or APAMIA, the name of several ancient cities.

1. One of Bithynia, formerly called Myrlea, from Myrus, general of the Colophonians: destroyed by Philip, father of Perseus; and given to his ally Prusias, who rebuilt it, and called it Apamea, from the name of his queen Apama (Strabo). Stephanus says, that Nicomedes Epiphanes, son of Prusias, called it after his mother; and that it had its ancient name from Myrlea, an Amazon. The Romans led a colony thither (Strabo); called Colonia Apamena (Pliny, Appian). The gentilis name is Apamaeus and Apamenus (Trajan in a letter to Pliny).

2. Another Apamea, called Cibotus, of Phrygia, at some distance from the Meander (Agathodemon); but by a coin of Tiberius, on the Meander. The name is from Apame, mother of Antiochus Soter, the founder, and the daughter of Artabazus (Strabo). The rise, or at least the increase, of Apamea, was owing to the ruins of Celene. The inhabitants were called Apamensis; and, though inland, were worshippers of Neptune. The reason, it has been conjectured, was, that they had suffered often from earthquakes of which he was supposed the author. Mithridates gave an hundred talents toward the restoration of the city; which, it is said, had likewise been overthrown in the time of Alexander. Their tribute-money was remitted to them for five years on the same account under the emperor Tiberius. The subterraneous passages of the Lycus and the other streams showed that the ground had many cavities; and these, it has been surmised, rendered the region very liable to be shaken.

3. A third, on the confines of Parthia and Media, furnished Raphane (Strabo, Pliny).

4. A fourth Apamea, a town of Mesene, an island in the Tigris (Pliny, Ammian); where a branch of the Euphrates, called the Royal river, falls into the Tigris (Ptolemy).

5. A fifth in Mesopotamia, on the other side the Euphrates, opposite to Zeugma on this side, both founded by Seleucus, and joined by a bridge, from which the latter takes its name (Pliny, Insidor, Characenus).

6. A sixth Apamea, now Famia, also in Syria, below the confluence of the Orontes and Mariyas; a strong city, and situated in a peninsula, formed by the Orontes and a lake. "It was here (says Strabo) that the Seleucide had established the school and nursery of their cavalry." The soil of the neighbourhood, abounding in pasturage, fed no less than thirty thousand mares, three hundred stallions, and five hundred elephants; instead of which, the marthes of Famia at present scarcely afford a few buffaloes and sheep. To the veteran soldiers of Alexander, who here repented after their victories, have succeeded wretched peasants, who live in perpetual dread of the oppressions of the Turks and the inroads of the Arabs.

Apamea was also the ancient name of Pella, in the Decapolis.