The next morning I slept late again, Abdul was precisely on time again, and I ate breakfast in a rush again. After completing this ritual, we set off eastwards, toward Apamea.


The fantastically long Cardo Maximus.

The short story of Apamea is that these ruins are another Roman trading outpost on the ancient trade routes from the Mediterranean to central Asia. The long story is that there are many, many layers of history here. The city sits on a grassy highland overlooking Al-Ghab Plain. Founded in the 2nd Century B.C. by Seleucus, conquered by the Romans in 64 B.C., sacked by the Persians A.D. 512 and again (I guess just for the ugly fun of it) in A.D. 612. As history marched on, the Crusaders occupied the site in the 12th century, and the Ottomans had a caravanserai here.

Monsieur Abdul dropped me off and indicated the general direction of the cafe that I would find him in, and I set off. I poked through ruins, walked along colonnaded streets, tried to decipher ancient carvings and wondered whose statue used to be on forlorn pedestals.





In the background is the still occupied citadel, Qalaat Mudiq.






I was approached by a small boy, who was tending his herd of sheep. He said hello and pointed at his palm. I said hello back and he said hello again and repeated the palm gesture with an intricate motion. "Stylus?!?" It so happened that I had a pen in my pocket. I fished it out and handed it to him. He gazed at it with rapt pleasure and made a small, parsimonious dot on his palm. He looked at me shyly and made motion that maybe the pen could be his. Perhaps he could be the keeper of the pen? I consented, "Careful with that, Short Round, it's mightier than the sword." He smiled at this barrage of verbiage and returned to his sheep.