Reconsidering Roman power
|Criticism of Roman power
Romans and Iranians: experiences of imperial governance in Roman Mesopotamia
Résumé
This article examines the perspectives offered by Syriac or bilingual (Syriac-Greek) textual traditions whose provenance can be traced with certainty or high probability to 3rd-century Osrhoene, in Upper Mesopotamia. They offer us glimpses of how certain Edessenes, especially Christians, experienced the impact of Roman imperialism at a critical juncture: the incremental integration of Osrhoene into the Roman provincial system. But they also provide insight into how Edessenes perceived the Iranian imperial powers to their east (Parthian and Sasanian) and to what extent they deemed the Roman empire to have features that distinguished it from other imperial states.
Entrées d'index
Texte intégral
- 1 Bonnet 1903, chapters 1-3 and Wright 1871, p. q‘b-q‘d. On slavery in the text, Glancy 2012.
- 2 Harper 2011, p. 392-398. For relevance to the Acts of Thomas, Andrade 2018, p. 48-49.
1According to the Acts of the Apostle Thomas, Jesus had just recently been resurrected when he sold his apostle and twin Judas, also known as Thomas (Aramaic/Syriac for twin), into slavery. The buyer was an Indian merchant named Habban, and the transaction brought Judas Thomas to India, where he evangelized its people.1 The Acts of Thomas is a spiritual text. But its opening passage would have been humorous for a Roman audience desensitized to human bondage and the violence that it sanctioned. According to Roman law, the transaction was illegal. Jesus did not have state-recognized ownership over his twin, and freeborn people were not supposed to be sold as slaves. If enslaved illegally, they were to be freed.2 Habban, however, does not notice the problem with buying the twin of a freeborn man. Jesus, apparently aware, initially offers Judas Thomas from afar to prevent Habban from getting a good look.
- 3 For comparison, P1 in Drijvers – Healey 1999, p. 232-234. On this, see Andrade 2015b.
- 4 Harper 2011, p. 395.
2But the Acts’ clever parody of Roman law does not end there. The resurrected Jesus forges his own bill of sale to give legitimacy to the transaction, and it intriguingly mimics the sort of phrases that appear in documents from contemporary Edessa and the broader empire.3 He, however, has no civil authority to do this. The documents are fakes. Not yet finished, Jesus then brilliantly exploits a legal exception. According to Roman law, if free men willingly and fraudulently sold themselves into slavery so that they could profit from the price and reclaim their freedom, they could be legitimately enslaved.4 This protected buyers from losing both money and slave through fraud. Jesus is aware of the exception. So Judas Thomas complies with Jesus by deceptively identifying him as his master, and Jesus gives to his apostle the silver with which Habban had purchased him. Jesus’ illegal sale and fake documents thus result in Habban’s legitimate ownership of Judas Thomas.
- 5 On Roman slave labor, Bodel 2011.
3As Habban transports Judas Thomas east to the court of King Gudnaphar in India, the narrative continues to engage with Roman patterns of slave owning. Once Gudnaphar acquires Judas Thomas, he gives him immense wealth so that he can have a palace built while largely being unsupervised. This is consistent with how Roman elites, and emperors, often had slaves perform complicated financial transactions on their behalf and in their absence. In many ways Judas resembles a managerial slave in a wealthy Roman family, if not the Roman imperial household.5 We will later return to how this episode continues to reflect a dark humor linked to Roman perceptions and practices of slavery.
- 6 Acts of Thomas, chapter 151, with 118, in Bonnet 1903, and Wright 1871, šiḥ, with rpḥ.
4We have begun with this elaborate description of the Acts of Thomas’ initial episode to raise a fundamental challenge that this article confronts. It explores how various Syriac texts either certainly or seemingly produced at 3rd-century Edessa and Osrhoene portrayed and even critiqued the impact of Roman imperialism. It also examines, by comparison, how some such texts represent Parthian or Sasanian imperial power, or were otherwise modeling imaginary or fictitious royal courts on it. But these representations pose many complications, and they weave together diverse literary and cultural antecedents. First of all, they predictably reflect the impact of Roman imperialism. Roman patterns thus intrude on depictions of eastern courts. Second, the royal family of Edessa modeled itself on Iranian paradigms even while being clients of Rome. As a result, we cannot be sure whether patterns of Iranian governance or distinctly local ones are the governing features of our texts’ representations of royal or imperial power with Parthian or Sasanian overtones. Finally, Judaeo-Christian textual paradigms have an impact. So when Judas Thomas is imprisoned in India, women who want to see him bribe the jailor with zuzes, a Jewish currency of Palestine attested in the New Testament gospels.6
5In their invitation to the colloquium on which this volume is based, the organizers asked the participants to ponder "how the many people and peoples living in the vast expanse of the Roman Empire actually perceived and experienced it: more precisely, what they thought were the Empire’s distinctive features, as well as its particular limitations and weaknesses". This article aims to address this important question by delving into how authors from 3rd-century Osrhoene experienced and perceived Roman imperialism in their specific time and place, namely their integration into the Roman provincial system after many years of being governed by client kings who answered to Parthian and then Roman hegemony. Their location and points of contact with Roman authority and Iranian imperial figures to the east (whether Parthian or Sasanian) naturally invited comparisons between the various imperial systems and what their distinctive features were. The normative practices of these systems, or at least perceptions of them, also shaped how such authors crafted imperial or royal characters in their texts. But we must be clear. The textual sources at our disposal are sparse, and in several key instances they are difficult to date. So in the analysis to follow, we show how the texts reflect certain experiences of Roman imperialism and certain perceptions of Iranian empires to the east. But whether we can draw general conclusions from them is another matter.
- 7 Ramelli 2004b, 2005, and 2008, p. 256-266; Chin 2006; Rensberger 2010; Merz – Tieleman 2008 and 20 (...)
6In summary, this article offers an analysis of key testimony from the few surviving Syriac texts from 3rd-century Osrhoene. At various junctures, it also reflects on how Greek or Latin passages derived from Syriac textual antecedents, or at least common source traditions, modified the critiques articulated by the Syriac texts. With such purposes in mind, the article first provides some background on 3rd-century Edessa. It then discusses what the Book of the Laws of the Countries (with its Greek and Latin iterations), the Acts of Thomas, and finally the Edessene narrative about the apostle Addai impart. The overarching focus throughout is how these texts portray Roman imperialism and, by comparison, either Iranian imperial hierarchies or fictional ones modeled on them. Because the context for the Letter of Mara bar Serapion is controversial and the original language and provenance of the Oration of ps.-Melito is uncertain, they will not be part of the discussion.7
Third-Century Edessa and Upper Mesopotamia
- 8 Harrak 2002 and 2014 and Andrade 2015c.
