The Letter of Mara Bar Sarapion in Conte

The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion in Context
Culture and History of the

Ancient Near East
Founding Editor
M.H.E. Weippert
Editor-in-Chief
Thomas Schneider
Editors
Eckart Frahm
W. Randall Garr
Baruch Halpern
Theo P.J. van den Hout
Irene J. Winter
VOLUME 58
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/chan

The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion
in Context
Proceedings of the Symposium Held at
Utrecht University, 10–12 December 2009
Edited by
Annette Merz and Teun Tieleman
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2012
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations .......................................................................................... vii

List of Maps ...................................................................................................... xi
Contributors ..................................................................................................... xiii
1. General Introduction .............................................................................. 1

2. Making Use of History beyond the Euphrates: Political Views,

Cultural Traditions, and Historical Contexts in the Letter
of Mara bar Sarapion ......................................................................... 11
Michael A. Speidel
3. Cultural Responses from Kingdom to Province: The

Romanisation of Commagene, Local Identities and the
Mara bar Sarapion Letter ................................................................. 43
Miguel John Versluys
4. Languages, Cultural Identities and Elites in the Land of Mara

bar Sarapion ......................................................................................... 67
Margherita Facella
5. Religious Life of Commagene in the Late Hellenistic and Early

Roman Period ...................................................................................... 95
Michael Blömer
6. Jesus as the Ever-Living Lawgiver in the Letter of Mara bar

Sarapion ................................................................................................. 129
Petr Pokorný
7. Mara’s God(s) and Time ........................................................................ 141

Albert de Jong
8. Where is Wisdom to be Found? A Plea in Favor of Semitic

Influences in the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion ........................... 155
Pancratius C. Beentjes
vi contents
9. Mara bar Sarapion and Greek Philosophy ....................................... 167

David L. Blank
10. The Death(s) of Plato ............................................................................. 183

Anna Ntinti
11. Consolation from Prison: Mara bar Sarapion and Boethius ...... 193
Pieter W. van der Horst
12. Mara bar Sarapion: Comments on the Syriac Edition,

Translation, and Notes by David Rensberger ............................ 205
Ilaria L.E. Ramelli
Index of Names and Subjects ...................................................................... 233

Index of Ancient Sources ............................................................................. 238
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Languages, Cultural Identities and Elites in the Land of Mara bar Sarapion
By Margherita Facella
Fig. 1. Nemrud Dağı, East Terrace: The gods of Antiochus I of

Commagene [photo-courtesy of K. Painter] ..................................... 69
Fig. 2. Syriac inscription from Birecik [photo © H.J.W. Drijvers &
J.F. Healey, The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene.
Texts, Translations and Commentary, Leiden – Boston – Köln:
Brill, 1999, As55a, Plate 40] ..................................................................... 71
Fig. 3. Inscription from Kılafık Höyük, front of the stele [photos
© H. Waldmann, Die kommagenischen Kultreformen unter
König Mithradates I. Kallinikos und seinem Sohne Antiochos I.,
EPRO 34, Leiden: Brill, 1973, Tafel XXXVIII] ...................................... 73
Fig. 4. Inscription from Kılafık Höyük, left side of the stele
[photos © H. Waldmann, Die kommagenischen Kultreformen
unter König Mithradates I. Kallinikos und seinem Sohne
Antiochos I., EPRO 34, Leiden: Brill, 1973, Tafel XXXVIII] ............. 74
Fig. 5. Adıyaman Museum: The altar of Markellos from Sofraz
Köy, front [photo-courtesy of Charles Crowther] .......................... 76
Köy, right side [photo-courtesy of Charles Crowther] ................... 77
Köy, left side [photo-courtesy of Charles Crowther] ...................... 78
Fig. 8. Coin of Samosata [photo-courtesy of P.-F. Jacquier] ............. 79
Fig. 9. Coins of Samosata from the British Museum Collection
[photo © A. Burnett – M. Amandry – P.P. Ripollès, The Roman
Provincial Coinage I. From the death of Caesar to the death of
Vitellius (44 BC–AD 69), vol. I, London – Paris 1992: British
Museum Press, part II Plate 148, nos. 3848–3851]. ........................... 81
viii list of illustrations
Religious Life of Commagene in the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman

Period By Michael Blömer
Fig. 1. City walls of Samosata (Urfa-Gate) [photo © Levent

Zoroǧlu, Samosata. Ausgrabungen in der kommagenischen
Hauptstadt, in Gottkönige am Euphrat. Neue Ausgrabungen
und Forschungen in Kommagene, ed. by Jörg Wagner, Mainz:
v. Zabern, 2000, p. 76 fig. 102/103] ......................................................... 100
Fig. 2. General view of Samosata [photo-courtesy of the
Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Dörner-Archiv] .................................. 101
Fig. 3. Head of Zeus from Samosata [photo © Levent Zoroǧlu,
Samosata. Ausgrabungen in der kommagenischen Hauptstadt,
in Gottkönige am Euphrat. Neue Ausgrabungen und Forschungen
in Kommagene, ed. by Jörg Wagner, Mainz: v. Zabern, 2000,
p. 77 fig. 105] ................................................................................................ 102
Fig. 4. Arsameia on the Euphrates (Gerger Kale): General view
from eastern direction. The site is situated on top of the
isolated rock [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] ......................... 104
Fig. 5. Arsameia on the Euphrates (Gerger Kale): Rock-relief of
king Samos II [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] ........................ 105
Fig. 6. Ancoz (Eskitaş): Remains of the temple [photo-courtesy
of Michael Blömer] .................................................................................... 106
Fig. 7. Ancoz (Eskitaş): Wall revetted with opus reticulatum in
the substruction of the temple [photo-courtesy of Michael
Blömer] ......................................................................................................... 107
Fig. 8. Damlıca. Site of the sanctuary in the escarpment of the
Euphrates River [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] ................... 110
Fig. 9. Damlıca: Corridor with inscription below a recess in the
wall [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] .......................................... 111
Fig. 10. Damlıca: Detail of the inscription [photo-courtesy of
Michael Blömer] ......................................................................................... 112
Fig. 11. Yarımca: Relief of a mountain god in a Roman quarry
[photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] ................................................... 114
Fig. 12. Ain Dara: Orthostat with mountain god [photo-courtesy
of Michael Blömer] .................................................................................... 115
Fig. 13. View of the Doliche and the Dülük Baba Tepesi with the
sanctuary of Jupiter Dolichenus [photo-courtesy of the
Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster] .............................................. 116
list of illustrations ix
Fig. 14. Bronze statuette of Jupiter Dolichenus from Maur an der

Url [photo © M.P. Speidel, The Religion of Iuppiter
Dolichenus in the Roman Army, EPRO 63, Leiden: Brill, 1978,
Frontispiece] ............................................................................................... 118
Fig. 15. Dülük Baba Tepesi: Late Iron Age wall and adjacent
pebble floor [photo-courtesy of the Forschungsstelle Asia
Minor, Münster] ......................................................................................... 120
Fig. 16. Dülük Baba Tepesi: Small finds from Late Iron Age
deposits in the sanctuary of Jupiter Dolichenus [photo-
courtesy of the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster] ................ 121
Fig. 17. Dülük Baba Tepesi: Bronze applique in the shape of
Jupiter Dolichenus [photo-courtesy of the Forschungsstelle
Asia Minor, Münster] ............................................................................... 123
Fig. 18. Dülük Baba Tepesi: Basalt stele [photo-courtesy of the
Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster] .............................................. 125
LIST OF MAPS
Maps are located in a separate quire at the back of this book.
Map 1. Asia Minor in the Graeco-Roman period: From: “Historical Atlas”

by William R. Shepherd (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1923), 20.
Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas
at Austin.
Map 2. Commagene: Tafel 1 from E. Winter (ed.), PATRIS PANTROFOS

KOMMAGHNH. Neue Funde und Forschungen zwischen Taurus und
Euphrat, Asia Minor Studien 60 (Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmBH: Bonn,
2008).
CONTRIBUTORS
Professor Emeritus of Old Testament
Tilburg University
David L. Blank
Professor of Classics
The University of California at Los Angeles
Michael Blömer
Research Assistant at the Institute for Classical and Early Christian
Archeology
The University of Münster
Margherita Facella
Researcher and Lecturer at the Department of Ancient History
The University of Pisa

Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegesis, Early Christian Literature,
and the Jewish and Hellenistic World of Early Christianity
Utrecht University
Albert de Jong
Professor of Comparative Religion
Leiden University
Annette Merz
Extraordinary Professor of Culture and Literature of Earliest Christianity
Utrecht University
Anna Ntinti
Independent Scholar
Athens
xiv contributors
Petr Pokorný
Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Senior Research Fellow
Centre for Biblical Studies at the Charles University, Prague
Ilaria L.E. Ramelli

Professor of History of the Roman Near East, Assistant of Ancient
Philosophy
The Catholic University at Milan
Michael A. Speidel
Professor of Ancient History
The University of Bern
Teun Tieleman
Associate Professor of Ancient Philosophy
Utrecht University

Associate Professor of Classical Archeology
Leiden University
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The letter of Mara bar Sarapion to his son—preserved in a single Syriac

manuscript from the 7th century1 and first edited, with an English transla-
tion, by William Cureton in 18552—is as intriguing as it is problematic. It
purports to have been written from Roman imprisonment after military
events involving Mara’s hometown Samosata, capital of the kingdom of
Commagene. Mara complains bitterly about Roman imperialism. At the
same time, uncertain whether he will be released or executed, he speaks
of the need to accept fate with composure. Facing the loss of loved ones,
social status and material goods, he calls for the pursuit of wisdom, thus
leaving his son his philosophy of life. Given its rich contents, this docu-
ment is potentially important to various subfields of historical scholarship:
the study of early Syriac and related Aramaic languages, ancient religion
(including early Christianity) and philosophy, the military and political
history of the Roman Empire as well as Near Eastern culture and society.
Additional interest lies in the likelihood that we are dealing with one of
the oldest extant specimens of Syriac literature, a text that may also be
exceptional in being non-Christian.
The letter of Mara bar Sarapion attracted some attention in the
decades after its publication by Cureton, but the past century can only
be described as one of comparative neglect.3 Today the letter is mainly
known for the passage where Mara refers to the “wise king of the Jews,”
which has been regarded by New Testament scholars as a possible refer-
ence to Jesus.4 However, the interpretive issues surrounding this single
1 British Library Additional 14658. Cf. William Wright, Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts
in the British Museum Acquired Since the Year 1838 (London: British Museum, 1870–2),
3.1154.
2 William Cureton, ed. and transl. Spicilegium Syriacum: Containing Remains of Barde-
san, Meliton, Ambrose, and Mara bar Sarapion (London: Rivingtons, 1855).
3 That is to say, the neglect has not been complete, as is attested by the valuable contri-
butions referred to in the notes to this introduction and throughout this volume.
4 § 18 Rensberger. This identification would make the passage one of the earliest extant
testimonies to Jesus from a pagan source; however, as we shall see, the date and the reli-
gion of the author are both controversial. On the passage as a testimony to the life and
2 annette merz and teun tieleman
passage alone illustrate the need for a more comprehensive approach

aimed at understanding the nature and purpose of the letter as a whole.
As organizers of the symposium entirely devoted to this relatively small
document (Utrecht, 10–12 December 2009), we felt the time had come to
bring about a concentrated effort involving specialists from various rel-
evant fields of scholarship. We were, and still are, convinced that a col-
laborative and interdisciplinary approach is useful and indeed necessary
for avoiding the many pitfalls lurking here. Or, on a more positive note,
the various relevant specialisms may combine to achieve firmer ground
with respect to the problem of contextualizing Mara’s letter.
If relatively little work has been done on the letter, this does not mean
there are no reasons for this, some entirely justifiable. Cureton’s editorial
work was followed in the 19th century by two translations, viz. B.P. Prat-
ten’s English version in the “Ante-Nicene Fathers” series (1867–72) and
by the German translation with textual remarks by F. Schulthess (1897).5
As Schulthess’ philological comments make clear, Cureton’s work, valu-
able and important in itself, cannot count as the definitive edition of the
letter. Nor did Schulthess solve all problems. As it stands, the MS text
presents many difficulties, resulting in a number of phrases whose sense
is difficult to puzzle out.6 What is needed is a new edition that profits
from the advances made by linguistic and historical scholarship in the
one and a half centuries after the appearance of Cureton’s edition. This
desideratum will soon be met by the new edition by David Rensberger in
Mohr-Siebeck’s SAPERE series.7 The contributors to the symposium could
already profit from Rensberger’s work in its final stages. For this volume
death of Jesus see G. Theissen and A.B. Merz, Der historische Jesus. Ein Lehrbuch (4. Auflage:
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, 2011), 84–86, with further references.
5 F. Schulthess, “Der Brief des Mara bar Sarapion. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
syrischen Literatur,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 51 (1897):
365–91.
6 For a brief characterization of the condition of the MS text see David Rensberger,
“Reconsidering the Letter of Mara Bar Serapion,” in Eric M. Meyers and Paul V.M. Flesher
(eds.) Aramaic in Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity (Duke Judaic Studies Series,
vol. 3; Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 3–21, at 5, suggesting that the problems
may be due not to mere carelessness on the copyist’s part but to the fact that the letter was
originally composed not in Syriac estrangela script (in which it is found in B.L. Add. 14658)
but in a different Aramaic script so that it had to be transliterated not just copied.
7 The book, Mara bar Sarapion—Letter to His Son, includes a new edition with trans-
lation and notes by David Rensberger and interpretative essays by Rensberger, Annette
Merz and Teun Tieleman (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2012. SAPERE series. ISBN 978-3-16-
150163-0).
general introduction 3
it seemed best to retain Rensberger’s edition as the textual basis to which

references are keyed.
But it is not just the issue of the text’s constitution that has long dis-
couraged scholarly efforts. There is an elusive quality about the letter
when it comes to determining its authorship, nature and purpose. Mara
the son of Sarapion is a mere name to us—apart from what might be
gleaned from the letter itself. His references to his social, cultural and
political environment are allusive in a way that some may take to be typi-
cal of an authentic private letter but that is not conducive to attempts
to determine a context and hence an approximate date. Even about its
authenticity doubts can be, and have been, raised. A brief survey of pro-
posals put forward by scholars may serve to make the problem clear. In
1856 the great orientalist and theologian Heinrich Ewald accepted the
letter’s authenticity, arguing that it was written in the immediate wake
of the annexation of Commagene by the Romans in 72/3 CE, an episode
described by Flavius Josephus, Bellum Judaicum 7.7.1–3.8 Schulthess, too,
accepted the letter as genuine, and explained in this way why its historical
setting remains largely inexplicit, and, in consequence, can no longer be
established. But, he further argued, the events to which the author alludes
do not fit Josephus’ account particularly well: they rather presuppose a
situation in which Roman rule was already well established. Thus any date
between the last quarter of the first and the late third century CE is pos-
sible.9 Even so, some studies undertaken since Schulthess relate the letter
to 72/3 CE rather than certain other political and military crises, most
notably those of 160–166 and 256 CE.10 Yet caution, as urged by Schulthess
and, more recently, Millar, remains necessary with any proposal. The few
8 H. Ewald, “Spicilegium Syriacum etc. by Cureton,” Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen

(1856): 661–664.
9 Schulthess, “Der Brief des Mara bar Sarapion,” 376–381.
10 Cf. F. Millar, The Roman Near East 31 bc–ad 33 (Cambridge MA – London: Harvard
University Press 1993) 461: “If there is an appropriate context, it is the early 70s” (emphasis
ours). Similarly, Rensberger, “Reconsidering the Letter of Mara,” 6, A. Merz and T. Tiele-
man, “The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion: Some Comments on its Philosophical and Histori-
cal Context,” in A. Houtman – A. de Jong – M. Misset-van de Weg (eds.) Empsychoi Logoi.
Religious Innovations in Antiquity. Studies in Honour of Pieter Willem van der Horst (Leiden
2008) 107–33, esp. 122ff. For more discussion see K.E. McVey, “A Fresh Look at the Letter
of Mara Bar Sarapion to his Son,” in R. Lavenant (ed.), V Symposium Syriacum 1988 (Rome
1990), 258–60; I. Ramelli, “La Lettera di Mara bar Serapion,” in Stylos 13 (2004): 77–104; id.,
“Gesu tra I sapienti greci perseguitati inguistamente in un documento filosofico pagano di
lingua siriaca,” Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica 97.4 (2005): 546–51.
allusions to military events are little to go by; other aspects—e.g. linguis-

