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Greek city of Apameia in Seleukis and Pierea
Bronze 20mm Seleukid era Year 287 = 26/25 B.C.
Reference: HGC 9, 1422; PRC I 4334, 4342-4346
Certification: NGC Ancients
VF 6156464-059
Bust of Athena in crested Corinthian helmet right.
ΛΠΑΜΕΩΝ ΤΗΣ ΙΕΡΑΣ / ΚΑΙ AΣYΛOY, Nike advancing left, holding wreath and palm branch; Seleukid era date ZΠΣ to left.
About 50 miles south of Antiocheia, Apameia was named after Apame, wife of Seleukos I.
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Tyche (meaning “luck”; Roman equivalent: Fortuna) was the presiding tutelary deity that governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny. She is the daughter of Aphrodite and Zeus or Hermes.
 In literature, she might be given various genealogies, as a daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite, or considered as one of the Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, or of Zeus. She was connected with Nemesis and Agathos Daimon (“good spirit”).
The Greek historian Polybius believed that when no cause can be discovered to events such as floods, droughts, frosts or even in politics, then the cause of these events may be fairly attributed to Tyche.
Worship
Increasingly during the Hellenistic period, cities venerated their own specific iconic version of Tyche, wearing a mural crown (a crown like the walls of the city).
Tyche had temples at Caesarea Maritima, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople. In Alexandria the Tychaeon, the temple of Tyche, was described by Libanius as one of the most magnificent of the entire Hellenistic world.
She was uniquely venerated at Itanos in Crete, as Tyche Protogeneia, linked with the Athenian Protogeneia (“firstborn”), daughter of Erechtheus, whose self-sacrifice saved the city.
Stylianos Spyridakis concisely expressed Tyche’s appeal in a Hellenistic world of arbitrary violence and unmeaning reverses: “In the turbulent years of the Epigoni of Alexander, an awareness of the instability of human affairs led people to believe that Tyche, the blind mistress of Fortune, governed mankind with an inconstancy which explained the vicissitudes of the time.”
Depictions
Tyche appears on many coins of the Hellenistic period in the three centuries before the Christian era, especially from cities in the Aegean. Unpredictable turns of fortune drive the complicated plotlines of Hellenistic romances, such as Leucippe and Clitophon or Daphnis and Chloe. She experienced a resurgence in another era of uneasy change, the final days of publicly sanctioned Paganism, between the late-fourth-century emperors Julian and Theodosius I who definitively closed the temples. The effectiveness of her capricious power even achieved respectability in philosophical circles during that generation, though among poets it was a commonplace to revile her for a fickle harlot.
In medieval art, she was depicted as carrying a cornucopia, an emblematic ship’s rudder, and the wheel of fortune, or she may stand on the wheel, presiding over the entire circle of fate.
The constellation of Virgo is sometimes identified as the heavenly figure of Tyche, as well as other goddesses such as Demeter and Astraea.
 Athena or Athene (Latin: Minerva), also referred to as Pallas Athena, is the goddess of war, civilization, wisdom, strength, strategy, crafts, justice and skill in Greek mythology. Minerva, Athena’s Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is also a shrewd companion of heroes and the goddess of heroic endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens. The Athenians built the Parthenon on the Acropolis of her namesake city, Athens, in her honour (Athena Parthenos). Athena’s cult as the patron of Athens seems to have existed from the earliest times and was so persistent that archaic myths about her were recast to adapt to cultural changes. In her role as a protector of the city (polis), many people throughout the Greek world worshiped Athena as Athena Polias (“Athena of the city”). Athens and Athena bear etymologically connected names.
Apamea or Apameia (Greek: Απάμεια; Arabic أفاميا or آفاميا, Afamia) was a treasure city and stud-depot of the Seleucid kings, was capital of Apamene, on the right bank of the Orontes River. (Steph. B. s. v.; Strabo xvi. p. 752; Ptolemy v. 15. § 19; Festus Avienus, v. 1083; Anton. Itin.; Hierocles). Its site is found about 55 km to the northwest of Hama, Syria, overlooking the Ghab valley. Previously known as Pharmake, it was fortified and enlarged by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BC, who so named it after his Bactrian wife, Apama – not his mother, as Stephanus asserts; compare Strabo, p. 578). In pursuance of his policy of Hellenizing Syria, it bore the Macedonian name of Pella. The fortress was placed upon a hill; the windings of the Orontes, with the lake and marshes, gave it a peninsular form, whence its other name of Cherronêsos. Seleucus had his commissariat there, 500 elephants, with 30,000 mares, and 300 stallions. The pretender, Diodotus Tryphon, made Apamea the basis of his operations. (Strab. l. c.) Located at a strategic crossroads for Eastern commerce, the city flourished to the extent that its population eventually numbered half a million. It was one of the four cities of the Syrian tetrapolis.
 Photograph of a tomb at Apamea, taken on albumen ca. 1860-1890. Part of the A.D. White architectural photography collection of Cornell University Library
Josephus (Ant. xiv. 3. § 2) relates, that Pompey marching south from his winter quarters, probably at or near Antioch, razed the fortress of Apamea in 64 BC whence the city was annexed to the Roman Republic. In the revolt of Syria under Q. Caecilius Bassus, it held out against Julius Caesar for three years till the arrival of Cassius, 46 BC. (Dion. Cass. xlvii. 26-28; Joseph. Bel. Jud. i. 10. § 10.) On the outbreak of the Jewish War, the inhabitants of Apamea spared the Jews who lived in their midst, and would not suffer them to be murdered or led into captivity (Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 18, § 5). Destroyed by Chosroes I in the 7th century it was partially rebuilt and known in Arabic as Famia or Fâmieh; and destroyed by an earthquake in 1152. In the Crusades it was still a flourishing and important place and was occupied by Tancred. (Wilken, Gesch. der Ks. vol. ii. p. 474; Abulfeda, Tab. Syr. pp. 114, 157.)
The acropolis hill is now occupied by the ruins called Kalat el-Mudik (Kŭlat el-Mudîk). The ruins of a highly ornamental character, and of an enormous extent, are still standing, the remains, probably, of the temples of which Sozomen speaks (vii. 15); part of the town is enclosed in an ancient castle situated on a hill; the remainder is to be found in the plain. In the adjacent lake are the celebrated black fish, the source of much wealth.
Both the Jerusalem Targumim considered the city of Shepham (Num. xxxiv. 11) to be identical with Apamea. Since Apamea virtually belonged to Rabbinic Palestine, the first-fruits brought by Ariston from that town were accepted for sacrifice in Jerusalem (Mishnah Ḥal. iv. 11). Apamea remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church, Apamenus in Syria; the seat has been vacant since the death of the last bishop in 1974.
View of Apamea’s ruins, Syria.
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