Apamea (Phrygia): Difference between revisions

The original inhabitants were residents of Celaenae who were compelled by Antiochus I Soter to move farther down the river, where they founded the city of Apamea (Strabo, xii. 577). [[Antiochus the Great]] transplanted many [[Jewish people|Jews]] there. (Josephus, ''Ant.'' xii. 3, § 4). It became a seat of [[Seleucid]] power, and a center of Graeco-Roman and [[Graeco-Hebrew]] civilization and commerce. There [[Antiochus the Great]] collected the army with which he met the [[Roman Republic|Romans]] at [[Battle of Magnesia|Magnesia]], and two years later the [[Treaty of Apamea]] between Rome and the Seleucid realm was signed there. After Antiochus' departure for the East, Apamea lapsed to the [[Pergamon|Pergamene]] kingdom and thence to [[Rome]] in 133 BCE, but it was resold to [[Mithridates V of Pontus]], who held it till 120 BCE. After the [[Mithridatic Wars]] it became and remained a great center for trade, largely carried on by resident [[Italian people|Italians]] and by Jews. By order of Flaccus, a large amount of Jewish money – nearly 45 [[kilograms]] of gold – intended for the Temple in Jerusalem was confiscated in Apamea in the year 62 BCE ([[Cicero]], ''Pro Flacco'', ch. xxviii.). In 84 BCE [[Sulla]] made it the seat of a ''[[conventus]]'', and it long claimed primacy among Phrygian cities. When Strabo wrote, Apamea was a place of great trade in the Roman [[Asia (Roman province)|province of Asia]], next in importance to [[Ephesus]]. Its commerce was owing to its position on the great road to [[Cappadocia]], and it was also the center of other roads. When Cicero was [[proconsul]] of [[Cilicia]], 51 BCE, Apamea was within his jurisdiction (''ad Fam.'' xiii. 67), but the dioecesis, or conventus, of Apamea was afterwards attached to Asia. [[Pliny the Elder]] enumerates six towns which belonged to the conventus of Apamea, and he observes that there were nine others of little note.

[[File:The Open court (1887) (14786963093).jpg|thumb|right|coin of Kibotos]]The city minted its own coins in antiquity. The name [[Kibotos|Cibotus]] appears on some coins of Apamea, and it has been conjectured that it was so called from the wealth that was collected in this great emporium; for kibôtos in Greek is a chest or coffer. Pliny (v. 29) says that it was first Celaenae, then Cibotus, and then Apamea; which cannot be quite correct, because Celaenae was a different place from Apamea, though near it. But there may have been a place on the site of Apamea, which was called Cibotus.