Laodicea lay in the valley of the Lycus River, in the region of Phrygia, in modern day Turkey, near Colossae and Hierapolis.
It was founded around 261 to 253 BC by the Seleucid king Antiochus II, who named the city after his wife, Queen Laodice.
Over time it became a major banking, commercial and medical center of the Roman world. It was famous for its black wool and for an eye salve produced there, used to treat the eyes.
This prosperity made it so self sufficient that, after an earthquake in AD 60, the city refused help from Rome and rebuilt itself alone, at its own expense.
The apostle Paul was never there in person, but he wrote with concern for the church in the city, which seems to have been born out of the work of Epaphras.
Decades later, the Lord Jesus addressed one of the seven letters of Revelation to it, the harshest of them all: a rebuke to a lukewarm church, satisfied with its own wealth and blind to its spiritual poverty.
The water that reached the city through a long aqueduct cooled along the way and arrived lukewarm, unlike the hot springs of Hierapolis and the pure waters of Colossae. This image, familiar to every resident, gives force to Christ’s warning: neither cold nor hot.