7The city of Edessa, in the upper Mesopotamian region of Osrhoene, is famous as the birthplace of the Aramaic dialect of Syriac, which would become a vital language of eastern Christianity over late antiquity. As we will learn, Edessene Christians in late antiquity promoted the belief that a king named Abgar Ukkama had engaged in an exchange of letters with none other than Jesus of Nazareth. But during the 2nd century, Edessenes perhaps did not yet quite have such lofty pretensions. Situated precariously between the Roman and Parthian empires, Edessa was from the perspective of imperial authorities a frontier city in a contested region. For merchants and wayfarers, it was one among many commercial hubs along the thoroughfares between the Mediterranean and the hinterland of Asia.8 What came to be classical Syriac had not yet quite taken shape.
- 9 Key studies informing what follows are Ramelli 1999a, p. 130-43 and 2004a; Gawlikowski 1998; Ross (...)
- 10 Ross 2001, p. 9-11 and 20.
- 11 Ross 2001, p. 36-43.
- 12 Ross 2001, p. 36.
- 13 Ross 2011, p. 38 and 47-49.
8In the 2nd and 3rd century of Edessa’s history, the Abgarid dynasty loomed large.9 Like its eastern neighbor Hatra, Edessa was for the most part governed by client dynasts of the Parthian empire throughout the first and until the mid-2nd century CE.10 Its royal court would always be influenced by Parthian royal paradigms. But during the 160s, the Romans invaded Parthian territory and sacked Ctesiphon. Amid the conflict, the Parthians deposed king Ma‘nu (perhaps suspecting Roman loyalties) and placed a figure named Wa’el on the throne. But the victorious Romans restored Ma‘nu by 165.11 At this point Edessa’s dynasty became enmeshed in a relationship of clientage with the Roman empire. It even minted coins celebrating Roman emperors and the reigning Abgarid.12 But despite governing Osrhoene through client kings, especially the notable Abgar VIII (177-212), the Romans kept garrisons in key areas technically beyond their territorial control, including Nisibis.13
- 14 For the following discussion, Ross 2001, p. 46-53; Speidel 2007; Sommer 2005, p. 238-246.
- 15 Stoll 2009.
- 16 Caillou – Brelaud 2016.
- 17 P 2 in Drijvers – Healey 1999, p. 237-239.
9In 195, Septimius Severus annexed Osrhoene, whether as a new province or as an extension of Coele Syria.14 Around this time he created the province of Mesopotamia to the immediate east and kept garrisons at Singara, Resaina, and probably Nisibis.15 The Romans retained Abgar as a client king until he died in 212. He governed Edessa and some substantial territory in Osrhoene. But much former territory to the East, especially ‘Arab (roughly Jebel Sinjar), became part of Roman provincial territory. Shortly after Abgar died in 212, Roman authorities under the emperor Caracalla deposed his son Abgar Severus (Abgar IX), brought him to Rome, and perhaps arranged his death. The Edessenes, now integrated in the Roman provincial system, created a new dating system fixed to 213 and called "the era of liberation".16 Abgar Severus’ son Ma‘nu would never become king, but as we will learn later, he did have the Parthian title of pasgriba (crown prince). In a period of frontier instability, Ma‘nu’s son Abgar X would briefly reign at Edessa as king and consularis c. 238-242. A papyrus document sheds rare light on municipal life in his reign.17 Despite this brief interlude, we can think of the integration of Osrhoene into the Roman provincial system initiated by Septimius Severus as complete.
- 18 Dąbrowa 2004 and 2012.
- 19 Ross 2001, p. 58-59 and Sommer 2005, p. 244-248.
- 20 Ando 2000, p. 312-21 on the census and other rituals of Roman citizenship.
- 21 Drijvers – Healey 1999, p. 232-48; Feissel – Gascou 1995 and 2000; Feissel – Gascou – Teixidor 199 (...)
10As Osrhoene and Mesopotamian territory to the immediate east became enmeshed in Roman provincial territory, other key processes embedded their inhabitants within the civil and legal framework of the Roman empire. While most of the region’s inhabitants became Roman citizens through the Antonine Constitution of 212 many key cities in Upper Mesopotamia were recognized as Roman coloniae, whether as a mark of distinction or because Roman veterans were actually settled in them. These cities assumed the municipal structures that typified coloniae elsewhere.18 Edessa became a colonia some time after the Abgarid dynasty was deposed.19 Due to these shifts, the residents of Osrhoene were now increasingly being governed by Roman magistrates and municipal authorities who made judgments according to Roman law. Provincial censuses were certainly conducted.20 Papyrus documents in both Greek and Syriac provide some exposure to the municipal structures of the era and the means by which provincials petitioned imperial magistrates, especially in Upper Mesopotamia and along the Middle Euphrates in the 240s.21 Permanent military garrisons became even more profoundly visible.
- 22 See, for example, Shapur I’s rock-cut inscriptions in Huyse 1999.
- 23 Healey 2007 and 2016; Brock 2001; Gzella 2015, p. 256-260 and 366-378.
- 24 As captured by Drijvers 1984.
- 25 Weitzman 1999, esp. p. 258-262; Haar Romeny 2005, esp. p. 90-95. IK Estremo oriente, no. 26; IJO, (...)
11Roman imperial intervention, however, did not follow a seamless trajectory. On several notable occasions of the 3rd century, the Sasanian Persians made serious breaches into Roman territory. Upper Mesopotamia became a thoroughfare for both Roman and Sasanian armies, if not where they clashed.22 As a result, contemporary residents must have had some familiarity with the early Sasanian Persian monarchy and its displays of regal power, a familiarity sustained by continued contact with people in Persian territory. One can also comment on the cultural and religious trajectory of Edessa. Aramaic remained a key cipher of Edessene cultural praxis even as the region’s residents digested the broader Greek cultural strands of the eastern empire. Classical Syriac, with its roots in the Aramaic dialect(s) at Edessa, eventually became a vital language of eastern Christianity.23 Edessenes otherwise wove the threads of Syrian, Mesopotamian, Greek, and Iranian cultural traditions into an elaborate tapestry.24 Edessene Christians participated in the broader discourses of their religious brethren in the Roman empire and Sasanian Persia. Jews at Edessa, known from certain inscriptions, perhaps played a key role in translations of the Hebrew Bible into Syriac.25 We will revisit these intricacies in the political, social, and cultural life of Edessa in the discussion to follow. But now we can ponder what our Syriac texts have to say.
