Classical Age The original inhabitants were residents of Celaenae who were compelled by Antiochus I Soter to move further down the river, where they founded the city of Apamea (Strabo, xii. 577).
Antiochus the Great transplanted many
Jews there. (Josephus,
Ant. xii. 3, § 4). 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 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
Pergamene kingdom and thence to
Rome in 133 BC, but it was resold to
Mithridates V of Pontus, who held it till 120 BC. After the
Mithridatic Wars it became and remained a great centre for trade, largely carried on by resident
Italians and by Jews. In 84 BC
Sulla made it the seat of a
conventus, and it long claimed primacy among Phrygian cities. The mid-third century AD coins of Apamea or Cibotus with scenes of
Noah and his
ark are among the earliest biblical scenes in Roman art.
Christian Apamea Apamea Cibotus is enumerated by
Hierocles among the
episcopal cities of the
Roman province of
Pisidia.
Lequien gives the names of nine of its bishops. The first is a Julianus of Apamea at the Maeander who,
Eusebius records, was in about 253 reported by
Alexander of Hierapolis (Phrygia) to have joined others in examining the claims of the
Montanist Maximilla. The list of bishops from Pisidia who participated in the
First Council of Nicaea (325) includes Tharsitius of Apamea. It also gives a Paulus of Apamea, but Lequien considers that in the latter case "Apamea" is a mistake for "Acmonia". A Bishop Theodulus of Apamea (who might, however, have been from Apamea in Bithynia) witnessed a will of
Gregory of Nazianzus. Paulinus took part in the
Council of Chalcedon (451) and was a signatory of the letter from the bishops of Pisidia to Emperor
Leo I the Thracian concerning the killing in 457 of
Proterius of Alexandria. In the early 6th century, Conon abandoned his bishopric of Apamea in Phrygia and became a military leader in a rebellion against
Emperor Anastasius. The acts of the
Second Council of Constantinople (553) were signed by "John by the mercy of God bishop of the city of Apamea in the province of Pisidia". Sisinnius of Apamea was one of the Pisidian bishops at the
Second Council of Nicaea (787). The
Council held at Constantinople in 879–880 was attended by two bishops of Apamea in Pisidia, one appointed by
Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople the other by
Photios I of Constantinople. Since it is no longer a residential diocese, Apamea Cibotus is today listed by the
Catholic Church as a
titular see. ==See also==