The Hellenistic Settlements in the East from Armenia and Mesopotamia to Bactria and India. Getzel M. Cohen

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ that Antiochos I Soter minted bronze coins at Edessa. Under Antiochos IV Epiphanes the city minted quasi-municipal coinage with a portrait of the king on the obverse and the ethnic ΑΝΤΙΟΧΕΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΕΠΙ ΚΑΛΛΙΡΟΗΙ on the reverse.⁸ We have no explicit information regarding the organization of Hellenistic Edessa.⁹ The city streets were laid out on north-south, east-west axes. According to Stephanos (s.v. “Edessa”) the ethnic was both ’Eδεσσηνóς (according to the egchorioi) and Eδεσσαĩος (which was the ethnic παρὰ δὲ τοĩς πλείοσιν [τῶν ἀρχαίων], i.e., of the Macedonian city).¹⁰

      The founding of the kingdom of Edessa in 132–131 B.C. marked the effective end of Seleucid rule in Edessa.¹¹ Despite the collapse of Seleucid rule the names Seleukos and, less so, Antiochos, remained popular at Edessa.¹² The primary gods of Edessa were Nebo (who was identified with Apollo) and Bel; in addition, Atargatis was one of the important divinities worshipped there.¹³

      Edessa was located 85 kilometers east of SELEUKEIA/Zeugma and 45 kilometers southeast of SAMOSATA at modern Urfa.¹⁴

      * * * *

      In general see E. Sachau, Reise 189–92; Duval, Edesse 3–24; Meyer, RE s.v. “Edessa”; Tcherikover, HS 88; Markwart, Provincial Capitals 62–65; Hayes, Edesse 16; Gabriel, Turquie orientale 277–86; Kirsten, RAC s.v. “Edessa”; Segal, Edessa 5f., 46ff. et passim; id., PECS s.v. “Antioch by the Callirhoe”; H. J. W. Drijvers, ANRW 2.8 (1977) 863–69; Brodersen, Komment. 152; Sinclair, Eastern Turkey 4:2–28; P. Bernard, Topoi 5 (1995) 388–93; Orth, Diadochenzeit 117–18; Ross, Roman Edessa 6–9; Bousdroukis, Recherches 48–75.

      For the Syriac and Arabic sources relating to Edessa see A. Harrak, JNES 51 (1992) 209 n. 2.

      1. Herodian described Edessa as an apoikia of the Macedonian city (Katholike Prosodia 11 in A. Lentz, Grammatici Graeci, vol. 3, Herodiani Technici Reliquae [Leipzig, 1867] 1:268). According to a fragment of the Chronicle of Jacob of Edessa (p. 281, ed. E. W. Brooks, CSCO Scriptores Syri III.4 Versio, Chronica Minora [211]), soldiers of Alexander the Great from Edessa in Macedonia founded Mesopotamian Edessa and named it for the Macedonian city; see also Jacob of Edessa in Michael the Syrian (77 = 1:119) and 639 (3:278, trans. Chabot) who said that the Macedonians named the city after the name of their own city in Macedonia (see also Bousdroukis, Recherches 74 n. 145). On Jacob of Edessa as a chronicler see A. Harrak in Studies on Jacob of Edessa 43–64. For Seleukos I Nikator as founder see below, n. 2. On the water at Macedonian and Mesopotamian Edessa see Papazoglou, Villes 128 and n. 20; Bernard, Topoi 5 (1995) 392 n. 89; Bousdroukis, Recherches 55–56.

      Stephanos’s reference to Edessa’s location in Syria is not necessarily an error. Although the eastern boundary of Syria in the Graeco-Roman period was normally understood to be the Euphrates, the term could be used in a wider sense to include adjacent areas beyond the Euphrates. Thus, Stephanos also included Anthemous in Syria; see also, for example, Strabo 16.1.1–2; Chronicon Anonymum ad Annum Christi 1234 Pertinens I, p. 112 (trans. Chabot, CSCO Scriptores Syri III.14 Versio [88–89]); and Honigmann, RE s.v. “Syria,” esp. 1718f.

      2. For Seleukos I Nikator as the founder see Appian Syr. 57 (see below, n. 7); Agapius of Membij Univ. Hist. I.2, p. 237 (PO XI p. 109, ed. A. Vasiliev); Isidore Etym. 15.1.14–5; Eusebius Chron. p. 199 (ed. Karst); Hieronymus Chron. p. 127 (ed. R. Helm²); Synkellos 520 (ed. Mosshammer, p. 330); Kedrenos P166, XXXIV, I 292; Malalas 18.15, CFHB 35.345; Ps.-Dionysius of Tel Mahre Incerti Auctoris Chronicon Pseudo-Dionysianum vulgo Dictum p. 47 (ed. Chabot, CSCO 121, Scriptores Syri III.1 Versio [37]); Chronicum Anonymum p. 35 (ed. Guidi, CSCO Scriptores Syri III.4 Versio, Chronica Minora [29]); Chronicum Maroniticum p. 44 (ed. and trans. Brooks and Chabot, CSCO Scriptores Syri III.4 Versio, Chronica Minora [38]); Jacob of Edessa in Michael the Syrian 639 ( = Chronique de Michel le Syrien 3:278, trans. Chabot); Chronicon Anonymum ad Annum Christi 846 Pertinens p. 167 (trans. Chabot, CSCO Scriptores Syri III Versio [130]); Chronicon Anonymum ad Annum Christi 1234 Pertinens I, pp. 105–7 (trans. Chabot, CSCO Scriptores Syri III.14 Versio [83–84]); and a Syriac chronicle published by Guidi (T. Nöldeke, ed., SAWW 128.9 [1893] 41). See also Markwart, Südarmenien 337–38.

