Suqaylabīyah (Syria)

Apamea (Greek: Ἀπάμεια, Apameia; Arabic: أفامية, romanized: afāmiyah) is an ancient Hellenistic and Roman city situated on the right bank of the Orontes River, in the northwest of modern Syria. Founded under the name Pella as a Macedonian military settlement following the Wars of the Diadochi, it was established as a fortified city around 300 BC by Seleucus I Nicator, who renamed it after his wife, Apama. The city served as the capital of Apamene under the Seleucids and later became capital of the Roman province of Syria Secunda, a status it retained into the Crusader period. Apamea came under Roman control in 64 BC when Pompey razed its fortress, and it later withstood a three-year siege during the revolt of Quintus Caecilius Bassus. The city suffered destruction in the Antioch earthquake of 115 AD but was soon rebuilt, with major reconstruction continuing through the second century. It was destroyed again by Khosrow I in the sixth century and fell to Sasanian forces during the Byzantine–Sasanian War before being retaken. Following the Muslim conquest of Syria, Apamea was partially resettled and regained prominence under the Hamdanid dynasty; it later passed to Crusader control under Tancred before being destroyed by an earthquake in 1152. The city's main remains include the Great Colonnade, an approximately 2 km (1.2 mi) avenue lined with columns that constituted one of the longest such structures in the Roman world, and the Roman Theatre, among the largest surviving theatres of the Roman Empire with an estimated seating capacity exceeding 20,000. The colonnade, rebuilt after the 115 AD earthquake and later modified under the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, formed the city's cardo maximus and connected baths, an agora, and a nymphaeum. Additional features include a late antique synagogue with an inscribed mosaic floor, later succeeded by a Christian church on the same site, and the Great Hunting Mosaic, a large early 5th-century floor mosaic recovered from a building believed to have been the residence of the provincial governor. Numerous artifacts from Apamea, including a reconstructed section of the Great Colonnade and the Great Hunting Mosaic, are held at the Art & History Museum in Brussels. Following the onset of the Syrian civil war, the site has sustained damage from looting.