Apamea Hama Syria

…Apamea, and several other cities, disgusted with the tyranny of Demetrius, acknowledges the authority of Alexander.

The name "Zabinas" means "the purchased slave", and is applied to him, deprecatingly, in response to a report that he had been bought by Ptolemy as a slave.

For reasons unknown, Alexander II is the only late Seleucid not to use epithets on his coins.

Several of his coins are extant.

Quintus Labienus, a Roman republican general, following Caesar’s murder had taken the side of Brutus and Cassius, the latter whom he had served in the capacity of an ambassador to the Parthians.

After Brutus and Cassius were defeated at Philippi, Labienus had joined the Parthians, who invade the Roman territories in 40 BCE.

The Parthian army, led by Labienus and their king, Pacorus, crosses the Euphrates and attacks Apamea.

The attack on Apamea fails but Labienus is able to entice the Roman garrisons around Syria to rally to his cause.

The combined Romano-Parthian army then proceeds to defeat Mark Antony's governor L. Decidius Saxa in a pitched battle and takes Apamea.

After the Roman defeat at Apamea, the Parthians split their army.

Pacorus turns south and conquers the Levant from the Phoenician coast through Palestine, with the exception of a few cities that hold out, including Tyre.

Labienus turns north to follow Saxa, who loses most of his troops as he retreats to Antioch, and whom Labienus defeats and kills in Cilicia.

Labienus then proceeds to conquer all of Asia Minor.

Under Labienus and Pacorus, the Parthians have restored their territory to nearly the limits of the old Achaemenid empire and control all of Asia Minor except for a few cities.

The Parthian successes are not to be long-lasting, however.

Iamblichus, born at Chalcis (modern Quinnesrin) in Syria, is the chief representative of Assyrian Neoplatonism, though his influence has spread over much of the known world.

Having founded his own school at Apameia (near Antioch) in about 304, he has interpreted Plotinus' and Porphyry's systems of emanations in a mystic and religious sense, rather than an aesthetic or logical sense.

Breaking from Plotinus in his espousal of a level of "ideal numbers" between The One and Mind, Iamblichus has added many levels of Being, arranged triadically, with two extremes and a connecting mean, each level inhabited by gods or demons who mediate between higher and lower orders.

Differing also from Porphyry, Iamblichus maintains that proper religious observance (theurgy) is a virtue higher than that of the intellect and one that can sway the benevolent gods and repel the evil demons.

Called "the divine" by Neoplatonists, Iamblichus dies in 325, leaving several works including Life of Pythagoras; a treatise, On the Egyptian Mysteries; and an essay, The Community of the Mathematical Sciences, as well as (lost) commentaries on Plato and Aristotle.

Theodoret, a friend of Nestorius, has become embroiled in the controversy with Cyril of Alexandria, whose views, he argues, imply a confusion of the divine and human natures of Christ.

Theodoret had shared in the petition of John I of Antioch to Nestorius to approve of the term theotokos ("mother of God"), and upon the request of John wrote against Cyril's anathemas.

He may have prepared the Antiochian symbol, which is to secure the emperor's true understanding of the Nicene Creed, and he is a member and spokesman of the deputation of eight from Antioch called by the emperor to Chalcedon.

To the condemnation of Nestorius he could not assent.

John, reconciled to Cyril by the emperor's order, seeks to bring Theodoret to submission by entrenching upon his eparchy.

Theodoret is determined to preserve the peace of the Church by seeking the adoption of a formula avoiding the unconditional condemnation of Nestorius, and toward the close of 434 had striven earnestly for the reconciliation between the Eastern churches.

But Cyril had refused to compromise and when he opened his attack upon Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore in 437, John had sided with them and Theodoret had assumed the defense of the Antiochian party around 439.

Domnus II, who had succeeded John, his uncle, in 441, had taken him as his counselor.

After the death of Cyril in 444, adherents of the Antiochian theology are appointed to bishoprics.

Irenaeus the friend of Nestorius, with the cooperation of Theodoret, becomes bishop of Tyre, in spite of the protests of Dioscorus, Cyril's successor, who now turns specially against Theodoret; and, by preferring the charge that he teaches two sons in Christ, he secures the order from the court confining Theodoret to Cyrrhus.

The Fatimid governor of Damascus, the Turkish general Manjutakin, had besieged Apamea in 993/994.

Michael Bourtzes, the imperial doux of Antioch, comes forth to relieve the city.

The two armies meet across two fords on the Orontes River near Apamea on September 15, 994.

Manjutakin sends his forces to attack Bourtzes’s Hamdanid allies across one ford while pinning the main imperial force down on the other.

His men succeed in breaking through the Hamdanids, turn around and attack the imperial force in the rear.

The imperial army panics and flees, losing some five thousand men in the process.

This defeat leads to the direct intervention of emperor Basil II, and Bourtzes' dismissal from his post and his replacement by Damian Dalassenos as magistros.

This post is one of the most important military positions in the Empire, as its holder commands the forces arrayed against the Fatimid Caliphate and the semi-autonomous Muslim rulers of Syria.

Damian has engaged in operations against the amir Nazzal of Tripoli, and forced him to agree to terms.

Soon, however, Nazzan had been overthrown by the city's populace, forcing Dalassenos to resume operations along the northern Syrian coast.

He marches his troops to Apamea to seize the city after a catastrophic fire.

Here, he is killed on July 19 while pursuing a force of Bedouins under the command of the Fatimid general Jaush ibn al-Samsama, and is succeeded as doux by Nikephoros Ouranos.