tic and literary11—may have to be taken into account as well.
Any attempt at dating the letter must start from the 7th century manu-
script in which it has been preserved, B.L. Add. 14658. It contains a col-
lection of philosophical treatises most of which have been composed
or translated from the Greek by Sergius of Resh‘Aina in the 6th century
(many of them are dedicated by Sergius to his friend the bishop Theodore
of Merv).12 The collection in part reflects the interest taken by Christian
theologians of the time in the logical treatises of the Aristotelian Organon
(as well as Porphyry’s celebrated introduction to the Aristotelian Cate-
gories, the Isagôge), which are all represented by translations made by
Sergius and which form a subgroup with tracts on related themes by Ser-
gius himself. In addition, there are some treatises by Sergius on physical
(including cosmological) and metaphysical subjects. It is also the only sur-
viving manuscript to contain Signs of the Zodiac by Bardaisan of Edessa
11 Anton Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur (Bonn: Webers Verlag 1922; repr.
De Gruyter & Co. Berlin, 1968), 10–11, aligns the letter with the novel of Ahiqar as offering a
glimpse of a pre-Christian stage of Syriac literature but sees no possibility of dating the let-
ter with more precision. Linguistic and literary features are also discussed in Rensberger,
“Reconsidering” and (in particular) in the contributions of Ramelli, Beentjes and Van der
Horst to this volume.
12 The works contained in MS B.L. Add. 14658 have been catalogued, with brief descrip-
tions, in Wright, Catalogue, vol. 3, 1154 ff. On Sergius (d. 536) and his work as an author
and translator see Baumstark, Geschichte, 167–169; H. Hugonnard-Roche, “Note sur Sergius
de Res’aina, traducteur du grec en syriaque et commentateur d’Aristote,” in G. Endress
and R. Kruk (eds.), The Ancient Tradition in Christian and Islamic Hellenism: Studies on
the Transmission of Greek philosophy and Sciences Dedicated to H. J. Drossaart Lulofs on his
Ninetieth Birthday, CNWS Publications 50 (Leiden, 1997), 121–43; id., La logique d’Aristote
du grecque au Syriaque. Études sur la transmission des texts de l’Organon et leur interpréta-
tion philosophique, Textes et traditions 9 (Vrin: Paris, 2004), 123–42. The traditional attribu-
tion to Sergius of some of the works in this MS has been contested by Hugonnard-Roche,
“Sur les versions syriaques des Catégories d’Aristote,” Journal Asiatique 275 (1987): 205–22;
id., “Aux origines de l’exégèse orientale de la logique d’Aristote: Sergius de Res’aina (†536),
médecin et philosophe,” Journal Asiatique 277 (1989): 1–17. For more discussion on the col-
lection see id., “Éthique et politique au premier âge de la tradition syriaque,” in: Mélanges
de l’Université Saint-Joseph 57 (2004), 99–120, summarized by the author in “Le corpus
philosophique syriaque au VIe–VIIe siècles,” in: Cristina D’Ancona (ed.) The Libraries of
the Neoplatonists (Leiden: Brill, 2007) 279–291. D. King, “Origenism in Sixth Century Syria.
The Case of a Syriac Manuscript of Pagan Philosophy,” in A. Fürst (Hrsg.), Origenes und
seine Bedeutung für die Theologie- und Geistesgeschichte Europas und des Vorderen Orients,
Adamantiana. Texte und Studien zu Origenes und seinem Erbe, 1 (Münster: Aschendorff,
2011), 179–212, who argues that the collection reflects the interest in Greek learning of a
Bardesanite tradition going back to the third century CE. The interest in pagan Greek
learning (also involving Bardaisan, who by the 7th century counted as a heretic) is also
stressed as a motive behind the collection by H.J.W. Drijvers, Bardaiṣan of Edessa (Assen:
Van Gorcum, 1966), 76.
(154–222/3 CE) and the Book of the Laws of Countries, also known as the
Dialogue on Fate, in which Bardaisan appears as the main speaker in a dia-
logue with his pupil Awida (the work’s author being another pupil named
Philippus). This work, one of the earliest extant specimens of Syriac lit-
erature, is a witness to Edessene Christianity of the second century. It has
the theme of fate in common with Mara’s letter.13 Written in Syriac, its
dialogic form reveals the influence of the Greek philosophical dialogue.
Further, there is a pseudepigraphic apology of the Christian faith,
“Ambrose’s Comments,” which is the same work as that attributed by
Greek tradition to Justin Martyr under the title “Discourse to the Greeks.”
Another apology, addressed to the Roman Emperor “Antoninus Caesar”
(i.e., presumably, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 161–180 CE) is ascribed
to “Melito the philosopher,” i.e. the bishop of Sardis of that name (died
c. 180). Another group of tracts are collections of sayings, attributed to
wise men such as Menander, Pythagoras, Plato but also including “Coun-
sel of Theano, the woman philosopher of Pythagoras’ school.” These tracts
have some of their themes and their style in common with Mara’s letter:
it refers to religious and philosophical issues but also invites comparison
with gnomological literature.14
As Rensberger suggests, the presence of Mara’s letter in this collection
“may indicate that an early Syriac compiler found in Mara something
akin to the Christian philosophical endeavor.”15 We have indicated a few
points of contact with other treatises from especially the second half of
the collection. It is tempting to speculate that the reference to the “wise
king of the Jews” led to the identification of the author as a Christian (an
identification which, in various ways, has found support until the present
13 This work was also edited by Cureton in his Spicilegium Syriacum of 1855. For a more
recent edition, with translation and introduction, see H.J.W. Drijvers, The Book of the Laws
of Countries. Dialogue on Fate by Bardaian of Edessa (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1965, repr. with
a new introduction by Jan Willem Drijvers: Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2006) and the
studies by Drijvers, Bardaian of Edessa (see prev. n.); I. Ramelli, Bardaisan of Edessa: A
Reassessment of the Evidence and a New Interpretation (Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies
22. Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, 2009).
14 A widespread interest in popular philosophy is reflected by collections of sayings,
often attributed to Greek philosophers, preserved in 7th to 9th century manuscripts: see
S.B. Brock, “From Antagonism to Assimilation. Syriac Attitudes to Greek Learning,” in
N. Garsoïan et al. (eds.) East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period
(Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982) repr. as Study Nr. V in Syriac Perspectives on
Late Antiquity (Variorum Reprints. Aldershot: London, 1984), 26–27.
15 See Rensberger “Reconsidering the Letter of Mara,” 18.
day).16 The name Sarapion borne by the letter’s addressee led to his being
identified with Serapion, the eighth bishop of Antioch (c. 190–211 CE),
another reason for considering Mara a Christian.17 We shall probably
never know the exact motivation or circumstances of the letter’s inclu-
sion in this collection. But the presence of non-Christian treatises shows
that (perceived) Christianity was no requisite for inclusion.
The very name “Mara son of Sarapion” encapsulates a mixed cultural
background, or identity, viz. Semitic and Greek.18 What do the letter’s
content and style tell us about the linguistic and cultural background of
its author? Linguistic and stylistic features make it certain that the letter
was originally written in Syriac, that is to say, it is not a translation from
the Greek, where many other Syriac texts from later antiquity are. At the
same time the author presents himself as a beneficiary of “Greek learn-
ing” (i.e. paideia), which he demonstrates by interspersing his meditations
with a number of examples from classical Greek culture.19 As such, the
letter bears directly on the question of the language, or languages, spoken
in Commagene and on the cultural identity of its people. It seems pos-
sible to align the author with others from the same area who in different
ways exemplify a bilingual and bicultural profile. In particular he has been
compared with that more famous son of Samosata, Lucian, who, while
16 See McVey, “Fresh Look,” who argues that the author is a 4th century Christian who
uses the polemical ploy of posing as a pagan intellectual against Judaism. See also the
contribution by Van der Horst to this volume.
17 This was actually submitted by Cureton, Spicilegium, Pref. Cf. Schulthess, “Brief,”
380.
18 The name Sarapion is of course derived from the Hellenistic-Egyptian god Sarapis (or
Serapis) whose cult emerged in the 3rd century BCE. The name Sarapion became wide-
spread in the Greek world, as becomes clear from an electronic count of the epigraphic
evidence performed by Prof. Josine Blok (Utrecht University) and reported to the authors
per litteram: Aegean Islands and Crete 88, Asia Minor 38, Attica 95, Central Greece 35,
Egypt 204, Greater Syria 8, Northern Syria and Phoenicia 2, Peloponnese 1, Sicily and the
West 12 (source: PHI digital database: http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions). No
occurrence is reported from Commagene. A search based on the less frequent spelling
Serapiôn—i.e. with Greek ε—yields an analogous result. Cf. also bishop Serapion or Sara-
pion of Antioch, on whom see prev. n. and text thereto. On the name and its relation to
the spread of the Sarapis cult see further P.M. Fraser, “Two Studies on the Cult of Sarapis
in the Hellenistic World,” Opuscula Atheniensia 3 (1960): 48–49; R. Parker, “Theophoric
Names and Greek Religion,” in S. Hornblower & E. Matthews (eds.) Greek Personal Names.
Their Value as Evidence (Proceedings of the British Academy 109. Oxford: Oxford University
Press 2000), 75.
19 For an overview of the attitude adopted by Syriac authors to Greek culture (but
without reference to Mara’s letter) see Brock, “From Antagonism to Assimilation” (n. 14);
G. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: CUP, 1990), 29–40.
occasionally referring to himself as a Syrian, composed his voluminous

writings in stylish Greek.20
Approaches to Mara vary significantly in their determination of the let-
ter’s place within the genre of ancient epistolography.21 The older contri-
butions tend to acknowledge its authenticity as a personal letter while
disagreeing about its historical context. More recently, the letter has been
regarded as fictional and thus as belonging to the broad and varied corpus
of ancient literary letters. Within that category, diverse views of its nature
and purpose have been taken with still others, one may be tempted to
predict, to follow. To mention two older hypotheses, is it a disguised
Christian epistolary apocryphon with an apologetic agenda or a rhetorical
exercise, viz. a so-called chreia elaboration?22 Some of the contributors to
this volume put forward other proposals: the epistle could be regarded as
a collection of wisdom sayings in letter form,23 a highly artificial letter of
self-consolation making use of Menippean satire,24 a personal letter from
first century Commagene that was adapted and redacted to meet the
needs of the Edessan elite of the late second century25 and a fictional (or
semi-fictional) letter of a once famous local philosopher.26
Having sketched the status quaestionis, with its lack of consensus on
fundamental issues, it remains to say a few things by way of introduction
to the studies contained in this volume. They reflect the current debate
in that they differ to varying degrees on the date and historical context
of Mara’s letter. The same holds good for assessments of the author’s
intellectual profile and, as will have transpired, the letter’s authenticity.
To be sure, these contributions bear the mark of the lively and fruitful
exchange of ideas that took place at the Utrecht symposium and in some
20 On Mara and Lucian in relation to the cultural and linguistic situation in Samosata
see C.P. Jones, Culture and Society in Lucian (Cambridge Mass.—London: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1986), ch. 2, esp. 6–7; on Lucian’s origin and culture see also Millar, Roman Near
East, 454–456. Lucian’s references to his cultural background too need careful interpreta-
tion. The discussion is continued by Margherita Facella in this volume.
21 Mara’s letter is not discussed in most recent publications on ancient literary letters,
which usually confine themselves to examples written in Greek and Latin.
22 See McVeigh, “Fresh Look” and C.M. Chin, “Rhetorical Practice in the Chreia Elabora-
tion of Mara bar Serapion,” Hugoye 9/2 (2006): 157–84.
23 See the contribution by P. Beentjes to this volume.
24 See the contribution by P. van der Horst to this volume.
25 See the contribution by M.A. Speidel to this volume.
26 See the contribution by D. Blank to this volume. In the SAPERE volume (see supra,
n. 7) we draw a thorough comparison between Mara’s letter and the popular letters and
letter collections that have been preserved under the name of famous philosophers, most
notably the Socratic and Cynic letters.
cases continued afterwards. This has inevitably led to varying degrees of

convergence on certain issues among certain participants. But it would
have been patently unrealistic at this stage to expect that all the main
differences could be resolved during the symposium and its sequel. The
studies assembled here, we hope, will stimulate and facilitate further work
on the letter precisely by representing different, well-argued viewpoints.
Here another feature of the present collection deserves notice. As we
have mentioned, it was our aim to bring together specialists from differ-
ent fields that should be considered relevant to addressing the difficulties
posed by Mara’s letter. The different approaches thus elicited come with
different degrees of engagement with the letter itself. While all contribu-
tions start from the problems raised by it, some of them deal more fully
and directly with its contents than others. Yet those which are more con-
cerned with providing background than with the details of the letter’s text
(notably those of Versluys, Blömer, De Jong and Ntinti) do fulfil a use-
ful and indeed indispensable function in view of the overall aim of the
project, viz. to produce the relevant data and considerations that help to
contextualize the letter. Thus it makes perfect sense to study the social,
religious, cultural (including linguistic) situation in Commagene during
Imperial times, because it is important to be able, or at least in a bet-
ter position, to gauge how far the contents of the letter fit in with what
emerges from such a broader enquiry. This is true of the contributions by
Facella, Versluys and Blömer, who draw upon archaeological and other
sources with the aim of answering the question how far a cultural context
for the letter can be established. Likewise De Jong undertakes to achieve
more precision in determining the author’s religious outlook not only by
studying references to God, or gods, in the text but also by raising the
question of Iranian and other religious influences upon Commagene and
the surrounding region. Other studies, notably those by Beentjes, Ntinti
and Van der Horst, attempt to set the letter in its literary context by tak-
ing into account Near Eastern wisdom literature, the Greek tradition con-
cerned with the life and death of philosophers and consolation literature
respectively.
Other contributors enter into more detailed discussions of what Mara
actually writes. Among them is Michael Speidel’s study, which represents
the point of view of the ancient historian but is not limited to military or
political aspects. In fact, its comprehensive treatment makes it well suited
to open this collection. Mara’s appeal to Greek philosophy and philoso-
phers calls for taking a closer look at his relation to Greek philosophy:
David Blank studies the letter’s argument from this particular point of
view. The New Testament scholar Petr Pokorny reconsiders the passage
in which Mara links the destruction of Jerusalem to what the Jews did
to their “wise king” but by no means confines himself to that hotly dis-
puted passage, arriving at an overall characterization of the letter. The last
contribution—by the classical and Syriac scholar Ilaria Ramelli—results
from an invitation to comment on the merits or otherwise of Rensberger’s
new text and translation from a predominantly linguistic point of view. Its
concern with commenting upon Rensberger’s work sets it somewhat apart
from the style and approach of the other studies. But even so, Ramelli uses
the linguistic evidence to develop arguments and conclusions with regard
to the main questions concerning the letter that are discussed in various
ways by the other authors as well.
Overall, we trust that the present collection of studies will serve the
purpose of stimulating debate on the fascinating Letter of Mara bar
Sarapion.
Utrecht, August 2011

MAKING USE OF HISTORY BEYOND THE EUPHRATES:
POLITICAL VIEWS, CULTURAL TRADITIONS, AND HISTORICAL
CONTEXTS IN THE LETTER OF MARA BAR SARAPION
Michael A. Speidel
Much of how we understand the Syriac text known as the Letter of Mara
bar Sarapion depends on how we choose to interpret its historical context.
Unfortunately, the Letter contains no date and appears to resist attempts
to identify its precise historical background. Since William Cureton’s edi-
tion of the Letter in 1855, dates of the text have been suggested which
include all centuries AD from the first to the sixth.1 Thus, the Letter of
Mara bar Sarapion has been understood to be by far the earliest piece
of Syriac literature from the 70s of the first century or a fifth- or sixth-
century Greek style rhetorical exercise. It has been said to contain the
earliest pagan reference to Jesus or a fourth-century anti-Jewish polemic
by a Christian posing as a pagan intellectual. It has been seen to provide
evidence for early Syriac Christianity or to refer to a second or third century
1 For discussions of the Letter’s possible date and historical context cf. W. Cureton,
Spicilegium Syriacum (1955). H. Ewald, “Spicilegium Syriacum etc. by Cureton,” GGA
(1856): 661–664. Th. Nöldeke, “Über Mommsen’s Darstellung der römischen Herrschaft
und römischen Politik im Orient,” ZDMG 39 (1885): 331–351. A. Harnack, Geschichte der
Altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius (2. Hälfte) (Leipzig, Hinrichs, 1893), 763. F. Schulthess,
“Der Brief des Mara bar Sarapion. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der syrischen Literatur,”
ZDMG 51 (1897): 365–391. F. Altheim, Weltgeschichte Asiens im griechischen Zeitalter, vol. 2
(Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1948), 146–147. K.E. McVey, “A Fresh Look at the Letter of Mara
Bar Sarapion,” in: R. Lavenant (ed.), V Symposium Syriacum 1988 (1990): 257–272. F. Millar,
The Roman Near East 31 BC–AD 337 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), esp.
460–462. I. Ramelli, “La lettera di Mara bar Serapion,” Stylos 13 (2004): 77–104. Idem, “Gesù
tra I sapienti greci perseguitati ingiustamente in un antico documento filosofico pagano di
lingua siriaca,” RivFilNeo-Scolastica 97/4 (2005): 545–570. C. Marek, “Jesus und Abgar. Das
Rätsel vom Beginn einer Legende,” in: T. Fuhrer / P. Michel / P. Stotz (eds.), Geschichten
und ihre Geschichte (Basel: Schwabe & Co., 2004), 269–310. C.M. Chin, “Rhetorical Practice
in the Chreia Elaboration of Mara bar Serapion.” Hugoye 9/2 (2006). A. Merz / T. Tieleman,
“The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion. Some Comments on its Philosophical and Historical
Context,” in: A. Houtman / A. de Jong / M. Misset-van de Weg (eds.), Empsychoi Logoi—
Religious Innovations in Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 107–133. D. Rensberger, “Reconsid-
ering the Letter of Mara bar Serapion,” in: Eric M. Meyers and Paul V.M. Flesher (eds.)
Aramaic in Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity (Duke Judaic Studies Series, vol. 3;
Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 3–21. A. Merz / D. Rensberger / T. Tieleman,
Mara bar Sarapion—Letter to His Son (forthcoming).
12 michael a. speidel
opposition to Roman rule in Samosata. And it has been claimed to be

an authentic private letter by a first century victim of the Roman con-
quest of Commagene or a text reflecting the power struggles in the Near
East between Rome, Persia, and Palmyra after the mid-third century. The
enormously wide range of proposals is, by itself, proof of the difficulties
attached to the search for a suitable historical context from enigmatic
scraps of information in this text, which was evidently not composed to
serve as a complete account of the events that led to its composition. But
neither has the search for the appropriate religious, philosophical and lit-
erary contexts led to a generally accepted date, which can be reconciled
with the few allusions in the Letter to a contemporary political situation.
What is at stake here is therefore the question whether it is possible to
reconcile the various statements contained within the text both with a
known historical situation and with the cultural setting of the Letter of
Mara bar Sarapion.
I. Mara bar Sarapion and “the Romans”
It is perhaps best to begin the search for a possible historical, social, and
cultural setting of the Letter with the information contained in the nar-
rative sections of the text that relate to the identity of Mara bar Sara-
pion. Mara’s main message to his son is his recommendation of Greek
learning (i.e. paideia). In his view, this is the only good available to man-
kind which is truly lasting and which can even help to cope with the loss
of everything else. Loss is therefore exemplified at length in the Letter,
including instances from Mara’s own recent biography. Moreover, Mara’s
own recent losses and his desperate current situation even appear to have
been his main motivation to write down for his son a record of his “inqui-
ries in the world” (§ 3).2 The text presents Mara doing this abroad, in a
place where he and his friends are being held in what he claims to be
false detention (§§ 26–27). Those holding them captive are called “the
Romans,” and portrayed as a foreign power. Mara is outraged, and calls
on “the Romans” to act rightly and justly, like civilized people. He calls
them tyrants and aggressors as long as they will not permit him and his
friends to return home to their own country. This country, curiously,
2 Paragraphs here and throughout are those of the new edition of the Letter by Merz /
Rensberger / Tieleman (see n. 1). For Mara’s philosophy, much of which was commonplace
wisdom (cf. Vitr. 6 praef. 1–4) see the contribution by D. Blank in this volume.
making use of history beyond the euphrates 13
remains unnamed, but a single reference to Samosata places the episode

