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Apamea was one of the great Seleucid foundations on the Orontes, established by Seleucus I and named for his Bactrian wife. By 30 BC the city had passed firmly into the Roman provincial orbit following Octavian's defeat of Antony and Cleopatra, and local bronze issues like this one reflect the transitional moment when civic mints were reasserting their identity under a new master. The city's famous cavalry stud — which at its height reportedly maintained 30,000 mares for the Seleucid army — had long made Apamea strategically indispensable, a fact Roman administrators were careful not to forget.