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Description - Roman Edessa by Steven K. Ross

The ancient city of Edessa (modern-day Urfa, Turkey), well-watered and located on a trade route, underwent major urban development in the Seleucid period and came under Parthian influence at the end of the second century. Its rulers - the Abgarid dynasty with Arab/Nabatean connections - pursued a semi-independent policy until Edessa came permanently within the Roman orbit under Septimius Severus. Steven Ross examines the processes of absorption into the empire employing epigraphic, numismatic and historical material, some recently discovered.
Among the areas explored are: * the cultural life and antecedents of Edessa, which in the later period became a centre of Christian activity and an important link in the transmission of classical literaure via Syriac and Arabic * Edessene religion, Bardaisan, the first Syriac philosopher, and artistic influences as reflected in funerary mosaics to conclude that the period beginning with Abgar VIII was a Golden Age of prosperity and cultural production * the extent of Hellenization at Edessa before the advent of Christianity * the myth of an exchange of letters between a King Abgar and Jesus to challenge the received view that these letters prompted a later King's conversion to Christianity. Roman Edessa offers a comprehensive and erudite analysis of the ancient city of Edessa, which constituted a remarkable amalgam of the East and the West.

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