within the context of Commagenian history. His friends’ departure from
Samosata on a “Day of Groans” and, apparently, without the prospect of
being able to return (§ 8), as well as the references to “hateful talk” (§ 26)
and to a regretted “kingdom that fate has given” (§ 27) all point to a period
of political unrest and change. Mara is presented as being imprisoned in a
country in which “the Romans are present.” The text appears to contrast
this country with the one to which Mara and his friends want to return,
and which is explicitly called “their own” (§27). This reveals a notion of
Mara’s “own” country as being different from those in which the Romans
are present. The same notion also appears to be expressed earlier in the
text, when Mara, to his horror, finds his comrades in captivity, and learns
that some of them had even lost their lives and were now “buried in for-
eign ground” (§ 9).3 Such language and such an assessment of the regional
political realities are hardly compatible with an author from within a well-
established Roman provincial context. Rather, the text seems to refer to
an episode in Commagenian history before or around the second half of
the year 72,4 when Hellenistic monarchs, albeit with an interruption of
roughly two decades between AD 17 / 18 and 38 / 41, still ruled the country
as an allied and dependent kingdom within the wider framework of the
imperium Romanum.5 This now appears to be confirmed by the reference
to “His Majesty” (§ 26) in the new edition of the Letter by Merz, Rens-
berger and Tieleman.
The location of Mara’s political and cultural identity outside an estab-
lished Roman provincial context becomes even more apparent when we
turn to the inter-relations between Mara bar Sarapion, Samosata and the
Romans. Before Mara’s departure and his subsequent imprisonment, the
Letter claims Samosata to have stood “in its majesty” (§ 26). Surprisingly,
3 This must surely be the meaning of Mara’s statement. Rensberger translates: “laid in
a borrowed space.”
4 According to Josephus, BJ 7,7,1, the invasion took place during Vespasian’s fourth year,
i.e. between 1 July 72 and 1 July 73: cf. T.V. Buttrey, Documentary Evidence for the Chro-
nology of the Flavian Titulature (Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1980) 6f. Within that period
Vespasian and Titus simultaneously earned two imperial acclamations (9 and 10, viz. 3
and 4). One of those must surely have been the result of the Roman victory in the bel-
lum Commagenicum. Both imperial acclamations entered Vespasian’s and Titus’ titulatures
before 1 January 73 (ILS 246. BMC II p.146). Hence, the invasion probably took place in the
second half of 72. For a detailed analysis of the developments see M.A. Speidel, Heer und
Herrschaft im Römischen Reich der Hohen Kaiserzeit (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2009), 563–580.
5 Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 565–568. M. Facella, La dinastia degli Orontidi nella
Commagene ellenistico-romana (Pisa: Giardini, 2006), esp. 225–338.
the text describes precisely those former times as having been charac-
terized by “hateful talk” (§ 26). The text, therefore, appears to refer to
profound political changes that had occurred at Samosata since Mara’s
departure, and which he personally regretted. These changes, we must
surely understand, had been instanced by “hateful talk” and had robbed
Samosata of “its majesty.” Nonetheless, in prison Mara declares that he
will obey “the kingdom fate has given.” What exactly had happened is not
spelled out and remains obscure. Yet David Rensberger’s new translation
of the text points to a situation in which “hateful talk,” whether these were
heated political discussions, intrigues or accusations, appears also to have
questioned Mara’s political loyalty. For Mara continues by insisting that he
had acknowledged “even then” to having received “all due and proper love
from His Majesty” (§ 26). If correct, this clearly points to Mara bar Sara-
pion’s position as a member of the socio-political elite of late-Hellenistic
Commagene. Expressions of Mara’s identity as a wealthy member of his
country’s political and cultural elite are indeed apparent throughout the
text. They can be found, for instance, in the display of his ego, of his sense
of honour and his self-assuredness, in his assessment of “the Romans,” in
his bilingual environment and in the demonstration of his Greek learning,
as well as in his remarks on the transience of majesty, of cities, fortifica-
tions, laws, and particularly of possessions. Moreover, Mara is presented
as an influential participant in his country’s recent politics by his claim
that he had developed plans to remedy the political situation, and that
only fate had kept him from carrying them out (§ 26). As he declares that
his own life’s experience had taught him the value of his philosophical
beliefs (esp. §§ 3–4 and 22–23), we can probably understand his state-
ments to also refer to acts, committed within his country, by people he
deemed greedy and unjust, and which were responsible for his own loss of
wealth and influence. Typically, these people are left unnamed. They may
have been identical with those who had had launched “hateful talk,” but
they are not presented as representatives of a single political faction, or of
a foreign nation or a state acting in unanimous harmony, for out of greed
they even “maliciously attack each other like savage beasts” (§ 19). Such
people could be found throughout the “human race” (§§ 19 and 22). If this
remark is intended to specifically include “the Romans,” it might also be
understood as a reference to the Roman civil wars of 68–70 AD.
In prison Mara threatens “the Romans” with dishonour and shame, and
is in doubt whether they are good, just and civilized, or whether they are
violent tyrants. The text thus not only contrasts Mara’s ethnical identity
with that of “the Romans,” it also conveys perceptions of the characteristics
of “Roman” identity, which are fundamentally different from Mara’s ideal

of “wise men,” amongst whom he counts himself. His general reference to
“the Romans,” however, is probably not by itself derogatory, for the alterity
this expression conveys does not seem to have a particularly negative con-
notation in other Syriac texts.6 Much rather, it appears to have been used
in the same manner as we find with many writers from the Roman empire’s
eastern provinces to describe both historical and contemporary representa-
tives of the Roman State.7 Mara’s implicit accusations against “the Romans”
at large are quite a different matter, for they reveal an attitude, which could
indeed have been understood to question the legitimacy of Roman rule.
Unlike those provincials who were accustomed to direct Roman rule and
whose complaints against Roman maladministration or acts of injustice are
known from documentary sources,8 Mara accuses “the Romans” at large
rather than specific individuals or groups. As he was obviously in captivity
for political reasons his threats were directed against those “Romans” who
were responsible for his imprisonment and who had the position and the
power to order his punishment or his release. Ultimately, those were the
provincial governor or the emperor at Rome. Only if they release him from
prison is Mara willing to admit to their peacefulness and majesty (§ 27).
Mara’s revilements and threats would have been well understood
within a Roman cultural context, even though “the Romans” would hardly
have felt intimidated by a foreign prisoner. Thus, the prospect of having
to endure dishonour and shame was among the worst nightmares of the
traditional elite of the Roman “Empire of Honour,”9 and almost certain
to entail the loss of power and position. But it was naturally unthinkable
that a non-Roman captive could cast such a fate upon Roman noble-
men. Mara’s threat, if ever he had uttered it publicly, must therefore have
sounded extraordinarily presumptuous. Acting rightly, justly, and in the
interest of peace were, of course, ideals, which the Romans publicly and
6 Such as in the Book of the Laws of the Countries, or in the Teachings of Addai, and of
course in various Syriac chronicles.
7 Jos., BJ 7,7,1f. Appian, Praef. 1,1. Dio 1,1. Procop., Aed. 1,1,11–16, etc.
8 See for instance the cases discussed in F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World
(Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 19922) 537ff. T. Hauken, Petition and Response. An
Epigraphic Study of Petitions to Roman Emperors (Bergen: Norwegian Institute at Athens,
1998). Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 483ff. M. A. Speidel, “Les longues marches des armées
romaines. Reflets épigraphiques de la circulation des militaires dans la province d’Asie au
IIIe siècle apr. J.-C.,” CCG 20 (2009) 199–210.
9 Cf. J.E. Lendon, Empire of Honor. The Art of Government in the Roman World (Oxford;
Clarendon Press, 1997). Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 244.
proudly claimed to characterize their rule.10 No need to say that doubts

expressed by imprisoned foreigners who were charged of political crimes
would hardly have been taken seriously. Neither would those representing
Roman power have agreed that their status as civilized people depended
on whether or not Mara bar Sarapion would be permitted to return to his
country. Rather, within their own community, they were expected to be
(and took pride in being) among the most educated and cultured members
of the Empire’s elite.11 Although they would therefore certainly have agreed
that paideia should be an essential characteristic of a good ruler or gover-
nor, they would neither have admitted Mara bar Sarapion’s superiority in
this respect nor his verdict in this matter. It seems possible, therefore, that
Mara, in his paragraphs on “the Romans,” was responding to (and ques-
tioning the reality of ) precisely those political ideals and moral values that
Rome traditionally claimed to characterize and to justify her rule. If true,
he had surely been exposed to these ideals and was aware of the enor-
mous political and symbolic significance the Romans attached to them.
Because of his “world’s terrible destruction” (§§ 19 and 29) Mara had
resigned. The Letter, therefore, surely also conveyed a political message.
This indeed appears to be spelled out twice in the text (§ 14–17 and §§
28–29). Thus, Mara urges his son to be equal to the circumstances in which
he finds himself and not to blame his fate on others, never to get enraged,
but to obey graciously. Mara is also prepared to accept political obedience
for himself. For although he does not clarify exactly to which authority
he was now promising his loyalty, Mara assures that he is willing to obey
“the kingdom that fate has given.” Perhaps his political obedience was also
among the reasons for his omitting details of his country’s recent politi-
cal fate. For Mara accuses “the Romans” because of how they treat him,
but he does not mention the fate of his king, and refrains from criticizing
the “kingdom that fate has given.” He is praying for his own freedom, but
not for the freedom of his country. He is trying to cope with his own loss
of wealth and power, but he has no advice for others who are “saddened
or worried” (§ 29). Despite of his own former political activities and his
apparent familiarity with influence and wealth, Mara’s lesson for his son is
10 See only Plin., NH 27,1: immensa Romanae pacis maiestas.

11 Cf. e.g. A.R. Birley, Locus virtutibus patefactus? (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1992)
esp. 12 and 24. Th. Schmitz, Bildung und Macht. Zur sozialen und politischen Funktion der
zweiten Sophistik in der griechischen Welt der Kaiserzeit (Munich: Beck, 1997). D.S. Potter,
The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180–395 (London: Routledge, 2004), 175ff. Even Roman sol-
diers strived to be regarded as educated men: Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 532f.
to abstain from political involvement and personal possessions.12 Instead,

he recommends Greek philosophical learning and Stoic equanimity as a
key to freedom (§§ 3–5) and as a wise man’s method to cope with the
workings of fate, be it in exile (§10), in prison (§ 29), or in a “kingdom that
fate has given” (§ 27). In essence, therefore, the Letter advocates paideia
primarily as the superior alternative to possessions and power. The refer-
ences in the Letter to Mara’s own fate were obviously intended to “prove”
the validity of this view.
II. The Commagenian Setting
Yet, what had led to Mara bar Sarapion’s resignation? “Hateful talk”
(§ 26) at a time when his city was still “standing in its majesty” is the only
recognizable reason presented in the text that could have led to a situa-
tion which prompted Mara to secretly follow a group of companions who
had been banned from Samosata, and who were on their way to Seleuceia.
Although Mara claims his innocence, he might, at that moment, never-
theless have feared for his safety. Unfortunately, the text neither offers
any details of the kingdom or rule that “fate has given,” nor does it iden-
tify those who forced Mara’s comrades to leave Samosata. It also leaves
the style in which his friends left the city unspecified, whether secretly
as fugitives, officially as political exiles, or already in chains. Mara’s own
secret departure, and the description of his horror when he realized that
his comrades were in captivity on foreign ground (§ 9), however, suggest
that his discovery of their imprisonment came as a surprise to him.
There is certainly no surprise to find Roman imperial authorities aim-
ing to eliminate what they had identified as a serious threat to public
order and to the stability of Roman rule, not only within their provinces
but also in dependent kingdoms. This had been made clear to the Com-
magenians within a year or so after the battle of Actium. For in 30/29
BC Imperator Caesar summoned Antiochos of Commagene to Rome, had
him tried before the Senate and executed for having killed one of his
brother’s envoys to Rome.13 The episode reveals the existence of internal
strife within Commagene, and can be understood as a Roman attempt to
stabilize royal rule. Less than a decade later, in 20 BC, a political murder
12 But cf. above for a political connotation of paideia in the Letter.

13 Dio 52,43,1.
provoked the Roman to intervene again. This time Augustus deposed the
king of Commagene, who had put his brother to death, and entrusted
the country to the opposing faction by installing the murdered brother’s
son on the Commagenian throne.14 As so often, our sources fail to reveal
the fate of those of less prominent standing who were convicted along
with the royals. An episode from shortly before AD 17, which Philostratos
reports in his “Life of Apollonios,” is therefore instructive. In this case a
royal official was put to death in Cilicia “for having practiced revolution-
ary activity along with Archelaus, the king of Cappadocia,” even though
Archelaus was only accused but never convicted of these charges.15
Any number of similar episodes may have occurred without leaving
traces in the surviving historical records. They illustrate the dangers fac-
ing those who were accused of treason, whether against an allied king or
against Roman imperial rule. These dangers were no doubt well known
in late-Hellenistic Commagene. If such accusations had been launched
against Mara bar Sarapion, as our text appears to suggest, they could
indeed have been the reason both for his secret flight and his ensuing
Roman captivity. It is, perhaps, worth noting that Mara does not contest
the Romans’ right to hold him captive on the general account that the
accusations against him were not a matter of Roman jurisdiction. Rather,
the Letter has him declaring that the accusations are false because he has
demonstrated with constancy “that no fault attaches to us in any kingdom”
(§ 27), and that, for this reason, the Romans should let him go free. Only
by doing so could the Romans, in Mara’s judgement, display their “maj-
esty,” act as civilized people rather than as tyrants, and gain a reputation
for being good, just, and peaceful. He even forecasts dishonour and shame
for those who use violence against him. Those are bold and courageous
words from someone in Roman captivity. But the display of such an atti-
tude by a member of the Commagenian elite would also have been alarm-
ing in the context of royal rule. Not only was the king a φιλορώμαιος and
a loyal Roman ally, whose rule entirely depended on imperial approval,
but also, at least in the case of Antiochos IV, himself a Roman citizen.16
14 Dio 54,9,3. For these events see Facella, La dinastia degli Orontidi, 299ff., 312ff.
15 Philostr., Vita Apoll. 1,12. See also Tac., Ann., 2,42. Dio 57,17,3ff. Speidel, Heer und
Herrschaft, 584ff.
16 For Antiochos IV and his loyalty to Rome see Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 563–564.
567. Facella, La dinastia degli Orontidi, 318–331. As shown by the history of other depend-
ant kingdoms, Roman soldiers and other officials were at times stationed within such
countries, although in the case of Hellenistic Commagene we have no evidence for this. Cf.
Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 181–182, 568, 583–584, 617. 622. 643. A. Jördens, Statthalterliche
Antiochos appears to have spent much of his youth in Rome and was well
connected with the networks of the Empire. He must also have been well
acquainted with Rome’s political and strategic principals, as he repeatedly
supported Roman generals and armies to enforce them. Throughout his
reign he conformed to Roman expectations. Antiochos’ reaction to the
Roman invasion in 72 is proof enough that he would not have tolerated,
let alone fostered, an open display of anti-Roman sentiments within the
leading circles of his country.17
Apart from Samosata and “the Romans,” Seleuceia, the destination of
his comrades, is the only name in the text, which refers to the contem-
porary setting of Mara’s letter. The text does not identify the city, but
perhaps the Seleuceia nearest to Samosata was meant: Seleuceia on the
Euphrates. If so, this could be taken as a further sign for a first century
setting, as this city was later more and more often simply referred to by
its colloquial name Zeugma.18 Roman captivity in Seleuceia / Zeugma
might date the narrative context to after AD 38 / 41. At least this is what
one should expect in view of Kevin Butcher’s recent numismatic research,
which has produced strong arguments for the beginning of Zeugma’s civic
era only in AD 17, rather than in 31 BC, as was so far generally held.19 If cor-
rect, Zeugma must have remained within Commagene in 31 BC, and was
probably only detached from the country when Commagene was returned
to royal rule in AD 38 / 41.20 If the reference in the Letter is indeed to
Verwaltung in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Studien zum praefectus Aegypti (Stuttgart: Steiner,
2009) 364–367. For the meaning of φιλορώμαιος see now M. Facella, “Advantages and
Disadvantages of an Allied Kingdom: The Case of Commagene,” in: M. Facella / T. Kai-
zer (eds.), Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010),
181–197, esp. 186–191.
17 Jos. BJ 7,7,1–3.
18 J. Wagner, Seleukeia am Euphrat / Zeugma (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1976) 23–24, 65ff.
D. Kennedy, “Ancient sources for Zeugma (Seleucia-Apamea),” in: idem (ed.), The Twin
Towns of Zeugma on the Euphrates (Portsmouth RI: Journal of Roman Archeology, 1998),
139–162, with an account of the evidence. Plin. NH 5,13,66 already simply called the city
Zeugma.
19 Cf. now K. Butcher, “The Euphrates Frontier and the Civic Era of Zeugma,” in:
O. Tekin (ed.), Ancient History, Numismatics and Epigraphy in the Mediterranean World.
Studies in memory of Clemens E. Bosch and Sabahat Atlan and in honour of Nezahat Baydur
(Istanbul: Ege Publications, 2009) 81–83. Cf. also idem, “The Mint at Zeugma,” in: Kennedy,
Twin Towns, 233. and idem, Coinage in Roman Syria. Northern Syria, 64 BC–AD 253 (London:
Royal Numismatic Society, 2004), 460ff.
20 For Zeugma’s location outside Commagene in the 70s and later see Plin., NH 5,13.
5,82. Ptol., Geogr. 5,14,8. Doliche was under Roman rule early in Nero’s reign: J. Wagner,
“Neue Denkmäler aus Doliche. Ergebnisse einer archäologischen Landesaufnahme im
Ursprungsgebiet des Iupiter Dolichenus,” BJ 82 (1982): 161ff. Both cities thus remained
under Roman administration during the reign of Antiochos IV. The reason for Zeugma’s
Seleuceia / Zeugma, Mara should therefore have been a contemporary