The Book of the Laws of the Countries
12A noteworthy feature of the Syriac Book of the Laws of the Countries, written in its surviving form by a disciple of the Christian thinker Bardaisan, is that it presents the Romans as uniquely aggressive, intrusive, and rigid in the application of their laws. It thus draws an implicit contrast with the Parthian empire, which it portrays as accommodating of the legal traditions of its diverse peoples. Intriguingly, as key parts of the Syriac Book, or at least a common source tradition, passed into Greek and Latin, these were reconstituted in ways that negated some of the pointed critiques of the Syriac original.
- 26 Bardaisan’s On Fate, mentioned by Eusebius, HE 4.30 in Schwartz – Mommsen 1999, is perhaps an earl (...)
- 27 On which, for example, Mattingly 2011; Andrade 2013; Revell 2016; Pitts – Versluys 2015; Gardner – (...)
- 28 The treatments of Bardaisan and his disciples on Indians and eastern peoples are often consistent (...)
- 29 Andrade 2013.
13A text composed at the threshold of Roman and Parthian territory, the Syriac Book imparts a famous commentary on various peoples and their customs. It however frames the Romans and Parthians as being complete opposites in how they organized their empires. Whenever mentioned, the Romans are portrayed as being an undifferentiated mass couched in the framework of a single legal system. This in itself would reflect the text’s apparent composition (in its surviving form) roughly between 200 and 225, amid the Romans’ incremental transformation of Osrhoene into provincial territory and perhaps even after the Antonine Constitution of 212 specifically.26 But by portraying the Romans in such a way, it simplifies the regional diversity of the Roman empire and the heterogeneity of its provincial populations’ social norms, cultural practices, and legal systems.27 Expressing minimal recognition of such variation, it treats the category of Roman as a predominantly ethnic one, not a civic one. It also seems to rely on Greek and Roman ethnographic traditions with roots dating before Roman expansion beyond Italy, or otherwise to its earliest phases, when it provides descriptions of peoples living both within or outside the Roman empire, thus rendering them all as foreign populations unaffected by Roman imperialism.28 Even the Greeks appear to receive such static treatment despite their prior settlement in the Near East and impact on civic life and culture there, especially under Roman rule.29
- 30 Drijvers 1965, p. 52 and Ramelli 2009a, p. 190.
- 31 Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 6.10.35 in Mras – des Places 2012.
- 32 Klauck 2008, p. 196 and 199-200 and Jones 2012, p. 3-5 and 8. The precise relationship between the (...)
- 33 Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 6.10.35 in Mras and des Places 2012 and Clem. Recog. 9.25.6-7 in Rehm – Strek (...)
14In its famous ethnographic descriptions, the later part of the Syriac Book describes how people’s laws or customs (nomoi) were determined by their freedom, not by fate or the stars. In its narrative, the loan word nomos (Syriac: namusa) has the same semantic range that it occupies in Greek. The Romans, defined in the undifferentiated terms mentioned above, are described as having an insatiable lust for conquest. This is their peculiar characteristic. So we witness how the text treats polygamy as a distinctive cultural practice of the Parthians and the gymnasium as an identifying feature of Greeks. By contrast, it describes conquest as the Romans’ distinctive custom. As it states: "Fate does not force the Parthians not to marry many wives…the Greeks not to practice gymnastic life… and the Romans not to be seizing territories all the time".30 This statement appears intact in the Greek text of Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel (early 4th century), which describes how Creation does not force the Romans "not to conquer".31 But its Latin iteration reflects an intriguing adjustment. In Rufinus’ translation (c. 400) of the Clementine Recognitions (probably early 4th century),32 the corresponding passage omits the reference to the Romans entirely while replicating the basic information on the Parthians and Greeks.33 At some point in transmission, someone apparently believed that the passage’s commentary was too critical of how the Romans acquired their provincial territory.
- 34 Drijvers 1965, p. 56; Ramelli 2009a, p. 194. For political intervention, see n. 26 above. For ‘Ara (...)
- 35 Abusch 2003, p. 84-89.
- 36 Drijvers 1965, p. 58 and Ramelli 2009a, p. 196; Eusebius, Praep Ev. 6.10.44 in Mras – des Places 2 (...)
- 37 Millar 2011, p. 97.
15But for the Syriac Book, conquest was not the Romans’ only defining custom. Annulling other people’s laws and replacing them with their own was too. So in what was probably a reference to Roman intervention in Osrhoene after 195, the text depicts the Romans as rescinding the laws of the inhabitants of ‘Arab, including circumcision, and imposing their own laws.34 This premise reflects how people at Edessa were perceiving imperial intervention in Osrhoene c. 200. But we must emphasize that this was a perception. Roman laws of the Antonine era and subsequent periods normally did not so much ban circumcision as impose certain restrictions, like prohibitions against masters coercing circumcision of their slaves.35 They did however ban castration. In fact, this explains why the Syriac Book and Eusebius’ Greek iteration both describe king Abgar (presumably VIII) as prohibiting it. In this case, Eusebius seems to contain the more correct reading. The Syriac Book alone accredits Abgar’s decision to Christian conversion, but this is probably a later redaction. Whether Abgar VIII even became a Christian remains uncertain.36 It is best to conceive of Abgar as reorienting certain laws in his kingdom so that they aligned with the legal expectations of his Roman hegemons.37 The Syriac Book thus enables us to glimpse the impact of Roman imperialism in Osrhoene at a critical stage in the 3rd century and how some Edessenes were experiencing it.
- 38 Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 6.10.41 in Mras and des Places 2012 and Clem. Recog. 9.27.6-7 in Rehm – Strek (...)
