receiving a negative omen, he went back down the valley to Ephesus. "In reality, the omens simply confirmed a prior decision: to march against Celaenae would be terribly risky." In the winter of 333 BC, Alexander arrived outside the city, which "had a major Persian settlement" and was well known for its enormous park and "the great fortified estates (tetrapyrgia) immediately around the town," which "evince the richness of the agriculture and husbandry of a country 'abounding in villages rather than in cities' (Quintus Curtius III.1.11)." Its acropolis long held out, and surrendered to him at last by arrangement. His successor, Eumenes, made it for some time his headquarters, as did Antigonus until 301. 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; 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." References Sources Smith, William (editor); Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, "Celaenae", London, (1854) G. Weber, Dinair Célènes-Apamée-Cibotos (46 pages with a plan and two maps) (Besançon: Delagrange Louys, 1892). Ronald Syme (ed. Anthony Richard Birley), Anatolica: Studies in Strabo (Oxford University Press, 1995: ). Anatolia Achaemenid cities Populated places in Phrygia Former populated places in Turkey Anabasis (Xenophon) Geography of Afyonkarahisar Province History of Afyonkarahisar Province Tourist attractions in Afyonkarahisar Province Dinar District