquests of the region, the name was Arabicized to Batroun. Batroun was controlled by the
Crusaders in 1104, to be known as the
Lordship of Botrun as part of the
County of Tripoli, until it was conquered by the
Mamluk Sultanate in 1289. One of Batroun's archaeological sites is
Mseilha Fort, which is constructed on an isolated massive rock with steep sides protruding in the middle of a plain surrounded by mountains. Under
Ottoman rule, Batroun was the centre of a
kaza in the
mutessariflik of Lebanon and 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. == Economy and urban development ==