16Such commentary predictably ran counter to what Roman authorities claimed to offer and the views that dominated much of the imperial discourse. This perhaps explains the variation that we encounter in its Greek and Latin iterations. Eusebius’ Greek text retains the reference to the imposition of laws. But it does not mention any banning of circumcision. Intriguingly the corresponding passage from Rufinus’ Latin translation of the Clementine Recognitions departs from the testimony of the Syriac Book entirely. Omitting any reference to the conquest of ‘Arab, circumcision, and castration, it instead represents the Romans as benignly steering people to adopt their laws. It also depicts the peoples of the Roman empire as willingly submitting to Roman customs after the initial fact of conquest, with the result that diverse peoples characterized by their unique customs had adopted ius Romanum.38 If the Syriac Book portrayed the Romans as forcing conformity, the Clementine Recognitions dulls the sharpness of its critique.
- 39 It is beyond present consideration whether the Syriac Book is accurate in its portrayal of eastern (...)
- 40 Drijvers 1965, p. 46-50 and Ramelli 2009a, p. 182-86. For Hatra’s laws and the Syriac Book, Kaizer (...)
- 41 Drijvers 1965, p. 44 and Ramelli 2009a, p. 180.
17By contrast, the Parthian empire, while mentioned, receives no specific elaboration in the Syriac Book. The Parthians are simply treated as one of many ethnic populations living in Mesopotamia or Iran, and they are noted for their polygamous customs. Otherwise ethnicities or polities embedded in the Parthian imperial system are treated as adhering to their own unique laws and customs with limited imperial intervention or presence.39 So, for example, the Medes throw their dead to the dogs, the Hatrenes punish theft with stoning, and the Persians marry their female kin.40 Otherwise, it is simply noted that in the various parts of the Parthian empire (b-malkuta Parthaye) men could kill wives, sons, and brothers while suffering no punishment.41 The text implies that different regional populations made their own decisions on such matters. In sum, the Roman empire is treated as a virtual monolith. The Parthian empire is characterized as an amalgam of many peoples who enjoy their own respective legal systems.
- 42 Fowler 2010; Hauser 2005; Dąbrowa 2013; Gregoratti 2017a, p. 138-141 and 2017b.
- 43 Ando 2000 and 2016; the articles of Lavan – Payne – Weisweiler 2016.
18Despite its arguable tendency to oversimplify, the Syriac Book’s differing characterizations of the Parthian and Roman empires do seem to cohere with how these contemporary empires were structured. The Parthians represented an ethno-cultural elite that governed a mosaic of local communities. While most satraps and client kings were related to the Arsacid dynastic family by c. 200, many such communities had client kings or otherwise figures of authority who served as intermediaries with the Parthian administration.42 By contrast, the Romans were by this period creating a notionally universal empire whose provincial subjects increasingly had Roman citizenship, answered to Roman law, and either joined or served a cosmopolitan imperial elite, even if social and cultural variations persisted through the provinces.43 The Syriac Book thus embodies the tensions that the Roman empire’s ecumenical pretensions could trigger whenever it began to integrate a certain territory into the provincial system.
Acts of the Apostle Thomas
19As we have already witnessed, the surviving text of the Acts of Thomas depicts the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth as well versed in Roman law. Jesus knowingly presents an illegal sale of a slave as a legal transaction to the duped merchant Habban. He then retroactively makes Judas Thomas’ enslavement to Habban legal by coaxing the apostle to be complicit in the transaction, to identify him fraudulently as his owner, and to profit from the sale. Although the Roman empire is scarcely mentioned in the text at all, its resurrected Jesus displays an implicit knowledge of its laws on slavery by breaking or exploiting them.
- 44 See Act 2 of the Greek, in Bonnet 1903, and the Syriac, in Wright 1871. Translation and commentary (...)
20This pattern continues even after Habban and Judas Thomas arrive in India. Once king Gudnaphar acquires Judas Thomas, he gives him an ample amount of money to build a palace while largely unsupervised. Roman elites, and emperors, often had slaves work similarly as financial managers.44 The enslavement of Judas Thomas thus reflects the penetration of Roman patterns of slaving owning, and Roman slave law, in 3rd-century Upper Mesopotamia. If the Syriac Book portrays the implementation of Roman law as invasive, the surviving Acts of Thomas represents it as normative.
- 45 The conventional opinion has been a composition at Edessa in the early 3rd century. Bremmer 2001, (...)
- 46 Roig Lanzillotta 2015.
21As argued in this section, the Acts of Thomas also provides insight into how Upper Mesopotamian Romans were conceiving of imperial structures to the east. But placing it in its original context can be tricky. Many theories now circulate regarding it date, location of composition, and original language. Dates ranging from the 2nd to the late-3rd centuries have been suggested. Locations at Edessa, Nisibis, or simply the general Mediterranean have been surmised. Many have conceived of Syriac as the original language despite the widespread recognition that the Greek is often closer to the original.45 At least one recent article has argued for Greek priority and a text composed in the 2nd-century Mediterranean (not necessarily in the Near East).46
- 47 Andrade 2018, p. 28-50.
- 48 Wright 1871, p. q‘g and qpw-qpz, with Lewis 1904, p. 391, and chapters 2 and 19 of Bonnet 1903 (wi (...)
- 49 Andrade 2018, p. 28-50 lays out the argument more rigorously, based on parallels from Greek papyri (...)
22In my view, we should accept origins at or near Edessa and a Syriac composition in the mid-to-late 3rd century, with the Greek following shortly thereafter. In fact, the impact of Roman imperialism on provincial economic life, and thus the textual world that the narrative communicates, arguably provides vital evidence for such a date. These are explored in greater detail in my recent work,47 but some basic premises can be mentioned here. In various instances, the Greek text (or most edited manuscripts for it) describes financial transactions in silver bullion where the corresponding Syriac text portrays monetary transactions in silver coinage or simply silver. We encounter this feature when Jesus sells Judas Thomas to Habban and when Gudnaphar pays Judas Thomas to build him a palace.48 In these instances, most of the edited Greek manuscripts describe silver simply as asemon, with no other qualification. This is significant. The term asemon only came to mean silver bullion explicitly after 275 CE, when a series of coin reforms began to marginalize silver currency and made exchanges in bullion increasingly common. But before that it simply meant bullion.49 The Greek text thus appears to recast some of the Syriac’s exchanges in coinage as transactions in bullion measured by weight. This feature of the Greek text, and its tendency to use asemon specifically for silver bullion, places it in the late 3rd century, not earlier.
- 50 Mason 1974, p. 13 and 155-62, with searches in TLG.
- 51 IGLS 17.1.57.