of king Antiochos IV who ruled Commagene between 38 / 41 and 72.
Interestingly then, Zeugma and its territory, in Mara’s judgement, would
since have become foreign soil (§ 9). Alternatively, that is if Zeugma had
after all been yielded to Rome in 31 BC, the episode could also date to the
period between the battle of Actium and the country’s first provincialisa-
tion in AD 17 / 18. However, none of this is necessarily of any relevance
to our text.
The Letter does not state that there were any Romans within Mara’s
country. Nevertheless, it is perfectly possible that the reference to the
“kingdom fate has given” is to a recent or perhaps imminent introduction
of direct Roman rule. Mara’s apparently sudden and complete political
resignation, his promise to call the Romans peaceful if only they would
let him go free, the reference to the former “majesty” of Samosata and his
assurance that he would obey the “kingdom fate has given” (§ 27), but that
the Romans should not treat him like a slave21 are surely much in favour
of such an interpretation. The period preceding the first provincialisation
of Commagene in AD 17 / 18 could therefore be a possible historical con-
text. According to Tacitus and Josephus there was political unrest within
the country after the death of Antiochos III, when two opposing factions
had formed, one wishing for a new king, the other for direct Roman rule.22
The Commagenians at large politically acted as Rome expected them to
and sent embassies to Tiberius asking for him to decide on the future
type of rule in Commagene. Although, in the end, provincial status was
apparently peacefully introduced,23 it is certainly not inconceivable that
some individuals had gone too far during the heated political debates and
compromised themselves in the eyes of the Romans.
detachment from Commagene, if it was in AD 38, may have been the city’s vicinity to
the legionary fortress, which is likely to have been established before Nero’ reign. Cf.
M.A. Speidel, “Legio IV Scythica, its movements and men,” in: Kennedy, Twin Towns, 166–167.
M. Hartmann / M.A. Speidel, “The Roman army at Zeugma: recent resurch results,” in: R. Early
et al., Zeugma: Interim Reports (Los Altos CA: Packard Humanities Institute, 2003), 101–102.
21 If Mara was taken captive in the context of the bellum Commagenicum of AD 72, his
complaints about being treated like a slave should, perhaps, be taken quite literally, as
prisoners of war were considered to be slaves. Cf. Dig. 1,5,4,2. 1,5,5,1. Suet., Aug. 21,2. Jos.,
BJ 7,1,3. Dio 64,12,3. 78,14,2 etc. Cf. also Cassius Dio 56,16,3 who has a Pannonian nobleman
blaming oppressive Roman behaviour after the conquest of his country for the great Pan-
nonian revolt in AD 6–9.
22 Tac., Ann. 2,42. Jos., AJ 18,2,5.
23 Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 563–580.
The events which led to the third24 and final provincialisation of Com-
magene in 72 no doubt also offered many opportunities for members of
the local elite to end up in a situation in which both other Commagen-
ians (including king Antiochos) and the Romans could have accused
them of treasonous behaviour. As is well known from Josephus’ account,25
Antiochos IV and his two sons were in fundamental disagreement over
how to deal with the Romans after Caesennius Paetus, the governor of
Roman Syria, had officially accused them of treason. The king insisted on
a peaceful solution. The royal princes, however, staged a full-fledged bat-
tle against the Roman invasion forces near Samosata. Those members of
the local elite, who decided to actively participate in this crucial moment
of Commagenian history, had therefore to choose either to side with the
king, or with his sons or even with the Romans.
It can be assumed that the king’s sons had at least some support among
the country’s elite, and that they fostered anti-Roman sentiments at least
during the short time of their resistance. Royal Commagenian coinage
sheds some light on their political role, as it suggests that both princes had
been presented as Commagene’s political future.26 Perhaps this was even
one of the reasons which had raised Roman suspicions. Political debates
at Samosata and questions about the Roman plans for the future of the
kingdom, on the other hand, may have been triggered by Rome’s decision,
in 70, to permanently station a legion at Cappadocian Melitene, as this
meant that Samosata was now the only major crossing of the Euphrates
without a heavy Roman garrison.27 At any rate, Josephus claims that the
princes, because of their youth, were not willing to give up without resis-
tance the hopes they had held for their future.28 Yet in the end, if we are
to believe Josephus, only ten horsemen followed the princes when they
24 For Caligula’s return of the country to Antiochos IV in AD 38 and for the “second”
provincialisation at an unknown date between AD 38 and 41 see Suet. Cal. 16. Dio 59,8,2.
60,8,1, with Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 567. To what extent this short episode inter-
rupted Roman provincial administration in Commagene remains unclear.
25 Jos. BJ 7,7,1ff.
26 RPC I 3535. 3860–1. 3866–7 (ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΥΙΟΙ). Coins from Selinous even styled them
kings: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΗΣ ΣΕΛΙ and ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΜΕΓΑΣ ΚΑΛΛΙΝΙΚΟΣ. Cf. E. Babe-
lon, Les rois de Syrie, d’Arménie et de la Commagène. Catalogue des monnaies grecques
de la Bibliothèque Nationale (1890) CCXVII and no. 38 on p. 222. BMC Galatia XLVII. Cf.
S. Geminario, “Rex Epiphanes e la fine del regno di Commagene,” Annali della Facoltà di
Lettere e Filosofia (Bari) vol. 35/36 (1992/93): 315–325, esp. 323 no. 426. Facella, La dinastia
degli Orontidi, 335.
27 Jos. BJ 7,7,1. Cf. Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 578.
28 Jos. BJ 7,7,2.
fled to the king of Parthia. An inscription set up for the commander of

the military escort that finally brought the king’s sons back to Rome in
honourable style, reveals a different picture. According to this text a large
group of subjects returned together with their princes.29 Perhaps more
Commagenians had fled to Parthia later, and perhaps Mara secretly fol-
lowed a group that was trying to reach Seleuceia in Babylonia. But if so,
how then could he suddenly have found them in Roman captivity at some
distance from Samosata?
Of course, we might instead imagine Mara as a Commagenian noble-
man who secretly followed king Antiochos IV and his entourage to Cilicia
in 72. This seems to go well with Josephus’ information that Antiochos,
full of grief and despair, was arrested and put in chains at Tarsos. For
if Antiochos was trying to flee to Cilicia Tracheia, which belonged to
his dominion,30 the reference to Seleuceia in Mara’s “letter” might be to
Seleuceia on the Calycadnos River. But why then did Mara speak of com-
panions and not of his king, and why should Antiochos have chosen to
pass by Elaioussa / Sebaste, the metropolis and royal residence in Cilicia
Tracheia?31
Interestingly, Josephus claims that there was no popular resistance
against the Roman invasion, because no one was prepared to raise arms
against the Romans.32 If true, we should, perhaps, we should not auto-
matically attribute this behaviour to fear in all cases. Already in AD 17
the prospect of Roman direct rule had appealed to many Commagenians,
including even some of the king’s noblemen.33 In particular, provincial
status may have appeared favourable to the urban elites, as in terms of
power and regional influence they might have hoped to benefit. Thus, two
decades earlier, after the death of king Herod in 4 or 3 BC, both the Greek
cities and the Jewish people of his kingdom had also each sent embas-
sies to Rome under comparable circumstances. They were hoping for the
termination of royal rule and asked the Roman emperor for provincial
status.34 Whether there was also a movement in Commagene in 72 that
opposed royal rule is unknown, as is the Commagenians’ experience with
direct Roman rule between 17 / 18 and 38 / 41. However, we should at least
29 ILS 9200: Hic missus in Parthiam Epiphanen et Callinicum regis Antiochi filios ad imp.
Vespasianum cum ampla manu tributariorum reduxit. Ten horsemen: Jos., BJ 7,7,2.
30 Jos., Ant. 19,5,1. Suet., Vesp. 8. Dio 60,8,1.
31 RPC I 3719–20.
32 Jos., BJ 7,7,1.
33 Tac., Ann. 2,42. Jos., Ant. 18,2,5.
34 Jos., BJ 2,7,3. Jos., Ant. 17,13,2f. Nic. Dam. FGH 90, F 131. Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft,
572.
not automatically assume that all Commagenians categorically rejected

direct Roman rule in 72.
Not everyone may therefore have feared that the transition from royal
to Roman rule would cost the loss of their capital city’s “majesty” (§ 26)
(unless this term exclusively referred to Samosata’s significance as the
royal residence).35 Earlier imperial transfers to Roman provincial status in
Asia Minor had produced examples of how Roman rule strengthened the
position of the poleis (and with them the political influence of the urban
elites) not only by new foundations but also by allowing or encouraging
the cities to form commonalties.36 These koina functioned as the formal
framework for regular congregations and grand celebrations in connection
with the imperial cult, as well as a source for new and elevated functions,
positions, and honours for prominent local individuals. The congrega-
tions not only provided the opportunity for the delegates of the cities to
debate their political issues, they also constituted a common stage from
which the provincials could communicate with their governor or with the
emperor. As the foundations of a koinon in this period were understood
to combine a common ethnicity and a geographical territory, they also
served to uphold or to generate a common regional identity.37
By the late second century, the “four cities of Commagene” (quattuor
civitates Commagenes) also formed a common organization within the
province of Syria. The epigraphic evidence for this commemorates the
dedication of statues for Septimius Severus and the imperial family.38 This
betrays an organization of the four Commagenian cities, which enabled
them to take joint decisions and to dispose of common financial means.
It is not entirely clear when this institution, which was obviously well
established by the late second century, was founded, and which cities
35 Strabo 16,2,3: Σαμόσατα, ἐν ᾗ τὸ βασίλειον ὑπῆρχε.

36 For a general overview cf. now C. Marek, Geschichte Kleinasiens in der Antike
(München: Beck, 2010), 517ff. W. Eck, “Ämter und Verwaltungsstrukturen in Selbstverwal-
tungseinheiten der frühen römischen Kaiserzeit”, in: T. Schmeller / M. Ebner / R. Hoppe
(eds.), Neutestamentliche Ämtermodelle im Kontext (2010) 9–33, esp. 30ff. A full treat-
ment of the issue is forthcoming as a doctoral dissertation by Marco Vitale (Zürich and
Münster) entitled, Eparchie und Koinon in Kleinasien von der ausgehenden Republik bis ins
3. Jh. n. Chr. in AMS 67. Commagene will be discussed in M. Vitale, Eparchie und koinon
im kaiserzeitlichen Syrien: römische Territorialverwaltung und provinzialer Kaiserkult von
der ausgehenden Republik bis zum 3. Jh. n. Chr. (forthcoming). I thank Marco Vitale for
letting me read his chapter on Commagene in advance of publication. M. Vitale carries no
responsibility for the interpretation presented here.
37 Cf. Dio 51,20,7.
38 IGLS I 42 (= ILS 7204). 43. 44. For the date see J.B. Leaning, “The Date of the Repair of
the Bridge over River Chabina: L. Alfenus Senecio and L. Marius Perpetuus in Syria Coele,”
Latomus 30 (1971): 386–389.
apart from Samosata were included. Doliche and Germanikeia certainly

are likely candidates.39
Earlier evidence for the existence of this commonalty does, however,
appear to be on hand. Thus, Samosata held the title metropolis Com-
magenes by the reign of Hadrian. The evidence for this is provided by the
city’s earliest coinage from the imperial period.40 The title could therefore
have been rewarded even earlier. Samosata’s status as metropolis of Com-
magene reveals a formally recognized hierarchy among the Commagen-
ian cities and thereby points to their common organisation.41 This is also
suggested by the titulatures of two of Trajan’s governors of Syria.42 These
titulatures describe the governor’s province as consisting of distinct enti-
ties styled eparcheia: πρεσβευτής καὶ ἀντιστράτηγος αὐτοκράτορος ἐπαρχείας
Συρίας, Φοινείκης, Κομμαγηνῆς.43 The term eparcheia usually denotes a
Roman governor’s area of command, his provincia, but here (as in several
other cases) it is obviously used to describe distinct regions within his
provincia. Commagene was thus one of the eparchies of provincia Syria
at the turn of the first to the second century AD. The meaning of this,
in Roman administrative terms, is not quite clear.44 However, epigraphic
and numismatic evidence, mainly from Asia Minor and the Near East,
39 Cf. Ptol., Geogr. 5,14,8. E. Winter, “Stadt, Herrschaft und Territorium in der
Kommagene—Siedlungs- und Polisstrukturen in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit,” in Idem
(ed.), ΠΑΤΡΙΣ ΠΑΝΤΡΟΦΟΣ ΚΟΜΜΑΓΗΝΗ. Neue Funde und Forschungen zwischen Tau-
rus und Euphrat (Bonn: Habelt, 2008), 39–40 suggested Perrhe as the fourth city, as had
already Th. Mommsen, EE 5 (1884) 21, and A.H.M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman
Provinces (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 19712), 263ff. Alternatively, Winter suggested Zeugma
instead of Perrhe. Yet, Zeugma was hardly part of Roman Commagene at this time, and
is missing, together with Perrhe, from Ptolemaeus’ list of Commagenian poleis. Cf. Vitale,
Eparchie und Koinon.
40 BMC Syria 117–123. K. Butcher, Coinage in Roman Syria, 467–476.
41 Cf. R. Haensch, Capita provinciarum. Statthaltersitze und Provinzialverwaltung in der
römischen Kaiserzeit (Mainz, von Zabern, 1997), 24f.
42 C. Antius A. Iulius Quadratus (?100–104 AD) and C. Iulius Quadratus Bassus (114–117 AD).
Cf. E. Dabrowa, The Governors of Roman Syria from Augustus to Septimius Severus (1998),
79ff. and 85ff.
43 I.v.Didyma 151. IGR IV 374. AE 1982, 873 and I.v.Pergamon 3, 21. ILS 8819a (Iulius
Quadratus) has ἐπαρχείας Συρίας, Φοινείκης, Κομμαγηνῆς, Τύρου. It remains uncertain
whether IGLS VI 2775 a+b refers to Quadratus Bassus.
44 See Vitale, Eparchie und Koinon, Marek, Geschichte Kleinasiens, 449ff., Haensch, Cap-
ita provinciarum, 252ff. W. Eck, “Die politisch-administrative Struktur der kleinasiatischen
Provinzen während der Hohen Kaiserzeit,” in G. Urso (ed.), Tra Oriente e Occidente. Indi-
geni, Greci e Romani in Asia Minore. Atti del convegno internazionale, Cividale del Friuli,
28–30 settembre 2006 (Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2007), 189–207, esp. 192 n.19. S. Mitchell, “The
Administration of Roman Asia from 133 BC to AD 250,” in W. Eck (ed.), Lokale Autonomie
und römische Ordnungsmacht in den kaiserzeitlichen Provinzen vom 1. bis 3. Jahrhundert
(München: Oldenbourg 1999), 17–46, esp. 28f.
have revealed a pattern, by which the cities located within the framework
of such eparchies regularly formed a koinon.45 By analogy,46 the cities of
the eparcheia Commagene could also have been organised in such a way
by the end of the first century, with Samosata as the seat of their con-
gregations.47 Samosata’s new name, “Flavia Samosata”, and the city’s new
civic era, which apparently began in AD 72,48 indicate that Vespasian’s
final provincialisation of Commagene established a new role for Samosata
within the country. This may indeed have also been with relation to other
Commagenian poleis. For Pliny the Elder, writing precisely in these years,
remarks Commagenes caput Samosata.49 If Pliny was referring to Com-
magene’s new Roman provincial status, Samosata’s position as the coun-
try’s capital points to the formation of a commonalty of Commagenian
poleis already shortly after the Roman take-over.50
Yet, that may still not have been the earliest establishment of a Com-
magenian koinon, which could instead have been a result of the country’s
first provincialisation in AD 17 / 18. An argument for such an early date
can be found in the history of neighbouring Cappadocia. This dependant
45 Marek, Geschichte Kleinasiens, 451–452, 517ff. Cf. also M. Sartre, L’Orient romain
(Paris: Du Seuil, 1991): 339–340. A. Gebhardt, Imperiale Politik und provinziale Entwick-
lung (Berlin: Akademia Verlag, 2002), 149ff. 305ff. M. Dräger, Die Städte der Provinz Asia
in der Flavierzeit. Studien zur kleinasiatischen Stadt- und Regionalgeschichte (69–96 n. Chr.)
(Frankfurt/M: Peter Lang, 1993), 257–258. Butcher, Coinage in Roman Syria, 13. 220. 234.
46 Cf. the case of Phoenice which is listed together with Commagene as an eparcheia of
the Roman governor’s provincia Syria (cf. n. 43 above). Phoinice is known by pre-severan
second-century coins issued at Tyros as the name of a koinon: BMC Phoen. 361–366: Τύρου
μετροπ[όλ]εως κοινο[ῦ Φοιν]ίκης AKTI. Tyros, which by the first half of the second c. AD
is attested as the metropolis Phoenices et Coeles Syriae (AE 1927, 95), is thus certain to
have been a place where the Phoenician koinon congregated, and where Aktia were held,
long before Syria Phoenice was established as a Roman governor’s provincia. Phoenice was
listed as a destinct entity within the sphere of command of the governor of Syria as early
as Augustus’ reign (ILS 918). For the Syrian koinon see also Gebhardt, Imperiale Politik,
305–310. Butcher, Coinage in Roman Syria, 13.
47 Commagene is, however, not listed in IGRR I 445 = IAG 67 (from c. AD 90).
48 Butcher, Coinage in Roman Syria, 467.
49 Pliny, NH 5,20,85.
50 It cannot entirely be ruled out that Pliny was referring to Samosata’s former status
as royal capital (cf. above n. 35). In other places, however, Pliny is aware of recent near-
eastern developments: cf. e.g. Pliny, NH 5,13,66 (Cilicia not part of Syria). 5,14,69 (Caesarea
a Roman colonia). In particular, he locates Samosata on the “Syrian” side of the Euphrates
(Plin., NH 5,21,86) which, as it stands, surely refers to a situation after 72. (Plin., NH 5,13,66
is of less help in this respect, as it describes “historical” Syria. For a discussion of this
passage see Facella, La dinastia degli Orontidi, 54ff.). Armenia Minor in eastern Anatolia,
which was provincialised in the same year and became an eparcheia of provincia Cappado-
cia, also witnessed the establishment of a local koinon. It was headed by an armeniarches
(IGRR III 132). Cf. now Marek, Geschichte Kleinasiens, 518.
kingdom was provincialised in the same year and under nearly the same
circumstances as Commagene. Both countries witnessed the arrival of a
Roman equestrian official with local governing responsibilities, and both
appear to have been incorporated into the wider sphere of command of
the Roman governor of Syria.51 Epigraphic evidence shows that Cappa-
docia’s koinon was already in existence under Tiberius.52 The same may
therefore also have been true for Commagene, as provincialisation, accord-
ing to Strabo, transformed the country into an eparcheia.53 Although
more evidence is clearly needed for a detailed and reliable history of the
Commagenian koinon, the evidence (Tacitus and Josephus in particular)
leaves no doubt that Roman provincialisation could be (and apparently
was) regarded, already in AD 17, as a welcome opportunity by a significant
part of the elite of the country’s Greek cities. Samosata’s urban elite, in
particular, was not at risk to lose much political significance, even if its
significance was to be of a fundamentally different nature in a Roman
provincial context.
The Letter, however, provides no indication that Mara bar Sarapion
was favourable of or embedded within this Roman world of Greek cit-
ies. Rather, his frame of reference is a monarchic establishment, and his
choice of words identifies him as someone who had not at all warmed
up to the prospect of direct Roman rule. The impact of imperial Rome in
Asia Minor and the Near East, as well as Commagene’s own history had
shown that the introduction of direct Roman rule by no means necessarily
entailed the loss of wealth and political influence of all members of the
51 Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 573–580 (Commagene), 585–594 (Cappadocia). Eck

