 It served as the first capital of the Emesani kingdom in central Syria, a vassal of the Roman Empire, in the mid-1st-century BC.Roman historian Strabo stated that it was well governed under the "phylarch" Sampsiceramus I from 64 to 63, when the Roman general Pompey captured it.Emesani control was restored by 46 BC when it was ruled by Iamblichus I.