23Likewise, the general Siphor, whom the Syriac version of the Acts of Thomas describes as rab ḥayla, is identified by the Greek version as stratelates, not strategos. The shift to using stratelates instead of strategos for a general in the Near East, and the eastern Roman empire, reflects a general trend of the second half of the 3rd century.50 For example, a bilingual inscription at Palmyra dating to 271 CE presents the generals of the famed dynast Zenobia as having the titles rb ḥyl’ and stratelates (not strategos).51 Such signs point to a Greek text composed in the late 3rd century, with the Syriac preceding it somewhat.
- 52 Myers 2010, p. 30-34.
- 53 Ibid.
- 54 For greater detail, Andrade 2015a and 2018, p. 50-64.
- 55 For the historical basis of Gondophares and subsequent Indo-Parthians who assumed his name, see Er (...)
- 56 Andrade 2018.
24The final half or so of the Acts of Thomas (Acts 9-13 in the Greek tradition) is the only part of the text with a coherent, unified plot. It narrates how Judas Thomas converts members of the court of a king named Mazdai, persuades women not to have intercourse with their husbands, and suffers imprisonment and eventually martyrdom (the martyr account may be a later addition). This part reflects the intervention of the 3rd-century author, and we will return to it.52 But much of the Acts of Thomas seems to consist of traditions, stories, and vignettes that had already existed and that were loosely tied together by this author.53 As I argue in my recent work, initial episodes in the narrative, especially those focusing on Judas Thomas’ encounter with king Gudnaphar, appear to be derived from a 2nd-century textual tradition featuring Judas Thomas.54 In this text, now lost but cited by various late antique authors (the earliest being Origen), Judas Thomas was accredited with preaching in Parthia, not India. But the lost text probably featured a sequence in which Judas Thomas traveled from a Persian Gulf port to visit an Indo-Parthian king of north India called Gondophares.55 This feature was then retained in the surviving text, which modified the apostle’s voyage so that he sailed directly from Jerusalem into the Persian Gulf and transformed Gondophares, a Parthian king in north India, into Gudnaphar or Goundaphores, king of India.56
- 57 For this episode, which is Act 2 of the Greek text, see Bonnet 1903, chapters 17-29, Wright 1871, (...)
25Thus, despite the narrative’s Indian setting, the Acts of Thomas arguably models the character Gudnaphar, with his roots in the 2nd century, on a client dynast of Parthian kings. In keeping with Upper Mesopotamian perceptions of Parthian rulers, he appears not to have had the persecutory bent of certain Roman governors or emperors. Gudnaphar’s interest in Judas Thomas consists of his desire to have a special palace built by a master craftsman. He has no interest in the apostle’s religious inclinations. Conflicts only arise after the king gives Judas Thomas massive amounts of gold and silver to finance the project and discovers that he has given them to the poor. He is nonplussed to learn that Judas Thomas was allegedly building him a palace in heaven. The king has him imprisoned and even contemplates having him killed. But he is eventually won over when he discovers that the palace is real.57
- 58 See chapter 20 of Bonnet 1903 and Wright 1871.
- 59 Drijvers 1965, p. 44 and Ramelli 2009a, p. 180.
- 60 Shaked 1990 and Gignoux 1983a and 1983b.
- 61 On Parthian imperial structuring, see n. 42.
26Intriguingly, the narrative also makes references to Persian magi as people whom Gudnaphar could expect to govern but from which he was ethnically distinct. Gudnaphar’s courtiers in fact warn him that Judas Thomas might be a magus.58 This is in keeping with how the aforementioned Syriac Book conceives of magi as ethnic Persians who maintained unique hieratic traditions wherever they settled.59 But here the Persian magi are not being conceived of as part of the ruling order, as they were under the Achaemenid dynasty and would be under the Sasanians.60 The implicit conceptualization is that of the Parthian imperial system. There local client kings exerted much autonomy. Likewise, the governing elite of the Parthian administration and most of its client courts did not consist of ethnic Persians. Instead, ethnic Persians were outsiders, foreigners, or simply subjects, even if Zoroastrian priests did receive royal patronage.61
- 62 IGLS 17.1.250, with 26.
- 63 Periplus Maris Erythraei 38, in Casson 1989 and Belfiore 2004.
- 64 Philost., VA 2.41.
27One significantly can find earlier or contemporary parallels for framing courts in north India as Parthian in some way. It must be stressed that in the 1st-2nd centuries, eastern Romans had the basic knowledge that Sakas and Parthians inhabited north India. When Greek inscriptions at Palmyra describe trips to north India, they use the name Skythia.62 The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, probably a mid-to-late 1st-century text, describes how Parthian dynasts in north India were constantly overthrowing one another.63 In The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, the dynast that Apollonius encounters at Taxila has the distinctly Parthian name Phraotes.64 This adds further plausibility to the reckoning that the late 2nd-century narrative of Judas Thomas’ exploits in Parthia included a visit to a Parthian king in north India called by the Iranian name Gondophares. But when the episode, or parts of it, was reused and modified in the surviving narrative, Gondophares was reconstituted as Gudnaphar (Syriac).
- 65 Myers 2010, p. 51-52. See now Payne 2015, p. 24-25 and Panaino 2016 for a new evaluation of Kirdir (...)
- 66 Wright 1871, p. šṭ and chapter 40 of Bonnet 1903; Myers 2010, p. 41-42. For Persians and their ord (...)
28If the treatment of Gudnaphar in the Acts of Thomas has roots in the 2nd century, that by king Mazdai we can situate to the mid-to-late 3rd. This would be after the formation of the Sasanian Persian empire and amid increased rivalries between Christians and Zoroastrians during the activity of the magus Kirdir, a figure active between the reigns of Shapur I and Vahram II. Kirdir sought to subordinate Christians to Zoroastrians but perhaps did not have the persecutory bent often ascribed to him by scholarship.65 This has bearing on how the Acts of Thomas portrays Mazdai. In many respects, Mazdai behaves as a generic pagan whose kinsmen worship the so-called gods of the East. But his name bears an obvious resemblance to Ahura Mazda. Perhaps more significantly, he has Thomas endure a trial by fire involving his having to walk on plates engulfed in flames.66 Also noticeable is that he and his kinsmen repeatedly describe Judas Thomas as a sorcerer, which the corresponding Greek could render as magos. But in the Syriac text, they never call him a magus. As we have seen, Gudnaphar’s courtiers had understood a magus to be an ethnic Persian ascetic and, as such, foreign. Here there is no hint that magi are foreign. Judas Thomas is simply described as a sorcerer, and so the king advocates for the sort of ordeal by fire sanctioned by Persian magi. Thus the court of Mazdai seems to reflect a certain conception of Sasanian monarchy or one of its client courts, even if it is not a particularly knowledgeable one.