(n. 44): 193–195.
52 SEG 41, 1117. IAG 62. Cf. Dig. 27,1,6,14. J. Deininger, Die Provinziallandtage der römischen
Kaiserzeit (München: Beck, 1965), 82. Haensch, Capita provinciarum, 276, Anm. 77. Marek,
Geschichte Kleinasiens, 396.
53 Strabo 16,2,3: ἡ Κομμαγηνὴ . . . νῦν δ᾽ ἐπαρχία γέγονε. For various meanings and the use
of the term eparcheia see e.g. J. Richardson, The Language of Empire (2008) 45ff. Vitale
(n. 36). Commagene remained a distinct administrative entity under its own name after
the provincialisation of AD 17 / 18. For the equestrian praefectus Commagenes (AE 1982,
885 = AE 2002, 1453) see Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 575. S. Demougin, “Les débuts des
provinces procuratoriennes,” in: I. Piso (ed.), Die Römischen Provinzen. Begriff und Gründung
(Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Mega 2008), 65–79, esp. 70–71. Early regional commonalties in recently
conquered countries were not restricted to the eastern provinces. For a comparable insti-
tution in NW Spain, established shortly after the final conquest under Augustus, cf. W. Eck,
“Fünf ‘Ehreninschriften’ auf Bronze aus Spanien,” Chiron 27, 1997, 195–207, esp. 200ff. with
AE 1984, 553 = AE 1997, 862. G. Alföldy, “Fasti und Verwaltung der hispanischen Provinzen:
Zum heutigen Stand der Forschung,” in: R. Haensch / J. Heinrichs (eds.), Herrschen und
Verwalten. Der Alltag der römischen Administration in der Hohen Kaiserzeit (Böhlau: Köln
2007), 325—356, esp. 333—338.
former elite. Yet, Mara seems to be certain that this was his future in the
“kingdom fate has given.” Although Mara obviously valued peace and jus-
tice (§ 27)—political ideals that were publicly advertised as those typical
of Roman rule—the Letter has him openly question whether the Empire’s
representatives actually embodied these ideals. Only if “the Romans” let
him go free, is he prepared to admit that they are not uncivilized tyrants
(§ 27). As a (former) member of the political elite of his country he thus
reveals a (potentially) hostile attitude towards Rome, which is fundamen-
tally different from the one we can, for instance, observe among the lead-
ers of the local aristocracy at Palmyra in the 60s and early 70s of the third
century. Their continued use of the symbols and names of Roman impe-
rial power, even after they set up independent rule,54 shows that they had
added to their “Oriental” and “Greek” identities, a “Roman” one through a
process of “becoming Roman.”55 Aspects of this can also be observed with
Antiochos IV of Commagene, the most obvious being his Roman citizen-
ship.56 Yet, to Mara bar Sarapion “the Romans” at large are an impersonal
and aggressive power, with questionable moral standards.
The dearth of evidence from Commagene makes it difficult to trace in

detail the stages and expressions of the complex process of “Romaniza-
tion” in the former Hellenistic kingdom of Commagene. In general, how-
ever, the available evidence suggests that Commagene’s development was
not fundamentally different from what we can observe in other countries
in Asia Minor or in the Near East.57 A text of particular importance in
54 See esp. ILS 8924. Cf. Millar, Roman Near East, 167ff. 334ff. M. Sommer, Roms orien-
talische Steppengrenze. Palmyra—Edessa—Dura-Europos—Hatra (Stuttgart: Steiner 2005),
159ff. A. Schmidt-Colinet, “Nochmal zur Ikonographie zweier palmyrenischer Sarkophage,”
in: M. Bloemer / M. Facella / E. Winter (eds.), Lokale Identitäten im römischen Nahen Osten
(Stuttgart: Steiner 2009), 223–234.
55 See G. Woolf, Becoming Roman. The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cam-
bridge: CUP 1998). Iulius Africanus may also serve as an example. As an educated and
well-travelled Christian of the late 2nd and early 3rd c. from Jerusalem, he spoke of “us
Romans” (Kestoi 1,1,5–8), and referred to Jerusalem by its Roman name “Aelia Capitolina”
(Kestoi 5,1,50ff.). Cf. also U. Hartmann, “Orientalisches Selbstbewusstsein im 13. Sibylli-
nischen Orakel,” in: M. Bloemer / M. Facella / E. Winter (n. 54), 75–98.
56 Antiochos IV was addressed as a Roman citizen and as an honoured friend by Clau-
dius, and as a friend of the emperor by Chios and Elaioussa / Sebaste. Cf. Facella, La dinas-
tia degli Orontidi, 322ff. Whether, or to what extent, his Roman citizenship was publically
advertized within his dominion is, as yet, unkown.
57 Cf. now for Asia Minor Marek, Geschichte Kleinasiens, 397ff., esp. 582ff., 680–681. For
the Near East Millar, Roman Near East, passim. Sommer, Roms orientalische Steppengrenze.
passim.
this respect is a Greek funerary inscription from the village of Sofraz,

which records the names of seven generations of a wealthy Commagenian
family.58 It demonstrates how this family (which included one royal offi-
cial) gave its children typical Hellenistic dynastic names until around
the time of Commagene’s first provincialisation in AD 17 / 18. After the
introduction of Roman rule they suddenly began to give their sons decent
Latin names. We should probably understand this not only as a sign of the
preparedness of a Commagenian family of high standing to accept Roman
rule, but also as a sign of their will to participate in Roman imperial cul-
ture and power.59 The personal ties of Antiochos IV to the Julio-Claudian
family and to the leading circles in Rome, as well as his country’s repeated
involvement in Roman affairs during his reign must also have provided
a framework and opportunities for the Commagenian elite to form and
strengthen their own networks into the Roman Empire. By the second cen-
tury Commagene’s political and cultural elite was fully integrated into the
networks of the Empire, and countless others, not least through military
service, had been exposed to, and adopted, Roman patriotic ideologies.60
That, of course, did not exclude that even as prominent a Greek writer
as Loukianos of Samosata, who called the Roman soldiers “our men” (οἱ
ἡμέτεροι), could still refer to his “Syrian” or “Assyrian” identity.61 The Let-
ter, on the other hand, presents Mara bar Sarapion solely within his Com-
magenian circles of comrades, friends and family, with close ties to “His
Majesty”, and with an unfavourable sentiment towards “the Romans.”
The main difficulty with connecting the narrative frame of the Letter of
Mara bar Sarapion to the known events of 72 (the date most commonly
58 G. Schmitz / S. Sahin / J. Wagner, “Ein Grabaltar mit einer genealogischen Inschrift
aus Kommagene,” EA 11 (1988): 81–95 = SEG XXXVIII 1544.
59 For tribes of the Vallis Poenina expressing a similar attitude almost immediately after
their conquest by Augustus cf. Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 551–559.
60 Cf. e.g. H. Halfmann, Die Senatoren aus dem östlichen Teil des Imperium Romanum
bis zum Ende des 2. Jh. n. Chr. (Göttingen: Vanhoek & Ruprecht, 1979) esp. 45ff. For Roman
knights from Commagene see e.g. AE: 1997, 1777. RIB 450. RMD V 385. Soldiers: AE 1992,
1873. AE 2001, 555. CIL III 12045. VI 32523. 32624. 32642. 37184. RIU 5, 1153. RMD IV 307.
ChLA X 456 + XI 468. etc. See also: CIL III 3490 = CCID 185. CIL III 4453 = ILS 856. Etc. Cf.
also M. Facella / M.A. Speidel, “From Dacia to Doliche (and back). A new gravestone for a
Roman soldier,” in: E. Winter (ed.), Von Kummuh nach Telouch. Historische und archäolo-
gische Untersuchungen in Kommagene. Dolichener und Kommagenische Forschungen IV.
Asia Minor Studien 64 (2011) 207–215. Dissemination of patriotic ideologies: M.A. Speidel,
“Pro patria mori . . . La doctrine du patriotisme romain dans l’armée impériale”, CCG 21
(2010) 139–154.
61 “Syrian”: Lucian, Bis Accus. 14. 25–34. Ind. 19. “Assyrian”: Lucian, Dea Syria 1. Bis
Accus. 27.
favoured)62 is, however, the absence of conclusive and unambiguous

information within the text. It has to be admitted, for instance, that Mara’s
letter contains no reference to a conquest of Commagene, or to any other
military confrontation with Roman soldiers (or even to their presence)
within the country. Mara’s dead comrades were buried in foreign ground,
and are therefore not apparent victims of the bellum Commagenicum of
72, as this war was concluded, according to Josephus, after a single battle
not far from Samosata.63 Although Mara is clearly worried about his own
personal future, he does not express concern about the political future of
his country or about the fate of his king or his fellow countrymen. The ref-
erences to greed and the many ways it causes harm (§19–23) are also far
too general to be obvious allusions to any Roman military campaign.64
The text does, however, seem to contain a reference to the Crucifix-
ion and the crushing of the Jewish revolt of 66 to 70.65 But if so, it is
a distorted one, as the text insists that “from that very time” when the
Jews killed their “wise king” “their kingdom was taken away” and the Jews
were expelled from it and killed (§ 18). Which kingdom was meant? If we
imagine Mara as a pagan contemporary of the Jewish War and as member
of the elite of Commagene, which actively supported Rome in that war,
he was surely well informed of the recent political history of the region.
He can therefore hardly have meant the various territories ruled by king
Herod and his offspring until 92 or 93.66 Perhaps, therefore, the reference
is to the destruction of the Temple in 70. But then we need to assume that
the author of the Letter not only used both the terms “king” and “kingdom”
in a non-political and in an unrelated67 sense, but also that he passed over
in silence the period of over three decades between the Crucifixion and
the Jewish revolt in a passage where he was trying to produce well-known
examples to prove his point. It is at least debatable whether the destruc-
tion of the Temple could be described, from a Commagenian pagan
62 See e.g. Ewald, Spicilegium. Millar, Roman Near East, 460ff. Marek, Jesus und Abgar,
302–304. Merz / Tieleman, “Letter.” Rensberger, “Reconsidering.” I. Ramelli, Bardaisan of
Edessa: A Reassessment of the Evidence and a New Interpretation (Piscataway NJ: Gorgias
Press, 2009), 4–5 (with references to her earlier works).
63 Bellum Commagenicum: Jos., BJ 7,7,1–2. ILS 9198. AE 1942/43, 33.
64 Pace Merz / Tieleman, “Letter,” 125ff.
65 Thus most recently Merz / Tieleman, “Letter,” 127ff. Jesus is, however, not explicitly
named.
66 Cf. Millar, Roman Near East, 92.
67 Unrelated because Jesus, in this interpretation, was not the “king” of the “kingdom”
which the Jews lost. Or was Mara referring to the “Kingdom of God” which the Jews were
said to have lost because of their refusal to believe the teachings of Jesus and because they
wanted his death (cf. Mt. 21,43. 27,25)?
and contemporary perspective, as the loss of a “kingdom”, and whether

the defeat and the expulsion of the Jews as a divine punishment for the
Crucifixion could be referred to as a well-known “fact” at such an early
date.68 But it seems particularly difficult to assume that, in the early 70s,
this “fact” was accepted and used as an argument outside the context of
Christian communities. Therefore, it is not easy to see how Mara bar Sara-
pion, if indeed he was a pagan Commagenian contemporary of the Jewish
revolt of AD 66 to 70, could have hoped to enlighten his young son by
explaining the recent defeat of the Jews and the loss of their “kingdom” as
an immediate consequence of their having killed their “wise king.”
III. The Osrhoenian Perspective
The difficulties in connecting the setting of Mara’s “letter” to any known

episode of Commagenian history are mainly due to the vagueness of the
relevant information it contains. This has been explained as a consequence
of the nature of the text as an authentic private letter,69 which implies
68 The main difficulty with identifying the “Jewish wise king” of the Letter with Jesus is
almost exclusively a consequence of dating this text to the early 70s. Hence Millar’s sug-
gestion (Roman Near East, p. 462) that the “reference might perhaps be to Solomon and to
the subsequent fall of the northern kingdom.” However, he continues “But if so, the appar-
ent implication that the Jews were responsible for his death is puzzling.” McVey, “Fresh
Look,” 268–269, solves the problem by dating the Letter to the fourth century. However,
all elements relevant for that dating could already be found after the mid-second century
AD e.g. in Melito of Sardeis’ Peri Pascha, 96 and passim. It is certainly noteworthy that
the Testimonium Flavianum describes Jesus as a σοφὸς ἀνήρ (Jos. AJ 18,3,3), and that Louki-
anos, himself a pagan from Samosata, referred to Jesus as a law-giver (Pereg. 13), albeit a
Christian rather than a Jewish one, and with dislike for the Christians’ denial of the Gods
of Greece. Furthermore, Pliny, Ep. 10,96 reports the establishment, since the 90s, of rather
large communities of Christians even further north, in Pontus-Bithynia, from where there
is no other evidence for their existence at that time. But such references, including the
earliest Christian development (in the region of Antioch?) of the idea of divine punish-
ment of the Jews in the years following the destruction of the Temple, as presented in the
Gospel of Matthew (cf. Merz / Tieleman, “Letter,” 127), tell us strictly nothing about pagan
views in Commagene in the early 70s. Nor do they increase the likelihood that the notion
of divine punishment of the Jews was known, believed or spread by pagan Commagenians
in the wake of their own defeat against the Romans. While there is reason to believe that
the pagan author of the Letter had been exposed to such Christian views, the evidence, on
the whole, suggests that this happened much later than only two years after the destruc-
tion of the Temple.
69 Schulthess (n. 1) 376. Marek, Jesus und Abgar, 302ff. I. Ramelli, “Gesù tra i sapienti
greci perseguitati in un antico documento filosofico pagano di lingua siriaca,” Rivista di
Filosofia Neo-Scolastica 97,4 (2005), 545–570. Rensberger, “Reconsidering.” Merz / Tieleman,
“Letter,” 122. Etc.
that much of the information about the events alluded to was familiar to
the addressee, Mara’s young son. It is certainly true that more information
is needed to understand exactly how and why Mara bar Sarapion ended
up in Roman captivity. But understanding the text as an authentic pri-
vate letter cannot fully explain all the peculiarities of our text. The facts,
for instance, which Mara communicated, suggest that he had not been in
contact with his son who lived elsewhere since before the period of “hate-
ful talk” (§ 26).70 Mara seems to assume that his son had heard about the
“Day of Groans” at Samosata, but not about Mara’s own secret departure,
and why he was in captivity. It seems odd therefore, that Mara should not
have attempted to clear himself of the charges against him or to devote
a few more words to the circumstances, which brought him into prison.
In fact, the two passages, which directly refer to Mara’s current situation
lie far apart and serve literary purposes more than being a father’s report
to his son of recent dramatic events. What is even more surprising is that
Mara’s letter contains no greetings, no questions, no requests, no news
from family, relatives or friends, no personal names, no descriptive details
of contemporary objects, locations or events, and no “postal” information.
The most obvious element missing from the letter, however, is a farewell
phrase. The absence of all this in an authentic personal letter is conspicu-
ous. Of course, Mara’s main intention was to write a “record of his inqui-
ries in the world” (§ 3). But he was apparently also uncertain whether he
would ever have another chance to contact or see his son again (§ 29).
Comparable letters from the imperial period written from or to prison-
ers, such as the epistles of Paul of Tarsos, of Ignatius of Antioch, or the
correspondence of Cyprian of Carthage contain at least some secondary
elements despite the significance of their main contents and despite the
many times they were later copied.
Mara’s linguistic and cultural background raise further questions. His
name reveals a Semitic origin and it seems appropriate, therefore, that his
“letter” is written in a Semitic language (Syriac) and script (Estrangela).
It is certainly not unlikely that some dialect of Aramaic was also spo-
ken in Commagene of the first century AD.71 However, there is, as yet,
70 Cf. Schulthess (n. 1) 377: “Offenbar hat die Trennung von Vater und Sohn schon
längere Zeit bestanden.”
71 The likelihood is emphasized by the find-spots of two inscriptions East and West of
Commagene’s southern parts: H.J.W. Drijvers / J.F. Healey, The Old Syriac Inscriptions of
Edessa and Osrhoene (Leiden: Brill, 1999) no. As55 (Birecik) and CRAI 1908, 445 = BÉ 1958,
172 (Ariaramneia).
no concrete evidence for this. Nor is there any evidence for the use or
the knowledge of the Estrangela script by late-Hellenistic Commagen-
ians.72 That is, perhaps, significant, for even if very closely related dialects
were spoken (and mutually understood) on both sides of the Euphrates,
it does not necessarily follow that the writing system used for the “local
Aramaic dialect of Edessa”73 (i.e. Syriac) was also used, or could be read,
by Commagenians.74 Whereas the use of the Greek language and script
are well attested in Hellenistic Commagene (in particular, of course, by
the country’s elite), Old Syriac inscriptions of the first three centuries
AD are found only to the east of the Euphrates in a region which at this
time “was not hellenized to any significant extent.”75 Similarly, all known
authors of Syriac literature from before the fifth century belong to the
east of the Euphrates.76 It is quite true that there is “no obvious or neces-
sary connection between political boundaries (. . .) and the areas where
particular dialects or scripts were in use.”77 Future epigraphic and numis-
matic discoveries might provide new insights. Yet, at the current stage
of knowledge, Mara’s “letter,” both chronologically and geographically
(by its alleged Commagenian origin), appears to set itself far apart from
the rest of early Syriac literature.78 Must we assume that members of the
first-century Commagenian elite at Samosata, in private contexts, wrote
in the Edessan dialect and used its cognate script long before the period
72 The question is discussed by Millar, Roman Near East, 454ff., and by M. Facella in this
volume. For important general considerations on the connection between writing systems
and languages or dialects see now J.J. Price / S. Naeh, “On the margins of culture: the
practice of transcription in the ancient world,” in H.M. Cotton / R.G. Hoyland / J.J. Price /
D.J. Wasserstein (eds.), From Hellenism to Islam. Cultural and Linguistic Change in the
Roman Near East (Cambridge: CUP, 2009), 257–288.
73 Thus most recently S. Brock, “Edessene Syriac inscriptions in late antique Syria,” in:
H.M. Cotton / R.G. Hoyland / J.J. Price / D.J. Wasserstein (eds.), From Hellenism to Islam.
Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East (Cambridge: CUP, 2009), 289–302,
esp. 289.
74 Compare P.Yadin 52, a Greek letter from the “Bar Kokhba archive,” written by a
Nabatean to a Jew: . . . ἐγράφη / δ[ὲ] Ἑληνεστὶ διὰ / τ[ὸ ἡ]μᾶς μὴ εὐρηκ[έ]ναι Ὲβραεστὶ. Both
would have been able to converse in mutually comprehensible Aramaic dialects, but the
Nabatean could not write in Jewish letters, nor did he expect the Jew to be able to read
Nabatean characters. Using Greek letters to transcribe a local language was apparently
not considered to be an option. Cf. Price / Naeh, Practice of Transcription, 259f. H. Cotton,
“Language Gaps in Roman Palestine and the Roman Near East,” in: C. Frevel (ed.), Medien
im antiken Palästina. Materielle Kommunikation und Medialität als Thema der Palästi-
naarchäologie (FAT, 2. Reihe 10. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005): 159–178.
75 J. Healey, “The Edessan Milieu and the Birth of Syriac,” Hugoye 10,2 (2007) esp. § 33.
76 Brock, “Edessene Syriac inscriptions,” 289ff.
77 Millar, Roman Near East, 459.
78 For the development of Old Syriac as a literary language see e.g. Millar, Roman Near
East, 457ff. Healey, “Birth of Syriac.” Brock, “Edessene Syriac inscriptions,” 289ff.
when we can observe the development of Syriac into a literary language in

