Shaizar Fortress

Located on the Orontes to the northwest of Hama, Shaizar was an ancient town, known as Senzar or Sezar in the Amarna letters. To the Greeks it was known as Sidzara, but the Seleucid dynasty renamed it Larissa, after the town of the same name in Thessaly from which many colonists came.

It reverted to its earlier name under the Roman Empire and was known as Sezer under the Byzantine Empire.

Shaizar fell to the Arabs in 638 and frequently passed from Arab to Byzantine control. It was sacked in 969 by Byzantine emperor Nicephorus II, and was captured by Basil II in 999, after which it became the southern border of the Byzantine Empire and was administered by the Bishop of Shaizar.

It was lost to the Banu Munqidh in 1081 when 'Ali ibn Munqidh bought it from the bishop. The Byzantines besieged it numerous times after this but failed to recover it.

The Crusaders, on their arrival in this area, rendered the city's name in Latin as Caesarea. This name had not been used in any earlier period, and was derived from the Crusaders mistakenly identifying this city as being Caesarea Mazaca, a place renowned in Christian history as the home of Saint Basil of Caesarea.

It is no longer inhabited today, but the ruins are known as Saijar in modern Arabic.