- 67 Wright 1871, p. rpw and chapter 115 of Bonnet 1903.
- 68 Volkmann 1937.
- 69 Hymn of the Pearl 42, 48, and 60, in Poirier 1981 and Ferreira 2002. On pasgriba, see Gnoli 2002 a (...)
29But one final feature of the Acts of Thomas supports this premise. It is the treatment of Karish, a kinsman of king Mazdai, as his so-called second. When Karish’ wife becomes devoted to Judas Thomas, Karish laments that a man of his stature could be rebuffed by his wife. He specifies that he had been appointed trayana (Syriac) or deuteros (Greek) by king Mazdai.67 This may reflect a tendency for Greek-writing authors of the Mediterranean world, including Jews, to conceive of Iranian monarchs as having a viceroy who was second in power.68 But here it could represent the Syriac translation of the Parthian pasgriba, a title used at Edessa and Hatra for heirs apparents to the throne. In the Syriac of the Hymn of the Pearl, the son of the Parthian king is called both pasgriba and trayana.69 Either way, the reference to trayana indicates that the Acts of Thomas was modeling Mazdai’s court on an Upper Mesopotamian perception of Persian monarchy or client kingship, whatever the cultural influences on that perception may have been.
- 70 Myers 2010, p. 50-52 provides some key reflections.
- 71 Payne 2015 and Smith 2016 inform my treatment of Sasanian governance and the Persian Martyr Acts.
- 72 Payne 2016.
30Intriguingly, the Acts of Thomas does not necessarily depict Mazdai as uniformly hostile to Christianity or Christians. He becomes furious because Thomas steers the women at his court away from sexual intercourse with their husbands and converts his kinsmen and closest peers.70 This is not an unfamiliar theme of previous and contemporary Christian literature in the Roman empire, but it does seem to align with the activity of Persian kings and administrators during the later half of the 3rd century and, to a certain degree, even after that. They did not demand religious uniformity or engage in universal Christian persecution or executions, in spite of the exaggerated claims of the Persian Martyr Acts after the 4th century.71 They instead endeavored to create a world order in which Christianity and other religions were subordinate to Zoroastrianism and helped fulfill its broader mission.72 This would explain Mazdai’s decision to have Judas Thomas endure an ordeal by fire. It also arguably places in context his decision to have the apostle whipped, imprisoned, and eventually executed. Persian authorities could enact state-sponsored violence with terrifying brutality, just like their Roman counterparts. But they normally punished, tortured, or executed those who converted Zoroastrians or who violated specific laws mandated by the monarchy. In their larger known persecutions, they typically targeted ecclesiastical officials and ascetics who had engaged in putatively transgressive behavior. Altogether, it seems that Persian authorities did not massacre standard Christian laypersons simply because they were Christians. Mazdai’s violent suppression of Thomas’ efforts to convert the women and eventually men of his court thus appears to reflect an Upper Mesopotamian perspective on the activity of officials in the Sasanian empire. This perspective significantly took form before the more violent episodes of the 4th century and the circulation of Persian Martyr Acts that created influential narratives for this violence.
The Teaching of Addai
- 73 Philips 1876 for text. Griffiths 2003; Wood 2010, p. 82-100; Ramelli 2015, p. 225-226.
- 74 Eusebius, HE 1.13 in Schwartz and Mommsen 1999.
- 75 See Brock 1992; Ramelli 2015, p. 213-225. Ramelli 1999a, p. 107-129 and 2009c, 2013, and 2015, p. (...)
- 76 Eusebius, HE 1.13.5, 11, and 22 in Schwartz – Mommsen 1999.
31To treat the Teaching of Addai (Doctrina Addai) as a 3rd-century Syriac narrative may strike some as adventurous. After all, the complete surviving text, as we know it, is typically dated to the 5th century.73 The earliest explicit witness to the narrative is Eusebius, who included parts of it, translated into Greek, in his Ecclesiastical History (c. 300).74 But recent endeavors to identify the historical substrates of the narrative have proven fruitful. While the narrative’s 1st-century traces remain hypothetical (if intriguing), its portrayal of Abgar Ukkama’s letter exchange with Jesus and the subsequent preaching of the apostle Addai (Thaddaeus) at Edessa have 3rd-century origins.75 Written in Syriac at Edessa, parts of the narrative had been translated into Greek by the end of the century. Eusebius demonstrates as much.76
32The narrative treats Edessa and Osrhoene anachronistically as a client kingdom of Rome during the time of Christ. This better reflects the political situation c. 200. But one statement of particular interest mentions the Roman empire, and since it appears in both the versions of Eusebius and the 5th-century Syriac text, we can trace it to a common 3rd-century source. According to the narrative, the king Abgar Ukkama informed the apostle Addai that he wanted to massacre the Jews who crucified Jesus, but he refrained due to Roman imperial structuring. The phrasing of Eusebius, probably closest to the original, is as follows:
- 77 Eusebius, HE 1.13.16 in Schwartz – Mommsen 1999.
King Abgar said to him (Addai), "I had such faith in him (Jesus) that I would have wanted to gather an army and slaughter the Jews who crucified him, if I had not been restrained from it on account of the Roman empire (τὴν βασιλείαν τὴν Ῥωμαίων)".77
- 78 Teaching of Addai (Doctrina Addai) in Phillips 1876, p. w and Rufinus, HE 1.13.16 in Schwartz and (...)
33The surviving Syriac version and Rufinus’ Latin translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History both faithfully replicate the statement for the most part. The Syriac version attributes Abgar’s restraint to the kingdom of the Romans (malkuta hay d-ruhmaye), Rufinus’ text to the authority of Roman rule (Romani regni auctoritas). The Syriac text, however, includes mention of a treaty or alliance that Abgar had made with the emperor Tiberius. This was presumably added later.78
- 79 The Cave of Treasures 53.21-25 in Ri 1987. See Wood 2010, p. 117-126 and Minov 2013.