neighbouring Osrhoene?79 Or is the Letter in its extant form a translated
and revised text, or even a product from within the Edessan milieu, and
of a later date?
Mara had left his young son to the care of a teacher and guardian.
This is no cause for surprise with a wealthy member of the elite of a late-
Hellenistic kingdom. But if this is indeed what Mara was, the terms in
which he recommends Greek learning to his son seem somewhat puz-
zling. For Mara, with no reference to earlier conversations, sets forth what
in his view were the basic advantages of paideia not only as if this were
the first time he addressed the subject for the benefit of his son, but also
as if these advantages were by no means a matter of course (§§ 3–4).
Perhaps for Mara they were not, as his own defective knowledge of Greek
history appears to suggest.80 Or were these introductory lines of the Letter
simply elements of literary construction?
Whatever the answers to such questions may be, there can be no doubt
that Mara’s “letter” indeed had an established position as a noteworthy
piece of Syriac writing at the time it was copied onto the seventh-century
manuscript, which preserved its text.81 The character and the nature of the
Letter must, therefore, also be understood in a wider Syriac cultural and
literary context, and, of course, as the product of a manuscript tradition.
The anecdote at the end of the main text is written in the third person
and therefore evidently an addition to the actual “letter.” It presents Mara
bar Sarapion as a familiar personality who was associated with captivity
and philosophical thoughts on fate. But above all, it thereby indicates that
more about Mara bar Sarapion was once known to the educated reader of
79 But cf. Sommer, Roms orientalische Steppengrenze, 118–119 and S.P. Brock, “Greek and
Syriac in Late Antique Syria,” in: A.K. Bowman / G. Woolf (eds), Literacy and Power in the
Ancient World (Cambrdige: CUP, 1994), 149–160, esp. 150: “. . . even in the polis . . . Aramaic
was clearly the normal language of the lower classes.” As for Old Syriac in particular, Hea-
ley, “Birth of Syriac,” § 26ff. recently pointed out that its use (rather that Greek) by the
Abgarids in the public sphere probably served “the assertion of a non-Greek identity.” It
would certainly be interesting to know how such connotations might have influenced an
educated late-hellenistic Commagenian nobleman in his choice of language (if indeed he
had such a choice) when writing private letters.
80 See §§ 13 and 18 of the Letter with Merz / Tieleman, “Letter,” 116ff., who, however, in
an effort to save Mara’s Greek education, explain his unhistorical statements by suggesting
that Mara was consciously tampering with historical facts. Yet if so, Mara would have had
to fear that his son, to whom he so warmly recommended Greek learning, would soon rec-
ognize that his father was unfamiliar with historical facts, and that young Sarapion might
therefore not be persuaded by the argument which Mara derived from his construction of
the paradigms in § 18 of his “letter.”
81 BM Add. 14658.
Syriac texts than the “letter” to his son. The final sentence, “End of the let-
ter of Mara bar Sarapion” (§ 30), by its position, includes the anecdote into
the main body of the text, and is itself an obvious addition and not part
of the “letter.”82 Taken together, these characteristics reveal the nature of
the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion, which is not primarily a complete and
authentic personal letter but rather a “literary composition” “cast in the
form of a letter of consolation”83 and admonition from a familiar person-
ality. The Letter in its transmitted form was therefore hardly ever sent to
Mara’s young son. Hence, its nature may serve as a guide to a more com-
prehensive understanding of its historical and cultural context.
If we accept that Mara’s “letter” is primarily a literary text, we also need
to approach the question of its reception in northwestern Mesopotamia
and Edessa, as the place with which the origins of Syriac literature are
most closely associated. This context is not only relevant in order to deter-
mine the period in which Mara’s “letter” most likely established its position
within Syriac literature, but also because the text may tell us something
about its formative environment. The available evidence for the develop-
ment of the political and religious culture in northwestern Mesopotamia
strongly points to the later second and early third century as a time, in
which the Letter contained many ingredients to attract educated readers
of the Osrhoenian elite. A date in the fourth or later centuries, on the
other hand, appears to be very unlikely.84
Unlike neighbouring Commagene, Osrhoene85 had only come under
full Roman control in the mid-60s of the second century.86 Although the
82 Such closing statements are known from several Syriac texts, e.g. Book of the Laws of
the Countries, the Teachings of Addai, the Oration of Meliton, or Ephrem’s discourse against
Bardaisan. Etc.
83 Thus Millar, Roman Near East, 461.
84 Pace McVey, “Fresh Look” and Chin, “Chreia Elaboration.” Strong arguments against
a specific contemporary relevance of the Letter in an Edessan or Osrhoenian context
after the mid to late-third century can been seen in Mara’s negative assessment of “the
Romans” (cf. also S.H. Griffith, “The Doctrina Addai as a Paradigm of Christian Thought in
Edessa in the Fifth Century,” Hugoye 6/2 (2003): §§ 1–46, esp. §§ 23ff.), his apparent role
in royal, extra-provincial networks, his apparent affinity to Stoicism (cf. Merz / Tieleman,
“Letter,” 107ff.) and the absence of unambiguous statements of Christian conviction. Cf.
also below.
85 For recent scholarship see S.K. Ross, Roman Edessa. Politics and Culture on the East-
ern Fringes of the Roman Empire, 114–242 CE (London: Routledge, 2001). Sommer, Roms ori-
entalische Steppengrenze. esp. 225ff. Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 181ff., each with further
literature. On chronology see A. Luther, “Elias von Nisibis und die Chronologie der edesse-
nischen Könige,” Klio 81 (1999): 180–198. See also idem, “Die ersten Könige von Osrhoene,”
Klio 81 (1999): 437–454.
86 For a Roman alliance with the king of Osrhoene in the 1st c. BC cf. Dio 40,20,1. Plut.,
Crassus 21,2. As a part of Augustus’ settlement with the Parthians in 20 BC Rome may
kingdom of Osrhoene was then occupied it was not provincialised, and

the Abgarid dynasty continued to rule. Only since did elements of Greek
urban culture begin to play a role of any significance within the “Edessan
milieu.”87 In 195, during the reign of Abgar “the Great” (177/8–212), north-
ern Mesopotamia was provincialised following local attacks on Roman
garrisons during the civil war of 193 / 194, and the former kingdom of
Osrhoene was reduced to a small area surrounding Edessa. The greater
part of the country, however, was added as a provincia (apparently in a
sense similar to eparcheia Kommagene of the first century) to the consular
province of Syria Coele and placed under the local administration of an
equestrian procurator until, at an unknown date in the early third century,
it was united with provincia Mesopotamia. Finally, in 212 / 213, after ruling
for only a few months, king Abgar Severus was arrested and royal rule
was terminated in Edessa, apparently following internal unrest.88 Accord-
ing to Jacob of Edessa there had also been rumours of Abgar Severus’
disloyalty and of an attempt of his to defect (which recalls the allega-
tions against Antiochos IV of Commagene of around 150 years earlier).89
In the wake of these events, members of Osrhoene’s socio-political elite
may have found Mara bar Sarapion a personality to which they could eas-
ily relate. Their interest in his fate might have been further increased by
other noticeable parallels with Commagenian history: the ostentatious
loyalty to Rome (especially since 195)90 of the Abgarid kings, now Roman
citizens,91 and by the cases of exile enforced by the Romans on leading
have enforced certain military guaranties within Osrhoene, if this is what Isidor of Charax
was referring to in his Mansiones Parthicae 1: ἐκεῖθεν διαβαίνει τὰ στρατόπεδα εἰς τὴν κατὰ
῾Ρωμαίους πέραν. Osrhoene’s ambiguous political loyalty appears to have been the result:
Tac., Ann. 12,12ff. Dio 68,18,1. For Trajan’s short-lived provincia Mesopotamia see Speidel,
Heer und Herrschaft, 154ff. 184 with n. 17.
87 Millar, Roman Near East, 456ff. Sommer, Roms orientalische Steppengrenze. 249ff.
Healey, “Birth of Syriac,” passim.
88 For these developments see Dio 77,12,1a–12. Millar, Roman Near East, 144. Luther, Elias
von Nisibis, 193. Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 181–210, esp. 184ff. 191ff.
89 See E.W. Brooks, “Chronicon Jacobi Edesseni,” in E.W. Brooks, I. Guidi, I.-B. Chabot,
Chronica minora 3. CSCO V Syr. 5 (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1905) 261–330, esp.
281f. (text). CSCO VI Syr. 6 1(905), 197–258, esp. 211–212. (transl.). The passage may, perhaps,
echoe Roman political rhetoric at the time of provincialisation.
90 Herod. 3,9,2. Dio 79,16,2. Cf. Procop., Bell. Pers. 2,12. Cf. Ross, Roman Edessa, 46ff.
56–57. Sommer, Roms orientalische Steppengrenze, 238. 241f. Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft,
199f.
91 AE 1984, 920. G.F. Hill, “The Mints of Roman Arabia and Mesopotamia,” JRS 6 (1916):
159. BMC Arabia, Mesopotamia and Persia, ci and 96, nos. 36 and 37. A. Luther, “Abgar
Prahates filius rex,” Le Muséon 111 (1998) 345–357, esp. 355. Ross, Roman Edessa, 56–57.
Osrhoenians during this period.92 John Healey recently described, how the
emergence of Syriac as a major literary language precisely in this period
coincided with the development of a marked interest in Greek mythol-
ogy and philosophical thought in a circle associated with the royal court
at Edessa.93 This circle was also exposed to and increasingly involved in
early Christianity,94 while Edessan culture at this time was still “set in an
environment, which was dominated by an underlying native religious and
linguistic tradition.”95 Mara’s “letter” therefore responded particularly well
to both the political situation of the Osrhoenian elite and to the modern
cultural and philosophical trends at Edessa during the later second and
early third century.
The extent to which members of Osrhoene’s cultural and political elite
might have identified with Mara bar Sarapion is perhaps best illustrated
by the many apparent parallels between Mara and what tradition has to
say about the “most iconic figure” of Edessan culture in this period, Bar-
daisan (AD 154–222).96 Bardaisan was a wealthy and prominent person-
ality at the royal court at Edessa who was on familiar terms with king
Abgar “the Great.”97 He was accustomed to a bilingual environment,98 and
he gave his son Harmonius a Greek name and a Greek education.99 As
an erudite man he was interested, among other things, in history, Greek
92 This is, again, especially well known for members of the royal family: Herod., 3,9,2.
Dio 78,12,12. IGR I 179 = CIG 6196 = IGUR 1142. CIL VI 1797 = ILS 857 with Luther, “Die ersten
Könige von Osroene,” 445–457. The exile of Bardaisan to Armenia (cf. below) also appears
to have been a consequence of the termination of royal rule in Edessa in 212 / 213.
93 Healey, “Birth of Syriac,” §§ 10–11. 15. Cf. idem, “A New Syriac Mosaic Inscription,”
Journal of Semitic Studies 51,2 (2006): 313–327.
94 S.H. Griffith, “Christianity in Edessa and the Syriac-speaking World: Mani, Bar Day-
san, and Ephraem; the Struggle for Allegiance on the Aramean Frontier,” Journal of the
Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 2 (2002): 5–20. Marek, Jesus und Abgar, 294ff. I. Ramelli,
Bardaisan, 34ff.
95 Healey, “Birth of Syriac,” § 32.
96 On Bardaisan cf. e.g. H.J.W. Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa (1966). J. Teixidor, Bard-
esane d’Edesse: La première philosophie syriaque (Paris: Cerf, 1992), and most recently Ram-
elli, Bardaisan. “Most iconic”: Healey, “Birth of Syriac,” § 14.
97 Africanus, Kestoi 1,20. Epiphan., Haer. 56.
98 Epiphan., Haer. 56. Cf. in general Brock, “Greek and Syriac,” 149–160.
99 Sozom., HE 3,16. Theodoret, Haeret. Fabul. Comp. 1,22. Local Semitic and Greek
names alternating from one generation to the next within the same family may have been
common in this region and time, but were hardly a reaction to Roman rule. Pace Sommer,
Roms orientalische Steppengrenze, 307f. Ramelli, Bardaisan, 247f. points out the possibility
that Harmonius was a disciple rather than a son of Bardaisan’s.
philosophy, including Stoic views,100 and, of course, Christian religion.101

Mara’s imperfect knowledge of Greek history is paralleled by the claim of
one later author that Bardaisan, on one occasion, “made himself a laugh-
ing-stock among Syrians and Greeks because of his imperfect knowledge
of the teachings of Plato.”102 Both Bardaisan and Mara used verses to
increase the educational effect of their teachings.103 The so-called Book
of the Laws of the Countries, which is preserved in the same manuscript
as Mara’s “letter” and which is generally held to be an accurate reflec-
tion of Bardaisan’s teachings (written down in the form of a dialogue on
fate104 by one of his pupils), has a number of concepts in common with
the Letter,105 in particular the workings of fate and its influence on pos-
sessions, power and children.106 Both texts praise the human intellect as
the key to overcome (or to by-pass) the constraints of “Fate.”107 Further-
more, the Book of the Laws of the Countries also describes “the Romans”
as representatives of an impersonal and aggressive power, who will not
refrain “from always conquering new territories.”108 It also mentions the
abrogation of traditional laws as a result of the recent Roman provinciali-
sation of northern Mesopotamia.109 This places the chronological setting
100 H.J.W. Drijvers, “Bardaisan von Edessa als Repräsentant des syrischen Synkretismus
im 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr.,” in: A. Dietrich (ed.), Synkretismus im syrisch-persischen Kul-
turgebiet: Bericht über ein Symposion in Reinhausen bei Göttingen in der Zeit vom 4. bis 8.
Oktober 1971 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 109–122.
101 See e.g. Teixidor, Bardesane, esp. 105–114. S. Brock, “Eusebios and Syriac Christian-
ity,” in: W. Harold / G. Hata (eds.), Eusebius, Christianity and Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1992),
212–234. Marek, Jesus und Abgar, 296ff. and the literature quoted in n. 96 above.
102 Ephrem the Syrian, in Prose Refutations 2,7,13–8. Compare n. 80 above.
103 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 143ff.
104 On Fate is the title the Greco-Roman sources used to refer to a text they ascribed to
Bardaisan, and which they claim he had dedicated to a certain Antoninus. Cf. Euseb., HE
4,30,2. Euseb., Praep. Ev. 6,9,32. Epiphan., Haer. 56,1,3. Jerome, De Vir. Ill. 33,2. See Drijvers,
Bardaisan, 63ff. Ramelli, Bardaisan, 54ff. with further literature, and see n. 110 below.
105 Cf. Drijvers, Bardaisan, 67.
106 H.J.W. Drijvers, The Book of the Laws of Countries. Dialogue on Fate of Bardaisan of
Edessa. 2nd edition with a new introduction by Jan Willem Drijvers (Piscataway, NJ: Gor-
gias Press, 2006), 30–31. Compare §§ 11–12 of the Letter.
107 E.g. Drijvers, Laws of Countries, 60–61: “. . . the liberty of mankind is not subject to the
guidance of Fate . . . and . . . can oppose its influence.” Cf. Ramelli, Bardaisan, 88ff.
108 Drijvers Laws of Countries, 52/53: “. . . it (sc. “Fate”) does not prevent . . . the Romans
from always conquering new territories . . . .” Euseb., Praep. Ev. 6,10,35 simply renders “. . . ἤ
τοὺς ῾Ρωμαίους μὴ κρατεῖν . . . .” The emphasis on Roman rule, rather than on continuous
conquest is even more pronounced in the reworked versions of the Pseudo-Clementines,
Recogn. 9,27, and in Diod. Tars., Κατὰ Ἑιμαρμένης 6,45 (for which see Ramelli, Bardaisan,
134–35).
109 Drijvers Laws of Countries, 56/57: “Recently the Romans have conquered Arabia . . . .”
Euseb., Praep. Ev. 6,10,41: χθές. Compare § 12 of the Letter. “Arabia”, described by the BLC
of Bardaisan’s Dialogue in the period following Septimius Severus’ “first Par-

