the Roman legate Pompey formally abolished the Seleucid Empire and created the new Roman province of Syria. During the struggle for power between Augustus Caesar and Marcus Antonius, the latter managed to win temporary support from Laodicea during his brief governorship of Syria through the remission of certain taxes and the promise of autonomy. Following the defeat of Marcus Antonius, the Romans modified Laodicea's name, changing it to Laodicea-ad-Mare, and the city flourished again as an entrepôt for East-West trade, second only to Antioch. This commerce was systemized with the construction of the Via Maris, a coastal road that ran south from Antioch to Damascus and Beirut via Laodicea.In the first century BC, Herod the Great, king of Judaea, furnished the city with an aqueduct, the remains of which stand to the east of the town. Initially the Romans deployed four legions in Syria, one of which, the Legio VI Ferrata, was likely based in Laodicea.
In AD 193, the city was sacked by the governor of Syria, Pescennius Niger, in his revolt against the new emperor, Septimius Severus. In 194, Septimius Severus reorganized Syria into five new provinces. One of these, Coele-Syria, including all of northern Syria, briefly had its capital in Laodicea before reverting to Antioch. Septimius Severus considered Antioch to be more degenerate than Laodicea, and sought to punish Antioch for having supported the aspirations of his rival Pescennius Niger.
Septimius Severus endowed Laodicea with four colonnaded streets that divided the city into a series of rectangles. Roman Laodicea, based on the foundations of the Seleucid grid, was laid out along a vertical axis stretching for 1.5-2 kilometers from north to south, linking the center of the town with the northern road to Antioch, and forming the cardus maximus (main commercial street). The east-west axis consisted of three main streets: the first linked the port to the citadel, the second linked the port to the Apamea
