Short answers, pulled from the story.
Antioch was founded in 300 BC by Seleucus I Nicator, a successor of Alexander the Great. The chronicler John Malalas records that Seleucus performed a founding sacrifice to Zeus at sunrise on the 22nd of May 300 BC.
Antioch is called the cradle of Christianity because the Christian New Testament asserts that the name "Christian" first emerged there, and the city was one of the five original patriarchates of the church. Saint Peter is associated with the city by the tradition on which the Patriarchate of Antioch grounds its claim for primacy.
Antioch may have been home to over 500,000 inhabitants at its peak, making it the third largest city in the Roman Empire after Rome and Alexandria. After a devastating earthquake during Trajan's reign in 115 AD, the population fell to less than 400,000.
Antioch was brought low by a combination of warfare, repeated earthquakes, and changes in trade routes. The most decisive blow came in 1268 when the Mamluk sultan Baibars captured the city and killed or enslaved nearly the entire population, breaking a promise to spare them. By 1432, only about 300 inhabited houses remained within the walls.
The majority of the mosaics discovered during excavations between 1932 and 1939 are displayed in the Hatay Archaeology Museum in Antakya. A collection of mosaics on secular and sacred subjects is also held at the Princeton University Art Museum and the museums of other institutions that sponsored the excavations, including the Louvre and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard.
The Circus of Antioch was a chariot racing venue probably built during the reign of Augustus. Modelled on the Circus Maximus in Rome, it measured more than 490 meters long and 30 meters wide, and could house up to 80,000 spectators.