34While the episode appears to be largely fictitious, the Roman empire serves a useful purpose within it. It enabled Edessene Christians to craft historical memories of king Abgar’s devotion to Jesus, without having to explain why he never punished the Jews who had killed him. In this way, they could lay claim to a devout king who had reportedly befriended Jesus while he was still living, but while shifting any blame for Jesus’ un-avenged death. Eventually Edessenes and those influenced by their narratives would even argue that Syriac-speakers uniquely bore no responsibility for Jesus’ death. Speakers of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin had however played a role, and that was why Jesus’ cross bore a sign that identified him as king of the Jews in those languages.79 But this tradition took shape centuries later. During the 3rd century, Roman authorities had restructured Osrhoene’s administrative boundaries, deposed and reinstated its kings, implemented laws, organized populations, and claimed exclusive authority to inflict legitimate violence. So while the Roman state’s violent confrontations with Jews and destruction of their most sacred site are well known, it restricted the violence that others could commit. When Edessene Christians of the era wondered why their devout king Abgar Ukkama did not avenge Jesus’ death, they had a convenient answer: Roman rule (τὴν βασιλείαν τὴν Ῥωμαίων, malkuta hay d-rhumaye, Romani regni auctoritas).
Conclusion
35In this article, we have examined the perspectives offered by texts whose provenance can be traced with certainty or high probability to 3rd-century Osrhoene. They offer us glimpses of how certain Edessenes, especially Christians, experienced the impact of Roman imperialism at a critical juncture: the incremental integration of Osrhoene into the Roman provincial system. We hear of the Romans’ allegedly insatiable lust for conquest. We witness beliefs that they imposed legal and cultural uniformity, in contrast to the Parthians who reportedly did not. These fears and beliefs, articulated by the Syriac Book, reflect tensions at the heart of the imperial system’s organization of Osrhoene’s inhabitants into a provincial population. But we also discover how inhabitants of the region came to normalize the imperial system’s legal expectations and exclusive claims to legitimate violence, despite the 3rd century’s political turbulence and the constant threat (if not actuality) of Persian invasion. In this way the resurrected Jesus of the Acts of Thomas became an expert on Roman slave law, and in the Addai narrative Roman rule prevented king Abgar Ukkama from avenging Jesus’ death.
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Speidel 2007 = M. Speidel, Ein Bollwerk für Syrien: Septimius Severus und die Provinzordnung Nordmesopotamiens im dritten Jahrhundert, in Chiron, 37, 2007, p. 405-433.
Stoll 2009 = O. Stoll, Kentaur und Tyche–Symbole städtischer Identität? Resaina, Singara, und ihre Legionsgarnisonen im Spiegel städtischer Münzpragungen, in M. Blömer, M. Facella, E. Winter (ed.), Lokale Identität im römischen Nahen Osten: Kontexte und Perspektiven, Stuttgart, 2009 (Oriens et occidens 19), p. 249-340.
Volkmann 1937 = H. Volkmann, Die Zweite nach dem König, in Philologus, 92, 1937, p. 285-316.
Weitzman 1999 = M. Weitzman, The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: an Introduction, Cambridge, 1999 (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications 56).
Wood 2010 = P. Wood, 'We have no King but Christ': Christian Political Thought in Greater Syria on the Eve of the Arab Conquest (c.400-585), Oxford, 2010 (Oxford Studies in Byzantium).
Wright 1871 = W. Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, II, London, 1871.
Notes
1 Bonnet 1903, chapters 1-3 and Wright 1871, p. q‘b-q‘d. On slavery in the text, Glancy 2012.
2 Harper 2011, p. 392-398. For relevance to the Acts of Thomas, Andrade 2018, p. 48-49.
3 For comparison, P1 in Drijvers – Healey 1999, p. 232-234. On this, see Andrade 2015b.
4 Harper 2011, p. 395.
5 On Roman slave labor, Bodel 2011.
6 Acts of Thomas, chapter 151, with 118, in Bonnet 1903, and Wright 1871, šiḥ, with rpḥ.
7 Ramelli 2004b, 2005, and 2008, p. 256-266; Chin 2006; Rensberger 2010; Merz – Tieleman 2008 and 2012; McVey 2015. For ps.-Melito, Lightfoot 2007 and Ramelli 1999b, 2009b, p. 60 and 2009d, p. 149-153.
8 Harrak 2002 and 2014 and Andrade 2015c.
9 Key studies informing what follows are Ramelli 1999a, p. 130-43 and 2004a; Gawlikowski 1998; Ross 2001; Sommer 2005, p. 225-69 and 2010; Gnoli 2008, p. 33-45; Possekel 2016.
10 Ross 2001, p. 9-11 and 20.
11 Ross 2001, p. 36-43.
12 Ross 2001, p. 36.
13 Ross 2011, p. 38 and 47-49.
14 For the following discussion, Ross 2001, p. 46-53; Speidel 2007; Sommer 2005, p. 238-246.
15 Stoll 2009.
16 Caillou – Brelaud 2016.
17 P 2 in Drijvers – Healey 1999, p. 237-239.
18 Dąbrowa 2004 and 2012.
19 Ross 2001, p. 58-59 and Sommer 2005, p. 244-248.
20 Ando 2000, p. 312-21 on the census and other rituals of Roman citizenship.
21 Drijvers – Healey 1999, p. 232-48; Feissel – Gascou 1995 and 2000; Feissel – Gascou – Teixidor 1997. See also Andrade 2015b.
22 See, for example, Shapur I’s rock-cut inscriptions in Huyse 1999.
23 Healey 2007 and 2016; Brock 2001; Gzella 2015, p. 256-260 and 366-378.
24 As captured by Drijvers 1984.
25 Weitzman 1999, esp. p. 258-262; Haar Romeny 2005, esp. p. 90-95. IK Estremo oriente, no. 26; IJO, Syr. 78-80.
26 Bardaisan’s On Fate, mentioned by Eusebius, HE 4.30 in Schwartz – Mommsen 1999, is perhaps an earlier version of the Syriac Book dating to the late 2nd century. See Ramelli 2009a, p. 18-32 and 2009b, p. 54-60 and 115-22, with BNJ 719, Fr. 3. Large excerpts of the Syriac Book or a common source appear in Greek in Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel (6.9.32-6.10 in Mras and del Places 2012), though Ramelli suggests that this is Bardaisan’s On Fate. The text of the surviving Syriac Book treats the Parthian empire as contemporary and refers to the Roman empire’s recent seizure of Oshroenian ‘Arab. Millar 2011, p. 97.
