The ancient city of Laodicea was one of the most wealthy cities in the entire empire at the time of the writing of the Book of Revelation.

This was for a couple reasons.

One, Laotacea stood at the intersection of two massive trade roads,

what was called the Kings Road and the Silk Road. And so in many ways, Laotacea could be considered

almost like the Manhattan of the empire at the time. So the wealth of the nations poured in to this

city. And as a result, they began to see themselves

as very rich, very wealthy and self-reliant.

There are actually stories that one time an earthquake

knocked down the city of Laodicea

and the Roman Empire offered to send them financial aid.

But their message back to the empire was,

we need nothing.

One of the other interesting things about Laoticae

was this water supply.

The water in Laotica, it was undrinkable

because it was infused with a high concentration

of minerals, particularly calcium. So it smelled bad, it was infused with a high concentration of minerals, particularly calcium.

So it smelled bad, it was a weird color, and when people drank it, it would give them infections in their eyes and ears.

In their wealth, they built massive aqueducts and piping systems to pull water from two water supplies,

a natural hot spring six miles away,

and then cool mountain runoff about 11 miles away.

It would go from being either hot or cold

...