Apamea or Apameia (Greek: Απάμεια) was an ancient city – and possibly two ancient cities lying close together – of Mesopotamia mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium and Pliny as situated near the Tigris near the confluence of the Euphrates, the precise location of which is still uncertain,[1] but it lies in modern-day Iraq.
Pliny says of the Tigris, that around Apamea, a town of Mesene, on this side of the Babylonian Seleucia, 125 miles, the Tigris being divided into two channels, by one channel it flows to the south and to Seleucia, washing all along Mesene; by the other channel, turning to the north at the back of the same nation (Mesene), it divides the plains called Cauchae: when the waters have united again, the river is called Pasitigris.
It seems difficult to explain the passage of Pliny, or to determine the probable site of Apamea.
D'Anville (L'Euphrate et le Tigre) supposes that Apamea was at the point where the Dijeil, now dry, branched off from the Tigris.
Nöldeke suggests that the dialect spoken in lower Apamea (that of Ptolemy), probably located at Korna, was akin to Mandaic.