Arethousa is a Hellenistic city near Apamea, in native Syriac was called Arastan, now called al-Rastan. Town of Arethousa has been founded by Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the Seleucid dynasty in the 3rd century BC. Most sources agree that the founder named it after the city of Arethusa in Greek Macedonia, but others argue that it was named after a spring in Sicily of the same name. Arethusa in native Syriac was called Arastan, a toponym also mentioned in the Council of Nicaea I in 325 AD where among its participants there was the first bishop of the diocese of Arethusa Eustathius. The name Arastan continued to be used by the indigenous inhabitants, together with Arethusa.
See:
- J.P. Brown, P.-L. Gatier, DARMC, R. Talbert, Jeffrey Becker, R. Warner, Sean Gillies, and Tom Elliott, 'Areth(o)usa: a Pleiades place resource', Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places, 2015 [accessed: 03 July 2022]