A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. Группа авторов. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

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bibliography (Brock 1979: 29 includes a helpful table on what period each one of the main historiographical texts covers). There also survive Syriac translations of Greek historiographical works, including Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History and Chronicon, Socrates Scholasticus’s Ecclesiastical History, Theodoret of Cyrrhus’s Ecclesiastical History and Religious History, and Zacharias Rhetor’s Ecclesiastical History, which is lost in the Greek original.

      Other Literature

      In addition to historiography proper, other Syriac texts can be useful for the study of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East, not only on account of the material they contain about the emergence of Christianity in relation to enduring pre-Christian cults and traditions (Chapter 38), but also, and more broadly, about the interactions between local and Greco-Roman cultures in the context of the Roman provincial world. One of the earliest surviving Syriac pieces of literature is also a most extraordinary Syriac text: it takes the form of a prose dialogue featuring the Edessene nobleman and philosopher Bardaisan (154–222) conversing with his philosophically minded pupils on the issue of human free will. This dialogue, composed in the early third century, shows awareness of Platonic models, and includes an ethnographic excursus that lists some of the curious customs of different peoples; these customs include the ancient (and reportedly no-longer-in-use) religious practice of self-emasculation in honor of Atargatis in Edessa of which Bardaisan was likely well-informed (English translation in Drijvers 1965; Millar 1993: 474–475; Healey 2019). Additional information about pre-Christian cults in Edessa, and the Near East more broadly, can be found in the Apology of Ps.-Meliton (Chapter 5). Despite being configured as Christian texts opposing non-Christian cults and practices, Christian apologies such as that by Ps.-Meliton can be helpful sources for the study of pre-Christian religion and cults, and, more broadly, of the continuity of Greco-Roman culture among Syriac speakers; the Syriac translations of the early apologists Ps.-Justin Martyr (Exhortation to the Greeks) and Aristides (Apology) effectively provided an elementary introduction, in Syriac, to Greek philosophy and Greek mythology.

      An early Syriac document for which it has proved especially difficult to find a precise historical context is the Letter of Mara bar Serapion (text and English translation in Cureton 1855; see now the contributions in Merz and Tieleman 2012). It is unclear whether or not a Greek original underlies this Syriac text, and hypotheses of chronology have also varied considerably, ranging from the second to the fourth centuries CE. The text takes the form of a letter by a self-styled philosopher to his son and offers pieces of moral advice perhaps inspired by Stoic ethics. Especially problematic is the reference that the text makes to the Romans’ occupation of Samosata, and to the ensuing exile of the author; this passage might be a reference to the Roman takeover of Commagene in the early 70s CE. Some scholars, however, emphasizing the overall lack of historical detail in the text, have argued that its moral contents and format suggest instead strong links with higher rhetorical education and, in particular, with the school exercise of the chreia elaboration (McVey 1990; Millar 1993: 460–462; Chin 2006). In fact, the text contains references and anecdotes about Greek historical figures such as Achilles, Socrates, and Pythagoras, and does indeed attest to the endurance of Greek paideia (“education”) in Syriac. The Letter of Mara bar Serapion should be understood within the context of the large strand of early Syriac instructional literature that demonstrates the continuity of Greco-Roman educational traditions in Syriac, such as the translations of works by Plutarch, Lucian, and Themistius, and wisdom literature attributed to ancient Greek philosophers (Brock 2003; Rigolio 2013; Arzhanov 2019).

      Greco-Roman themes did not disappear from the Syriac literature of the following centuries; here, they often intersected the patterns in which Syriac speakers wrote and re-wrote their own past (Wood 2010, 2012). In the aftermath of Emperor Julian’s defeat in 363 CE, Ephrem the Syrian composed four hymns (madrashe) Against Julian; they describe, in condemnatory terms, the reign of Julian and the Roman surrender of Nisibis (Ephrem’s own homeland) as part of the peace deal with the Sasanians; as a result of this event Ephrem emigrated to Edessa, which remained under Roman control. The hymns are often described as vivid invectives written by somebody who had direct experience of the events narrated and contain important historical information (for instance on Julian’s bull coinage). Perhaps paradoxically, however, in these hymns Ephrem presents Nisibis as a bulwark of paganism, a city that, under Julian’s government, opted to set up idolatrous cults within its walls; in Ephrem’s view, the eventual surrender of Nisibis to the Sasanians was just retribution for its own paganism (Griffith 1987). Another especially notable text dealing with Julian, and known as the Julian Romance, is a composite narrative about the reigns of Emperors Julian (361–363) and Jovian (363–364) that strongly condemns Julian and his persecution of Christians. The Julian Romance