APAMEA

APAMEA, city in lower Phrygia, near the sources of the Maeander River (today: the Turkish town of Dineir, on the Smyrna-Egerdir railway). The city was founded by Antiochus I Soter (280–262 B.C.E.) and Jews probably resided there before the early second century B.C.E. when Antiochus III transported 2,000 Jewish families from Babylonia and places in Phrygia (Jos., Ant., 12:147ff.). In 62 B.C.E. the praetor Flaccus confiscated 100 pounds of gold gathered by the Jews of Apamea for the Temple in Jerusalem (Cicero, Pro Flacco 28, 68). The biblical stories and local legends of Noah and Enoch were extremely popular in Apamea and coins depicting the Flood and bearing the name of Noah were minted there from the fourth century C.E. One possible reason for this tradition was the additional name given Apamea: ὴ Κιβωτός, "the ark." There is no evidence, however, that this name (first mentioned by Strabo, about 19 C.E.) was derived from the story of Noah. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: W.M. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 1 pt. 2 (1897), 396–483, 667ff.; Schuerer, Gesch, 3 (19074), 18–20; Juster, Juifs 1 (1914), 191, n. 19. (Isaiah Gafni)