ARADO (Hebr. 'Arvād; Assyr. 'Arvada; Septuagint 'Αράδιοι, 'Αρσάοι; Vulgate Aradii, Aradus). — A Phoenician islet (800 m. by 500) with a city of the same name (today Ruvād, with 2,500 inhabitants), two and a half kilometres from the coast, approximately 60 km north of Tripoli of Syria, inhabited by the Aradii, descendants of Canaan (Gen. 10:18). According to Strabo (XVI, 2, 133), it was founded by fugitives from Sidon. In antiquity it held an important position in commerce and navigation, together with Sidon and Tyre. A. dominated the adjacent mainland territory, where two cities mentioned in the Egyptian lists of the fifteenth–twelfth centuries B.C. are known: Qamaqa (today Tell Gamqē) and Marathos (today Amrit), where, after 1000 B.C., the rock-cut mausoleums of the kings of A. were located.
In the fifteenth century B.C. it was in relations with Egypt (it is mentioned as ['rt] in the documents of Thutmose III [1501–1447], and later in the el-Amarna letters), and then with Assyria; Tiglath-pileser I (1115?–1102) boasts of having embarked on ships of A. Esarhaddon (680–69) and his son Ashurbanipal (668–26) subjugated the kings of A., Matan-ba'al and Iskin-lā. In the middle of the sixth century B.C. it seems to have been subject to Tyre, to which it supplied sailors and soldiers (Ez. 28:8, 11); but under the Maccabees it reappears as independent (I Mach. 15:23). The Pseudo-Clementine writings place there a visit by St Peter (Recogn., hom. VII, 26; XII, 12: PG 1, 1360; 2, 312; cf. Nicephorus, Historia eccl., II, 35: PG 145, 848).
It was perhaps an episcopal see from the second or third century. Its bishops, however, are known only from the fourth century onward, initially also bearing the title of Antarados (v.): Mocimus at the Council of Constantinople (381), Museo or Moses at the Council of Ephesus (431), Paul at the Council of Chalcedon (451), Atticus (458), Stephen at the Council of Jerusalem (536), Asyncretius at the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (553). Since the Middle Ages it has been a titular see. V. ANTARADO.
Like other Phoenician cities, it was razed to the ground in A.D. 648 by Mo'āwijah, sent by 'Omar. Its ruins were explored in 1860–61 and in 1915.
der klass. Altertumswiss., II, p. 371 sq.; F.-M. Abel, in DBs, I, col. 597 sq.; G. Corradi, Studi ellenistici, Turin 1920, pp. 222–228; J. G. Milne, The coinage of Arados in the Hellenistic Period, in Iraq, 5 (1938), pp. 12–21. On the episcopal see: R. Janin, s. V. in DHG, III, col. 1345 sq. Antonino Romeo