Arcae

Also ARCA, now TEL-ARKA.

A titular see on the coast of Phoenicia, between Tripolis and Antaradus, suffragan of Tyre. Its episcopal list is given in Gams (p. 434) from 364 to 451. It was a Latin see during the Crusades, and now gives a title to a Greek and a Maronite bishop. In antiquity it was famous for the worship of Aphrodite and for a temple of the Roman Emperor, Alexander Severus, who was born there in a temple during a visit of his parents. It stood long sieges by the Arab conquerors of Syria, in the seventh century, and in the eleventh (1099) by the Crusaders into whose hands it eventually fell. Later it was destroyed by the Mamelukes after they had expelled the Christian population. There was another Arcae in Cappadocia, suffragan of Melitene. Its episcopal list (431-680) is given in Gams (p. 441).

LE QUIEN, Oriens Christ. (1740), II, 825, 826; III, 956; SMITH, Dict. of Greek and Roman Geogr., I, 189; BURKHARDT, Syria, 162.

THOMAS J. SHAHAN