27 On which, for example, Mattingly 2011; Andrade 2013; Revell 2016; Pitts – Versluys 2015; Gardner – Herring – Lomas 2015.
28 The treatments of Bardaisan and his disciples on Indians and eastern peoples are often consistent with Greek and Roman ethnographic traditions. See Biffi 2011, Jullien – Jullien 2002, p. 130-32, and the commentary of BNJ 719, F.3. I treat this issue with greater detail in Andrade, forthcoming.
29 Andrade 2013.
30 Drijvers 1965, p. 52 and Ramelli 2009a, p. 190.
31 Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 6.10.35 in Mras – des Places 2012.
32 Klauck 2008, p. 196 and 199-200 and Jones 2012, p. 3-5 and 8. The precise relationship between the corresponding passages of the Syriac Book, Eusebius' Preparation, and Rufinus’ Clementine Recognitions (and their connection with Bardaisan’s on Fate) are yet unresolved. See Jones 2012, p. 21-22 and 68-71 and the commentary of BNJ 719, F.3. See also n. 26.
33 Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 6.10.35 in Mras and des Places 2012 and Clem. Recog. 9.25.6-7 in Rehm – Streker 2011.
34 Drijvers 1965, p. 56; Ramelli 2009a, p. 194. For political intervention, see n. 26 above. For ‘Arab or Arabia near Edessa, which was one of many "Arabias" in antiquity, see MacDonald 2009, p. 281-283 and 297.
35 Abusch 2003, p. 84-89.
36 Drijvers 1965, p. 58 and Ramelli 2009a, p. 196; Eusebius, Praep Ev. 6.10.44 in Mras – des Places 2012, with Ross 2001, p. 133-135 on Abgar.
37 Millar 2011, p. 97.
38 Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 6.10.41 in Mras and des Places 2012 and Clem. Recog. 9.27.6-7 in Rehm – Streker 2011.
39 It is beyond present consideration whether the Syriac Book is accurate in its portrayal of eastern peoples’ customs. But see Jullien – Jullien 2002, p. 130-132. See also Andrade forthcoming.
40 Drijvers 1965, p. 46-50 and Ramelli 2009a, p. 182-86. For Hatra’s laws and the Syriac Book, Kaizer 2006.
41 Drijvers 1965, p. 44 and Ramelli 2009a, p. 180.
42 Fowler 2010; Hauser 2005; Dąbrowa 2013; Gregoratti 2017a, p. 138-141 and 2017b.
43 Ando 2000 and 2016; the articles of Lavan – Payne – Weisweiler 2016.
44 See Act 2 of the Greek, in Bonnet 1903, and the Syriac, in Wright 1871. Translation and commentary are in Klijn 2003. On slave financial roles, Edmonson 2011, p. 341.
45 The conventional opinion has been a composition at Edessa in the early 3rd century. Bremmer 2001, p. 76-79. Myers 2010, p. 29-55 treats the state of scholarship and surmises a text composed in Upper Mesopotamia (at or near Nisibis) in the later 3rd-century.
46 Roig Lanzillotta 2015.
47 Andrade 2018, p. 28-50.
48 Wright 1871, p. q‘g and qpw-qpz, with Lewis 1904, p. 391, and chapters 2 and 19 of Bonnet 1903 (with textual variations).
49 Andrade 2018, p. 28-50 lays out the argument more rigorously, based on parallels from Greek papyri of Egypt (through papyri.info) and literary texts (through TLG).
50 Mason 1974, p. 13 and 155-62, with searches in TLG.
51 IGLS 17.1.57.
52 Myers 2010, p. 30-34.
53 Ibid.
54 For greater detail, Andrade 2015a and 2018, p. 50-64.
55 For the historical basis of Gondophares and subsequent Indo-Parthians who assumed his name, see Errington and Curtis 2014, p. 66-68.
56 Andrade 2018.
57 For this episode, which is Act 2 of the Greek text, see Bonnet 1903, chapters 17-29, Wright 1871, p. qph-qṣw.
58 See chapter 20 of Bonnet 1903 and Wright 1871.
59 Drijvers 1965, p. 44 and Ramelli 2009a, p. 180.
60 Shaked 1990 and Gignoux 1983a and 1983b.
61 On Parthian imperial structuring, see n. 42.
62 IGLS 17.1.250, with 26.
63 Periplus Maris Erythraei 38, in Casson 1989 and Belfiore 2004.
64 Philost., VA 2.41.
65 Myers 2010, p. 51-52. See now Payne 2015, p. 24-25 and Panaino 2016 for a new evaluation of Kirdir. For an edition and translation of Kirdir’s inscriptions, Gignoux 1991.
66 Wright 1871, p. šṭ and chapter 40 of Bonnet 1903; Myers 2010, p. 41-42. For Persians and their ordeals, Jullien 2004, p. 257-258.
67 Wright 1871, p. rpw and chapter 115 of Bonnet 1903.
68 Volkmann 1937.
69 Hymn of the Pearl 42, 48, and 60, in Poirier 1981 and Ferreira 2002. On pasgriba, see Gnoli 2002 and 2007, p. 115-121.
70 Myers 2010, p. 50-52 provides some key reflections.
71 Payne 2015 and Smith 2016 inform my treatment of Sasanian governance and the Persian Martyr Acts.
72 Payne 2016.
73 Philips 1876 for text. Griffiths 2003; Wood 2010, p. 82-100; Ramelli 2015, p. 225-226.
74 Eusebius, HE 1.13 in Schwartz and Mommsen 1999.
75 See Brock 1992; Ramelli 2015, p. 213-225. Ramelli 1999a, p. 107-129 and 2009c, 2013, and 2015, p. 205-213 makes the case for the historicity of the letter exchange between Tiberius and Abgar Ukkama.
76 Eusebius, HE 1.13.5, 11, and 22 in Schwartz – Mommsen 1999.
77 Eusebius, HE 1.13.16 in Schwartz – Mommsen 1999.
78 Teaching of Addai (Doctrina Addai) in Phillips 1876, p. w and Rufinus, HE 1.13.16 in Schwartz and Mommsen 1999. See Ramelli 2009c, p. 22.
79 The Cave of Treasures 53.21-25 in Ri 1987. See Wood 2010, p. 117-126 and Minov 2013.
© Publications de l’École française de Rome, 2020