Apamea or Apameia (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: ) is an ancient

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

city described by

Pliny Pliny may refer to: People * Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), ancient Roman nobleman, scientist, historian, and author of ''Naturalis Historia'' (''Pliny's Natural History'') * Pliny the Younger (died 113), ancient Roman statesman, orator, w ...

(vi. 31) in

Sittacene Sittacene was an ancient region of Babylonia and Assyria situated about the main city of Sittace. Pliny in his ''Natural History'', Book 6, §§ 205-206, places Sittacene between Chalonitis, Persis and Mesene and also between Arbelitis and Pale ...

, which was surrounded by the

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

. Its precise current location is not known. It received the name of Apamea from the mother of

Antiochus I Soter Antiochus I Soter ( grc-gre, Ἀντίοχος Σωτήρ, ''Antíochos Sōtér''; "Antiochus the Saviour"; c. 324/32 June 261 BC) was a Greek king of the Seleucid Empire. Antiochus succeeded his father Seleucus I Nicator in 281 BC and reigned d ...

, the first of the

Seleucids The Seleucid Empire (; grc, Βασιλεία τῶν Σελευκιδῶν, ''Basileía tōn Seleukidōn'') was a Greek state in West Asia that existed during the Hellenistic period from 312 BC to 63 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by the M ...

; Strabo asserts 261 BCE for its foundation. (Pliny adds: ''haec dividitur Archoo'', as if a stream flowed through the town).

D'Anville Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville (; born in Paris 11 July 169728 January 1782) was a French geographer and cartographer who greatly improved the standards of map-making. D'Anville became cartographer to the king, who purchased his cartographic ...

(''L'Euphrate et le Tigre'') supposes that Apamea was at the point where the Dijeil, now dry, branched off from the Tigris. D'Anville places the bifurcation near Samarrah, and there he puts Apamea. But Lynch (London Geog. Journal, vol. ix. p. 473) shows that the Dijeil branched off near Jibbarah, a little north of 34° North latitude. He supposes that the Dijeil once swept the end of the

Median Wall The Median Wall was a wall built to the north of the ancient city of Babylon at a point where the distance between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates decreases considerably. It was believed to have been constructed during the latter part of the reig ...

and flowed between it and Jibbarah. Somewhere, then, about this place Apamea may have been, for this point of the bifurcation of the Tigris is one degree of latitude north of Seleucia, and if the course of the river is measured, it will probably be not far from the distance which Pliny gives (cxxv. M. P.).

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{{coord missing, Iraq Sittacene Seleucid colonies 261 BC 260s BC establishments Former populated places in Iraq

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