APAMEA

apamea, the name of several towns in western asia. 1. a treasure city and stud-depot of the seleucid kings in the valley of the orontes. it was so named by seleucus nicator, after apama, his wife. destroyed by chosroes in the 7th century a.d.. it was partially rebuilt and known as _famia_ by the arabs; and overthrown by an earthquake in 1152. it kept its importance down to the time of the crusades. the acropolis hill is now occupied by the ruins of kalat el-mudik. see r.f. burton and t. drake, _unexplored syria_; e. sachau, _reise in syrien_, 1883. 2. a city in phrygia, founded by antiochus soter (from whose mother, apama, it received its name), near, but on lower ground than, celaenae. it was situated where the marsyas leaves the hills to join the maeander, and it became a seat of seleucid power, and a centre of graeco-roman and graeco-hebrew civilization and commerce. there antiochus the great collected the army with which he met the romans at magnesia, and there two years later the treaty between rome and the seleucid realm was signed. after antiochus' departure for the east, apamea lapsed to the pergamenian kingdom and thence to rome in 133, but it was resold to mithradates v., who held it till 120. after the mithradatic wars it became and remained a great centre for trade, largely carried on by resident italians and by jews. in 84 sulla made it the seat of a _conventus_ of the asian province, and it long claimed primacy among phrygian cities. its decline dates from the local disorganization of the empire in the 3rd century a.d.; and though a bishopric, it was not an important military or commercial centre in byzantine times. the turks took it first in 1070, and from the 13th century onwards it was always in moslem hands. for a long period it was one of the greatest cities of asia minor, commanding the maeander road; but when the trade routes were diverted to constantinople it rapidly declined, and its ruin was completed by an earthquake. a jewish tradition, possibly arising from a name _cibotus_ (ark), which the town bore, identified a neighbouring mountain with ararat. the famous "noah" coins of the emperor philip commemorate this belief. the site is now partly occupied by _dineir_ (q.v., sometimes locally known also as _geiklar_, "the gazelles," perhaps from a tradition of the persian hunting-park, seen by xenophon at celaenae), which is connected with smyrna by railway; there are considerable remains, including a great number of important graeco-roman inscriptions. see w.m. ramsay, _cities and bishoprics of phrygia_, vol. ii.; g. weber, _dineir-celenes_ (1892); d.g. hogarth in _journ, hell. studies_ (1888); o. hirschfeld in _trans. berlin academy_ (1875). (d. g. h.) 3. a town on the left bank of the euphrates, at the end of a bridge of boats (_zeugma_); the til-barsip of the assyrian inscriptions, now birejik (q.v.). 4. the earlier myrlea of bithynia, now mudania (q.v.), the port of brusa. the name was given it by prusias i., who rebuilt it. 5. a city mentioned by stephanus and pliny as situated near the tigris, the identification of which is still uncertain. 6. a greek city in parthia, near rhagae.