      As for the date of the founding, it is often claimed that Seleukos did this in 303–302 B.C.; see, for example, Meyer, RE s.v. “Edessa 2,” 1933; see also Kirsten, RAC s.v. “Edessa,” 553; and Segal, Edessa 5. The basis for this is Eusebius Chron. p. 199 (ed. Karst) and Hieronymus Chron. p. 127 (ed. Helm²), who attributed the building of ANTIOCH, LAODIKEIA, SELEUKEIA, APAMEIA, EDESSA, BEROIA, and PELLA to Seleukos and placed this note under ann. Abr. 1715, i.e., 303–302 B.C. (Ps.-Dionysius of Tel Mahre [see above] placed this in ann. Abr. 1712). Eusebius and Hieronymus then added the comment that Seleukos built Antioch in the twelfth year of his reign (also Synkellos; see above). In fact Seleukos cannot have built Laodikeia, Seleukeia, Apameia, Pella, or Beroia in 303 or 302; as was the case for Antioch, he did not come into possession of the territory in which they were located until after the battle of Ipsos in 301 B.C. As for Edessa, it is not clear whether Seleukos’s territory in Mesopotamia extended as far north as this area in 303/2 B.C. or whether it was still under Antigonos’s rule or influence at the time (see, for example, Brodersen, Komment. 122; Billows, Antigonos 240–42 and map 5; Sherwin-White and Kuhrt, Samarkhand 11. Mehl, Seleukos 210, suggested that [northern] Mesopotamia came under Seleukos’s rule after Ipsos). For the suggestion that Edessa might have first been founded as an Antigonid settlement before passing to Seleucid control see P. Bernard in Topoi Supplément 1 (1997) 185–86 n. 181; and ANTIOCH in Mygdonia, n. 3.

      Adme, which is attested in various Assyrian and Babylonian texts, was near Harran (see A. Harrak, JNES 51 [1992] 212–13). The occurrence of Adme in these texts and the absence of pre-Hellenistic evidence for the name Orhay has prompted the reasonable—though ex silentio—suggestion that Adme was, in fact, the ancient name of Edessa (see, for example, M. Astour, JAOS 109 [1989] 687; Harrak, ZA 81 [1991] 148; id., JNES [1992] 209–14; Bousdroukis, Recherches 48).

      3. Both Malalas’s observations (18.15, CFHB 35.345) that Seleukos first called the settlement Antioch and that the name was later changed to Edessa and Pliny’s comment (NH 5.86) that Edessa was previously called Antioch on the Kallirhoe are probably erroneous; the sequence was surely the reverse. At NH 6.117 Pliny says: “item in Arabum gente qui Orroei vocantur et Man/rdani Antiochiam quae a praefecto Mesopotamiae Nicanore condita Arabs [Arabis or Arabes] vocatur.” Unfortunately, as I have noted elsewhere, we cannot definitely identify either the Nikanor or the Antioch mentioned by Pliny; see further ANTIOCH Arabis and ANTIOCH in Mygdonia, nn. 2 and 3. Hence, we ought not to speculate further about the possibility that Nikanor might have founded Edessa.

      After saying that Seleukos I founded Edessa, Malalas (18.15, CFHB 35.345) adds that Seleukos named the city ’Aντιóχεια ἡ μιξοβάρβαρος. Meyer dismissed Malalas’s comment (RE s.v. “Edessa”) as “worthless.” Neverthless, one should recall that Kedrenos (P166, CSHB 34.I: 292) and Synkellos (520, ed. Mosshammer, p. 330) remarked that Seleukos settled Jews along with Greeks in Edessa (as well as in the other settlements they attributed to him: LAODIKEIA, SELEUKEIA, APAMEIA, BEROIA, PELLA, and BABYLON); see also Josephus AJ 18.372. In this connection P. Bernard (Topoi 5 [1995] 392 n. 88) suggested that μιξοβάρβαρος reflected the cultural situation in Edessa. He noted, for example, that Syriac quickly replaced Greek and that Greek inscriptions are rare. In fact, Greek inscriptions are relatively rare in practically all of the Hellenistic settlements in Mesopotamia. Note also Jacob of Edessa (in Michael the Syrian 77 = Chronique de Michel le Syrien 1:119, trans. Chabot), who described the population there as “Syro-Macedonians” (cf. the woman of Tyre in Mark 7:26, who is called a “Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth”).

      4. For the pools and the sacred fish see Meyer, RE s.v. “Edesssa,” 1935f.; Segal, Edessa 6, 55; and Drijvers, Edessa 79f. In the late fourth century A.D. Egeria/Etheria referred to the “fontes piscibus pleni” СКАЧАТЬ