thian War” in 195.110 Both Bardaisan, who was remembered as an outspoken
man,111 and Mara bar Sarapion were thus not only closely associated
with the Rome-friendly kings of their countries, but they also questioned
Roman peaceableness, and emphasized their own non-Roman identities.
Caracalla’s termination of royal rule in Edessa in 212 / 213, at the latest,
brought along the end of Bardaisan’s political influence. In the course of
these events, if we are to believe Epiphanius, Bardaisan was persecuted
by the Romans and threatened to be sentenced to death, although in his
case allegedly for his Christian beliefs.112 With equanimity rivalling that of
Mara, Bardaisan said that he did not fear death, which he would have to
as the Edessans’ “own surroundings” (Drijvers, loc. cit.), was, of course, a common term for
northern Mesopotamia. Cf. e.g. Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 182 with n. 8 and 199 with
n. 96. Cf. also below nn. 110 and 112.
110 Cf. above n. 109, and the statement in the BLC that the laws of Abgar (sc. “the Great”)
were valid “in the territory of Edessa”: Drijvers, Laws of Countries, 58/59. Cf. Marek, Jesus
und Abgar, 297. Understanding Bardaisan’s reference to the recent (!) conquest of Arabia
as to Trajan’s provincialisation of the Nabataean kingdom in AD 106 is hardly a likely
alternative. Pace e.g. Millar, Roman Near East, 12. Eusebius claims that Bardaisan dedicated
his dialogue On Fate to a certain Antoninus: HE 4,30,2. Cf. Jerome, De Vir. Ill. 33,2. If so,
Caracalla is perhaps the most likely candidate. Thus also G. Zecchini, Il pensiero politico
romano (1997), 115ff. Pace Ramelli, Bardaisan, 57ff. 118ff. Cf. also Drijvers, Bardaisan, 69. 92.
214. Ramelli, Bardaisan, 57 identifies Marcus Aurelius, but asserts ibid. 120 that the BLC “in
its extant form was written after Marcus Aurelius.” Her main argument against an iden-
tification with Caracalla or Elagabal is Eusebius’ reference to a persecution (HE 4,30,1–3).
For a new interpretation of this “persecution” cf. below n. 112.
111 Thus e.g. Moses of Chorene in his History of Armenia (P.H. 2,66). Cf. Ramelli, Bardai-
san, 253ff. Drijvers, Bardaisan, 65.
112 The persecution which is reported to have occurred around the time when Bardai-
san was composing his work “On Fate” (Euseb., HE 4,30. Cf. n. 110 above) was instigated by
Caracalla and affected Christians according to Epiphan., Haer. 56. Cf. Drijvers, Bardaisan,
214. However, this “persecution” was probably not primarily directed against Christians in
general, as no religious persecutions are otherwise attested during Caracalla’s reign. As
there is good reason to assume that the Christian faith was very popular at the Edessan
royal court in these years (cf. e.g. Marek, Jesus und Abgar, 294ff. Ramelli, Bardaisan, 34ff.),
the “persecution” may instead have alluded to the arrest and exile of leading and loyal
supporters of Abgarid rule (cf. above n. 92), many of which may indeed have been Chris-
tians. If so, Christian faith may have been perceived by the Romans as a bond of loyalty
between the Edessan king and his court. At any rate, Caracalla would have had reason to
expect local resistance against his plans to incorporate the remains of the Edessan king-
dom into provincia Mesopotamia after his arrest of king Abgar Severus. If the origins of the
Syriac apology ascribed to Melito (transmitted by the same manuscript as the BLC and the
Letter) can indeed be linked to Bardaisan and his school, as has recently been suggested
(I. Ramelli, “Bardesane e la sua scuola, l’Apologia siriaca ‘di Melitone’ e la Doctrina Addai,”
Aevum 83 [2009] 141–168, eadem, Bardaisan, 60f.), its dedication to “Antoninus Caesar”
may also have been to Caracalla, rather than to Marcus Aurelius. The interpretation of this
text might therefore benefit from giving more attention to its possible political context.
suffer in any event.113 Exile in Armenia and retirement to historical and

religious occupation appears to have followed.114
Bardaisan’s biography was, in many ways, the product of the frontier
setting of Osrhoene and Edessa, and of his association with the royal
court in a time when major political and cultural changes converged to
form the beginning of a new age in northern Mesopotamia. Other leading
Osrhoenians of this period may therefore have experienced (or witnessed)
similar developments. To them, Mara’s “letter” offered a recipe to cope
with major political change, exile, and with the loss of wealth and power.
It conveyed an unfavourable portrait of “the Romans” as uncivilized for-
eigners and jailors with the power to decide on the fate of the erudite and
formerly influential. It offered insight into the personal fate and thoughts
of a leading nobleman from neighbouring Commagene, whose country
had been subjected to Roman rule in the aftermath of major civil war-
fare in the Roman world around a century and a half earlier. The Letter
was composed by an educated pagan writer in the Osrhoenians’ own lan-
guage and script,115 with an affinity to Near Eastern wisdom literature, and
with examples of Greek erudition and Biblical history. It advertised a mod-
ern school of thought by presenting it in an ancient private letter of admo-
nition to an audience, which, allegedly, was prone to “new philosophies”.116
Its age may even have conveyed particular authority, as it “proved” that
already in times of old, others had mastered comparable situations with
the help of paideia and stoic wisdom. Together with what is known of
the development of Syriac as a literary language, and of the significance
of hellenistic culture and early Christianity at the court of Edessa, all this
combines to a likelihood for the relevance of the Letter of Mara bar Sara-
pion, in its transmitted form, in the period in which Osrhoene and Edessa
were subjected to Roman administration. This, in particular, was a time in
which the Letter could be understood by (formerly) leading Osrhoenians
to provide orientation and guidance in a changing world. It could help
them to develop or restore a feeling of superiority in spite of their loss of
political influence and their obligation to behave loyal towards their new
113 Epiphan., Haer. 56: . . . θάνατον μὴ δεδιέναι φήσας, ὄν ὰνάγκῃ ἔσεσθαι, κἂν τε τῳ βασιλεῖ

μὴ ἀντείποι.
114 See Ramelli, Bardaisan, 257.
115 Mara bar Sarapion’s name certainly also sounded native in an Osrhoenian context
where names and filiations composed with bar (= “son of ”) are even more frequently attested
than elsewhere in the Near East. Cf. Sommer, Roms orientalische Steppengrenze, 254.
116 For the popularity of new “philosophies” also in northern Mesopotamia in the late
2nd and early 3rd c. see Euseb., HE 4,30.
and foreign rulers. The Letter even recommended such behaviour, yet by
characterizing it as a sign of great erudition and as a quality of wise men
not usually found with “the Romans” it offered an interpretation of obedi-
ence, which reversed the order of rulers and subjects.
The Letter of Mara Bar Sarapion to his son thus appears to reveal a
tradition at Edessa in the late second and early third centuries of (at least
traits of ) the history of late-Hellenistic Commagene, and of its effects on
the biography of an educated, wealthy and influential member of that
country’s elite. The Letter, obviously, was a most important element of
this tradition, but hardly the only source of information at Edessa on the
life and fate of Mara bar Sarapion. Mara’s story may, therefore, have a
certain parallel in the Jesus-Abgar legend. For the earliest elements of
this tradition not only appear to have originated in the same period, but
also evolved around historical events, “ancient” documents and promi-
nent personalities of the past.117 The Jesus-Abgar correspondence, which
clearly belonged to the earliest elements of this tradition, also conveys
a hostile attitude towards the Jews by accusing them of their evil treat-
ment of Jesus.118 Both traditions thus reveal a specific interest among the
Edessan elite of the late Antonine and the Severan age in making use of
“history” as well as of “personal letters” from well-known historical figures
from West of the Euphrates in order to shape and to support philosophi-
cal and religious world views in an environment characterized by major
political change. These developments must surely be seen as elements of
a culture in profound transformation, and, at least in part, as a response
to increased Roman control. To this transforming world Mara bar Sara-
pion from Commagenian Samosata was presented as a paradigm, and his
“letter” as a wise man’s voice from the past with important answers to
117 For an excellent recent account, in German language, of the origins and the devel-
opment of the Jesus-Abgar legend see Marek, Jesus und Abgar, 269–310. For recent schol-
arship see also Griffith, Doctrina Addai. A. Mirkovic, Prelude to Constantine: The Abgar
Tradition in Early Christianity (2004). I. Ramelli, “Possible historical traces in the Doctrina
Addai,” Hugoye 9/1 (2006) §§ 1–23.
118 However, unlike the Letter and the BLC, the Jesus-Abgar legend expresses a wholly
Rome-friendly attitude. This seems entirely appropriate if the earliest versions of the leg-
end, including the “correspondance,” indeed originated during the reign of Abgar “the
Great”, as has convincingly been argued. See e.g. Marek, Jesus und Abgar, 267ff. Ramelli,
Bardaisan, 34ff., and 264ff. for Bardaisan’s possible role in shaping the Jesus-Abgar legend.
For the distinctly Rome-friendly attitude expressed in the Doctrina Addai see also the con-
tributions by Griffith, Mirkovic, and Ramelli quoted above in n. 117. It may be noted that
the storage of historically relevant documents at Edessa mirrors the behaviour, the respec-
tive values, and the mechanisms of constructing local history as known particularly from
the Greek cities of the Roman Empire (cf. e.g. the famous “archive wall” at Aphrodisias).
contemporary Osrhoenian challenges.119 Mara’s “letter” and his fate pro-

vided proof of the value of his philosophical views.
The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion should therefore be read with (at least)
two major historical contexts in mind, although neither of them can be
defined with great precision. The Letter with its references to Samosata
and to “His Majesty” clearly presents a first-century Commagenian context,
and may reflect a real situation in a period of sharply increased Roman
control. The immediate aftermath of the bellum Commagenicum of 72,
when Roman troops occupied the country and royal rule was terminated,
is, perhaps, the most likely setting. However, for the reasons set out above,
it remains impossible to confirm beyond doubt the Letter’s connection to
this or to any other known episode of Commagenian history. On the other
hand, the Letter, as a literary composition, appears to relate to a perhaps
even more relevant context in Osrhoene and Edessa in the later second
and early third century, which is most likely to have been its formative
environment.120 If so, the Letter probably tells us less about first century
Commagenian history and culture than it does about how certain leading
Osrhoenians tried to cope with Roman occupation and the early stages of
direct Roman rule in their country. This understanding of the Letter then
also offers an important insight into the historical perspective of the elite
of the Abgarid kingdom, of how they related to first-century Commagen-
ian and Jewish history, to Greek tradition and Biblical knowledge, and
what concrete use they made of their amalgamated wisdom in the context
of the Roman take-over of their country. Yet, whatever the true origin(s?)
of the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion may have been, it is unique in present-
ing the philosophical outlook of a Near Eastern nobleman from beyond
the Roman provincial world, and his expression of a pagan ideal of how
to cope with emotions caused by the loss of wealth and influence, as well
as by humiliating captivity and the separation from family as a result of
his country’s Roman occupation.
119 There can be little doubt that the author of the Letter was a pagan, but he had
clearly been exposed to Christian convictions. He was sympathetic to this faith, and he had
accepted some Christian views (Jesus as a wise king and law-giver, the divine punishment
of the Jews). It is not unlikely that such attitudes and convictions were held at the royal
court of Abgar “the Great.” Cf. Healey, “Birth of Syriac,” §§ 32ff. Marek, Jesus und Abgar,
294ff. Ramelli, Bardaisan, 34ff.
120 It may, of course, have also been read with some interest during the periods of
military instability in northern Mesopotamia throughout the 3rd century. Cf. Festus, Bre-
viarium 14,3f.: quater amissa, quater recepta Mesopotamia est. Cf. e.g. Speidel, Heer und
Herrschaft, 181–210.
CULTURAL RESPONSES FROM KINGDOM TO PROVINCE:
THE ROMANISATION OF COMMAGENE, LOCAL IDENTITIES
AND THE MARA BAR SARAPION LETTER
Kommagene gehört zu den Gebieten Kleinasiens, denen im Altertum eine

besonders wichtige Bedeutung zukam. Denn das Land spielte wegen seiner
Euphratübergänge im Zuge der Verbindungen zwischen dem Norden Meso-
potamiens und der Mittelmeerküste einerseits und dem Inneren Kleinasiens
andererseits eine große Rolle.1
Introduction
The Mara bar Sarapion letter is a remarkable document that is relevant to

a wide variety of scholarly discussions, which might be theological, philo-
sophical, linguistic, historical or archaeological in nature. In this article I
will only take the latter two aspects into account and study the text as a
historical source that might help us better understand the region of Com-
magene and its archaeology from the late Hellenistic and Roman era. I
will focus on the “Romanisation” of Commagene in particular and—in
relation to processes we indicate by that name—on the (possible) exis-
tence of a distinct Commagenean identity in the late Hellenistic and
Roman period.
An important aspect of the novel edition of the Mara bar Sarapion let-
ter is the dating of the document to the period around AD 72/73, when
1 F.K. Dörner, “Die Entdeckung von Arsameia am Nymphenfluß und die Ausgrabungen
im Hierothesion des Mithridates Kallinikos von Kommagene,” in: Neue Deutsche Ausgra-
bungen im Mittelmeergebiet und im vorderen Orient (1959), 71–88, 71. I would like to warmly
thank Annette Merz and Teun Tieleman for their invitation and for the stimulating con-
ference. Part of this paper (on Commagenean cultural responses to Roman power) was
presented earlier, at the 8th Roman Archaeology Conference, held in Ann Arbor in 2009,
in a session entitled “Peoples at the Peripheries.” I would like to thank David Mattingly and
Peter Wells for their kind invitation to participate there. My title draws inspiration from an
essay by J.M. Højte, “From Kingdom to Province: Reshaping Pontos after the Fall of Mithri-
dates VI,” in: T. Bekker-Nielsen (ed.), Rome and the Black Sea Region: Domination, Romani-
sation, Resistance (Black Sea Studies 5; Tønnes: Aarhus University Press 2006), 15–30.
44 miguel john versluys
Commagene was added to the Roman province of Syria and lost its formal
independence.2 In an article from 2008, with comments on the philosoph-
ical and historical contexts of the letter that provide background to this
dating, Merz and Tieleman have suggested that the letter would document
both “the humiliation suffered by a local aristocracy” after “the Roman
conquest of Commagene,” and “the history of the reception of the cultic
reform of Antiochos I in the first century BCE.”3 For Commagenean his-
tory and archaeology in general, especially the latter observation is poten-
tially of great importance, and I will therefore shortly elaborate on it.
Commagene is probably best known for the dynastic monument of
Nemrud Dağ, built by king Antiochos I somewhere around 50 BC.4 This
monument consists of three terraces laid out around an artificially styled
tumulus that was probably meant to contain the king’s tomb. On the East-
ern and Western terraces a large statue of king Antiochos I is displayed
amidst four other colossi that represent the most important gods of his
ruler cult. Together with other (stereotypical) elements like depictions of
lions and eagles, the same figures are shown in so-called dexiosis reliefs.
Also ancestor reliefs are part of the architectural ensemble: by means of
large stelae, Antiochos I presents members of the Seleucid and Macedo-
nian royal house as his motherly ancestors—going back to Alexander the
Great—while through his father’s line he retraces his genealogy to the
great Persian King of Kings Dareios. The style of the visual language used
is remarkable and most often described as Greco-Iranian, as it is clearly
inspired by both the Hellenistic and the Persian worlds. Many elements
2 A. Merz, David Rensberger, Teun Tieleman, Mara bar Sarapion—Letter to His Son
(SAPERE series. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming).
3 A. Merz and T. Tieleman, “The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion: Some Comments on its
Philosophical and Historical Context,” in A. Houtman – A. de Jong – M. Misset-van de
Weg (eds.) Empsychoi Logoi. Religious Innovations in Antiquity. Studies in Honour of Pieter
Willem van der Horst (Leiden: Brill 2008), 122–123 and 133.
4 For Nemrud Dağ, see D.H. Sanders (ed.), Nemrud Daği: the hierothesion of Antio-
chos I. of Commagene. Results of the American excavations directed by Theresa B. Goell,
I–II (Winona Lake MN: Eisenbrauns, 1996), not to be consulted without the review by
B. Jacobs in Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 30 (1998): 344–351. The most
recent archaeological work, by an international team, has been provisionally published in
three interim reports by E.M. Moormann and M.J. Versluys, see Bulletin Antieke Beschaving
77 (2002): 73–111, 78 (2003): 141–166 and 80 (2005) 125–143. The final publication of these
campaigns is prepared by H.A.G. Brijder and is forthcoming. For the historical background
to this remarkable dynasty see now umfassend M. Facella, La dinastia degli Orontidi nella
Commagene ellenistico-romana (Pisa: Guardini, 2006). The most recent general intro-
duction to the region and its archaeology is provided by J. Wagner (ed.), Gottkönige am
Euphrat. Neue Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Kommagene (Darmstadt: Zabern, 2000).
cultural responses from kingdom to province 45
from Nemrud Dağ can be found at other places in Commagene as well, and
it seems as if Antiochos I wanted to tie his kingdom and its people together
through some kind of dynastic grid overlaying the landscape. Antiochos
I was actively engaged in creating history and inventing traditions for
his own project of dynastic self presentation.5 It is now becoming more
and more clear, therefore, that it is only during his reign (ca. 69–36 BC)
that this dynastic Bildersprache was invented and executed.
One out of many heavily debated questions on the ruler cult of Antio-
chos I is its relation to the social context within it was functioning—or
supposed to function in. The reason for the “hybrid” style characteris-
ing Antiochian material culture, as most scholars argue, would be Com-
magene’s geographical location “between East and West” and the ethnic
make up of its Greco-Oriental population.6 The monument of Nemrud
Dağ itself was not finished and has probably never been used as a cult
place. Also other sites known to us archaeologically (like Arsameia ad
Euphratem or Karakuş) primarily show the remains of a project of dynas-
tic self-presentation; they tell us, in fact, very little about Commagenean
society during the period.7 It is therefore difficult to reconstruct the rela-
tion between the “image” that Antiochos I created of himself and his
dynasty (rather abundantly preserved in text and material culture) on the
one hand, and Commagenean society during the late Hellenistic period
(virtually unknown to us), on the other. What makes this problem even
more intriguing is the fact that no part or aspect of the Antiochian pro-
gramme seems to have been used—or abused or manipulated—in Com-
magene during later periods; neither by the Romans, nor by the people
living in the area (see below). It is generally assumed, therefore, that the
Antiochian programme must be regarded as some sort of “failed attempt”,
as a religious and cultural reform that was too artificial to be rooted in
society.
5 In a forthcoming book (Nemrud Dağ and Commagene under Antiochos I. Material cul-
ture, identity and style in the late Hellenistic world) I will deal with these questions at length.
6 Cf. B. Jacobs, “Überlegungen zu Ursachen und Gründen für die Konzeption von
Heiligtumsausstattungen in der späthellenistischen Kommagene,” in: K.S. Freyberger,
A. Henning, H. von Hesberg (eds.), Kulturkonflikte im Vorderen Orient an der Wende vom
Hellenismus zur römischen Kaiserzeit (Rahden/Westf.: Leidorf, 2003), 117–121.
7 This is one of the reasons why the explorations in Doliche, undertaken from Münster,
are most important: they provide us with a sanctuary in use during the Antiochian period
and thus with information on the relation between the ruler cult of Antiochos I and other
forms of cult practice. For a general introduction to the site and the recent work, see
E. Winter & M. Blömer, Doliche. Eine antike Stadt an der Schnittstelle der Kulturen (Ankara,
2006).
This background explains the importance of the new dating (and inter-
pretation) of the Mara bar Sarapion letter to AD 72/73 for Commagene
studies in general. Merz and Tieleman reason from the existence of what
one could characterise as a kind of distinct national (provincial) and/or
religious Commagenean identity. An identity, moreover, that was inspired
and fuelled by the Antiochian project so well documented at Nemrud Dağ
and other sites in Commagene:
Mara’s letter can make an important contribution to this discussion [about
the religious history of Commagene], being a testimony from inside the Com-
magenean ruling class to the history of the reception of the cultic reform of
Antiochos I in the first century BCE. We believe that the letter clearly indi-
cates that Mara knew the cultic inscriptions of Antiochos I set up everywhere
in the countryside of Commagene and that he was painfully aware of the
failure of the great cultic reform, which had been meant to last forever.8
Below I would like to discuss this hypothesis from an archaeological-his-
torical perspective and look if there is sufficient proof to reason in terms
of a distinct Commagenean identity in the period around AD 72/73. An
identity, moreover, that would be rooted in—or take inspiration from—
the project of Antiochos I from the first century BC. There are various
options to investigate this point. One could look at the cultural make-up
of Commagenean society during the period and investigate how “Greek,”
“Iranian,” “Roman,” “Commagenean” or “Antiochian” it actually was—a
question that plays a role in the contributions by Facella and Speidel—or
one could study religious life in Commagene during the first century AD
in particular, to see if there is a relation between the Antiochian period
and subsequent developments—as Blömer does in his the article. The
conclusions drawn in those three essays are very important for the ques-
tions central to this paper. In order not to create too much overlap with
those contributions, however, and to add yet another perspective to the
discussion, I have chosen a somewhat wider, comparative approach.
First I will try to place the “annexation” of AD 72/73 in a historical per-
spective.9 This was not the first time (nor the last time) that the Com-
mageneans had to deal with the Romans. In fact Roman power had played
a decisive role for Commagene from 65/64 BC onwards, when Pompey
substantially redressed the political map of the region. At the Amisos
8 Merz/Tieleman, Some comments, 133, clearly presented as a hypothesis in a paragraph

