CASTRA a station on the Candavian or Egnatian way,—the great line of communication by land between Italy and the East. In the Antonine Itinerary it is fixed at 12 M. P. from Heracleia. In the Jerusalem Itinerary, a place called Parembole, which Cramer ( Anc. Greece, vol. 1. p. 83) identifies with the Castra of Antoninus, appears at a distance of 12 M. P. from Heracleia. In the first of the two routes which the Antonine Itinerary gives in this part, a place called Nicia is marked at 11 M. P from Heracleia. The Peutinger Tables mention a town of the same name, and assign to it the same distance. Leake ( Northern Greece, vol. 3. p. 313) considers that these names, Castra, Parembole, Nicia (Nicaea? comp. Steph. B. s. v. Νίκαιαhave reference to the military transactions of the Romans in Lyncestis, who not many years after those events constructed a road which passed exactly over the scene of their former achievements. Castra or Parembole, therefore, indicates the first encampment of Sulpicius on the Bevus (Liv. 31.33), and Nicaea (Nicia) the place where he obtained the advantage over Philip's cavalry near Octoluphus, which was 8 M. P. distant from the first encampment (Liv. 30.36). It appears, therefore, that Nicaea (Nicia), Parembole or Castra, and Heracleia, formed a triangle of which the sides were 8, 11, and 12 M. P. in length; that the N. route from Lychnidus descended upon Nicaea or Octoluphus, and the two S. routes upon Parembole or Castra on the river Bevus.
[E.B.J]