Situated 140 km south of Damascus in the Horan plain, is the ancient city of Bosra. First mentioned in the Hieroglyphics of Thutmos III and Akhnatoun in the 14th century BC, Bosra later became the capital of the Nabatean kingdom. Under the Romans it grew significantly but its real heyday came after 632 AD when it became the first Byzantine city to fall to the Arab Muslims. It flourished greatly as a point on both the trade route and the pilgrimage route between Damascus and Mecca. The crusaders failed to take it over but it was their threat that pushed the Ayyubids into converting the theatre into a fortress. Bosra survived the Mongol invasion, and later under the Mamelukes the main pilgrimage routes moved westwards and this left Bosra quite abandoned, until the Druze moved here from Lebanon in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Bosra is most famous for its magnificent Roman amphitheatre, which was later converted into a fortress by the Ayyubids. The original theatre, which has been miraculously preserved, seats 15,000 and its stage is 45 metres in length and 8 metres in depth. It was designed so that all the audience could hear the actors without the use of any special equipment. Most of the Ayyubid fortress that envelops the theatre still remains.