Celaenae

Celaenae (Celænæ) or Kelainai (Greek: Κελαιναί) was an ancient city of Phrygia and capital of the Persian satrapy of Greater Phrygia,[1] near the source of the Maeander River in what is today west central Turkey (Dinar of Afyonkarahisar Province), and was situated on the great trade route to the East.

Here Cyrus owned a palace and a large park full of wild beasts, which he used to hunt on horseback, whenever he wished to give himself or his horses exercise.

It was on this site that Xerxes, as tradition tells, built this very palace, as well as the citadel of Celaenae itself, on his retreat from Hellas, after he had lost the famous battle.

"[4] In 394 Agesilaus II, on reaching the Meander on his march through Phrygia, consulted an oracle to determine whether he should attack Celaenae; on receiving a negative omen, he went back down the valley to Ephesus.

[2] From Lysimachus it passed to Seleucus I Nicator, whose son Antiochus I Soter, seeing its geographical importance, refounded it on a more open site as Apamea;[2] Ronald Syme writes: "From a topographical point of view the change was less considerable than, for example, at Nysa, a new city constituted by the synoecism of three separate villages.