called “Questions for further study.”
9 Our main ancient source for the events is Josephus, BJ 7,7,1–3; see F. Millar, The
Roman Near East 31 BC–AD 337 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 80–83
and Facella, La dinastia degli Orontidi, 331–338.
conference the territory of Antiochos I was not only consolidated but

even enlarged and enriched when Pompey granted him Seleukeia at the
Euphrates (Zeugma).10 In fact, Commagene had now become a Roman
protectorate.11 But more interactions with Roman authority were to come
in a remarkable trajectory. Under Mithridates II (a son of Antiochos I who
ruled from circa 36–20 BC) Commagene formally became a client kingdom.
Mithridates II and his troops sided with Mark Antony at Actium and paid
the price for making the wrong guess with the loss of Seleukia/Zeugma to
the province of Syria. When in AD 17 Antiochos III (a successor who ruled
from 12 BC to AD 17) died, Commagene was added to the province of Syria
by Germanicus and was put under the responsibility of a military prefect. It
was, however, planned to be returned to Antiochos IV—a member of the
royal dynasty who was raised in Rome—in AD 38. The dynasty was offi-
cially re-established by Claudius soon after (in AD 41) and Antiochos IV
functioned in the best Roman tradition of “client kingship” until AD 72,
when Vespasian ended the de iure independence of Commagene by
incorporating it again into the province of Syria, and stationing legions
in Samosata and Zeugma. After that Commagene seems to have changed
into a Roman border province heavily influenced by the army.12 Thus,
there clearly were different important moments in which the Commage-
neans had to formulate a response towards changing political, military
and social circumstances that had something to do with Roman power. In
the first part of my paper I will compare these responses. I will do so in
chronological order: going from the first century BC (1), to the first century
AD (2) and then to the second and third centuries AD (3). In discussing
these three “moments,” I will focus on culture and identity. This is the first
comparative approach in this paper that I hope will be worthwhile; it is
focused on Commagene and provides chronological depth (and length) to
what happened in AD 72/73.
10 For the history and archaeology of Zeugma, see D. Kennedy (ed.), The twin towns of
Zeugma on the Euphrates. Rescue work and historical studies (Portsmouth, RI: Journal of
Roman Archaeology, 1998).
11 On the Roman presence in the region in this period in general, see the article by
P. Freeman, “What did annexation do for the province of Asia (in its first 50 years),” in:
H. Elton, G. Reger (eds.), Regionalism in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor (Pessac: Auso-
nius, 2007), 61–69, who concludes (69) that there never existed something of a master
narrative: “It is actually a series of tiers of vaguely related themes: finance, religion and
patronage, all of which were played out in the first instance at the community level.”
12 All historical sources have recently been compiled and commented upon by Facella,
La dinastia degli Orontidi. I refer to that important book for a full treatment of all events
and earlier bibliography. For this essay I have only highlighted what I considered impor-
tant for questions on Commagenean identity.
The second comparative approach stretches out not in time but in (top-
ographical) space. It is important to realise that during the period around
AD 72/73 Commagene is not the only region added to the Imperium. A lot
of new beginnings are created all around the Empire and these develop-
ments strongly relate to the Flavian dynasty and the start of a distinct new
“phase” of the Roman Empire.13 To understand what happens in Com-
magene during that period we therefore cannot but look at Rome itself,
and other regions as well. This is—as a kind of sketch and much more
limited in scope than part one—what I would like to do in the second
part of my paper. Shortly discussing questions of ethnic and cultural iden-
tity in the context of two revolts from the Flavian era—moments in which
identities can be expected to be visible more clearly and pronounced—
might be relevant to better understand Commagenean identities from the
same period.
The third and final part of the essay will return to the Mara bar Sara-
pion letter and look at how that the information it might provide relates
to the bigger picture. What conclusions can be drawn about the existence
of local identity in Commagene? What does that tell us about the Romani-
sation of Commagene? And what can we say on the relation between the
dynastic project of Antiochos I on the one hand and Commagene and its
inhabitants on the other, during and after its execution?
I. Commagenean Responses to Roman Power: Culture and Identity
1. The project of Antiochos I is in many aspects one big cultural response

to the changing political circumstances in the first century BC. The king
had to reckon first with Tigranes from Armenia and subsequently with
Romans and Parthians. Commagenean dependence on Tigranes is clearly
visible in the typical Armenian tiara worn by Antiochos I in his portraiture.14
In this case there is a direct, one-to-one relation between style and (royal)
identity: by wearing an Armenian tiara Antiochos I wanted to show his
relationship to the Armenian king Tigranes. When the Romans conquered
the Hellenistic East, however, they did not have such clearly recognisable
13 See A.J. Boyle, W.J. Dominik, Flavian Rome. Culture, image, text (Leiden: Brill, 2003),
in particular the Introduction by A.J. Boyle, “Reading Flavian Rome,” 1–68.
14 Cf. J.H. Young, “Commagenian tiaras: royal and divine,” American Journal of Archaeol-
ogy 68 (1964): 29–34 and D. Metzler, “Kommagene von Osten her gesehen,” in: Wagner,
Gottkönige am Euphrat, 51–55.
cultural elements at their disposal; on the contrary. At the very moment

that Roman generals were conquering the East, they were more and more
becoming, culturally speaking, the Hellenistic monarchs they were sub-
judging. This implies that Roman power or imperialism from this period
and this area do not necessarily come with cultural elements that we
would characterise as Roman.
The visual language used by Antiochios I could be defined as juxtaposi-
tion and blending of discrete elements within a single, new style as the
result of a conscious appropriation.15 The use of “Greek” and “Persian” ele-
ments as constituents of this style thus was an active choice; but a choice
for what? Reasoning from a direct relation between style and identity
seems perhaps too simplistic.16 The Greek element probably has to be
understood as a claim for Hellenism: a source of social power that was
used, throughout the Hellenistic period, to associate with civilisation and
modernity.17 During the same period Persianism was often used to claim
dynastic legitimacy.18 Thus, after the Romans changed Commagene into
a protectorate, in cultural terms there was enough room left (or created)
for Antiochos I to present himself like a Hellenistic king in an Eastern
Mediterranean context. Confronted with Roman imperialism, Antiochos
I reacted by stating, in material culture, that as a successor of the Persians
he was the rightful king, while showing simultaneously that he knew the
rules of cultural competence and that he belonged to the club of Helle-
nistic kings.19 To phrase it in one sentence: to be Roman, go Hellenismo-
Persian.20
15 Cf. the important observations by F. Dunand, “La problématique des transferts cultu-
rels et son application au domaine religieux. Idéologie royale et cultus dynastiques dans
le monde hellénistique,” in J.-C. Couvenghes, B. Legras, Transferts culturels et politique
dans le monde hellénistique (Actes de la table ronde sur les identités collectives, Sorbonne,
7 février 2004) (Paris: Publications Sorbonne 2006), 121–140, 137–139.
16 See, in general, M.J. Versluys, “Exploring identities in the Phoenician, Hellenistic and
Roman East. A review article,” Bibliotheca Orientalis 65 (2008): 342–356. My forthcoming
book will provide more detail and background to this claim.
17 Cf. P. Veyne, “L’Hellénisation de Rome et la problématique des acculturations,” Dio-
gène 196 (1979): 1–29.
18 Cf. R. Fowler, “ ‘Most fortunate roots’: tradition and legitimacy in Parthian royal ide-
ology,” in: O. Hekster, R. Fowler (eds.), Imaginary Kings. Royal images in the Ancient Near
East, Greece and Rome (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2005), 125–156.
19 Cf. J. Ma, “Peer polity interaction in the Hellenistic age,” Past & Present 180 (2003):
9–39.
20 After A. Wallace-Hadrill, “To be Roman, go Greek: thoughts on hellenization at
Rome,” in: M. Austin, J. Harries & C. Smith (eds.), Modus operandi. Essays in honour of
Geoffrey Rickman (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1998), 79–92.
It seems, however, that textual evidence tells a different story, as Antio-

chos I calls himself in inscriptions literally φιλορώμαιος καὶ φιλέλλην (“lover
of the Romans and lover of the Greeks”).21 In the first instance this very
much looks like an outcry for Roman identity and a clear example of a
desire to “become Roman.”22 Ferrary has argued however—I think con-
vincingly—that the term φιλορώμαιος must probably be interpreted in a
more general Hellenistic vein: calling oneself “lover of the Romans” was
a thoroughly Hellenistic thing to do.23 Thus, it seems that Antiochos I
did not use the epitheta to position himself between the Romans and the
Greeks in terms of political power relations. How could he, seeing the
Greeks were no political factor whatsoever? The terminology was meant
culturally and by using it Antiochos I followed in the footsteps of other
Hellenistic monarchs with whom he wanted to be associated. It is unde-
niable, however, that the fact that the term φιλορώμαιος had become an
instrument in the cultural politics of Hellenistic kings from the first cen-
tury BC in itself had something to do with Roman power and imperialism.
But in cultural respect it seems that φιλορώμαιος and φιλέλλην were meant
to indicate the same thing.
In terms of cultural response, therefore, it looks like Antiochos I was
well capable of dealing with Roman power as he developed—and was
able to develop—a thoroughly Hellenistic program of dynastic legitima-
tion on a scale that the area had never seen before. The Roman deci-
sion to add Seleukia/Zeugma—with its strategic and lucrative Euphrates
crossing—to Commagenean territory has probably been an important
factor in that development. The Roman presence in the region will also
have been important for the relative stability Antiochos I could maintain
throughout his long reign (ca. 69–36 BC). Could one say that the Roman
presence in Asia Minor functioned as one of the fundaments of the Antio-
chian project?
21 On these epitheta see, most recently, the article by M. Facella, “Φιλορώμαιος καὶ
Φιλέλλην. Roman perception of Commagenean royalty,” in: Hekster / Fowler, Imaginary
Kings, 87–103, with references to the inscriptions and earlier bibliography. I do not follow
all her conclusions (see below).
22 Cf. G. Woolf, Becoming Roman. The origins of provincial civilization in Gaul (Cam-
bridge: CUP, 1998).
23 J.-L. Ferrary, Philhellénisme et impérialisme. Aspects idéologiques de la conquête
romaine du monde hellénistique (Rome: École française de Rome 1988), 501 n. 19: “[. . .]
cette titulature, avec l’ordre significatif des épithètes, n’implique pas un équilibre entre
philoromanisme et philhellénisme, mais se rattache a un thème de propagande faisant du
philoromanisme des rois le nouveau fondement de leur philhellénisme.”
All information discussed above comes from a dynastic context and says
little, if anything, about what was happening in Commagenean society at
the same moment. We can draw conclusions on the (invented) cultural
identity of Antiochos I and his dynasty, but that image cannot be pre-
supposed for Commagenean society. What about the ethnic and cultural
identity of the inhabitants of Commagene during that period? We know
almost nothing about Commagenean society during the first century BC.
Commagenean archaeology from this period is hampered by a lack of data
in all respects: we have a dynastic court style with Greek epigraphy, but
no proper excavations of towns or villages nor any Aramaic inscriptions.
We do not even know if or how the Antiochian project was taken up. This
lack of social context means that we can say very little about the people of
Commagene, let alone about their ethnic and cultural identity.24
When Antiochos I dies around 36 BC, his son Mithridates II becomes

the new king. He is known archaeologically from a tumulus where sev-
eral members of the Commagenian royal family have been buried. This
monument, known as Karakuş, is clearly inspired in its conception by
the Antiochian monuments, although it is executed on a much smaller
scale.25 This has often been interpreted as an indication of the failure of
the Antiochian project, which would have found no response in society
(see above). If that were the case, it would be remarkable that what we
see at Karakuş is in structural terms—a tumulus with a burial tomb, three
terraces, specific Antiochian ways and themes of decoration—in fact very
similar. It might, therefore, perhaps also be brought into connection with
a different cultural response that was necessary under Augustus. After
Actium, Hellenistic royalty had to behave differently, and so they did.26
24 My view, therefore, differs fundamentally from E. Schwertheim, who recently (in Klei-
nasien in der Antike. Von den Hethitern bis Konstantin (München: Beck 2005), 77) charac-
terised our sources as being remarkably excellent: “Keine der hellenistischen Königreiche
verdeutlicht so gut die Rolle Kleinasiens als Brückenland und als Vermittlerin zwischen
Orient und Okzident wie das am Euphrat gelegene Kommagene. Das liegt nicht zuletzt an
der ausnehmend guten Quellensituation. Wir besitzten zwar wenige historiographische
Quellen für dieses Königreich, dafür aber verfügen wir über schriftliche Selbstzeugnisse
seiner Herrscher, wie sie für kein anderes der Königreiche Kleinasiens vorhanden sind. Die
archäologischen Denkmäler ergänzen die Schriftzeugnisse in einzigartiger Weise.”
25 For Karakuş, see R. Beck, “The astronomical design of Karakush, a royal burial site
in ancient Commagene: a hypothesis,” Culture and Cosmos 3 (1999): 10–34 and Facella, La
dinastia degli Orontidi, 303–306 with all earlier literature.
26 Cf. M.A. Speidel, “Early Roman Rule in Commagene,” Scripta Classica Israelica 24
(2005): 85–100, here quoted after the draft made available by the Mavors-Institut für antike
Militärgeschichte, 1–19, 5.
That Mithridates II does not use the epitheton φιλέλλην anymore under-
lines this view.
2. When in AD 17 the Commagenean king Antiochos III died—so Flavius

Josephus (AJ 18,2,5) recalls—there was a conflict between the people and
the nobility about the future of the kingdom. The dispute was resolved by
sending embassies to Rome, asking Tiberius to decide upon the future of
the political situation. The elite, Josephus says, wanted the political sys-
tem to be changed and the kingdom to become a proper Roman province.
The people, however, wanted to have a king according to their tradition.
Like the use of the epitheton φιλορώμαιος discussed above, this seems to
be in the first place a clear indication of a strong local desire to “become
Roman,” at least from the part the elite. As such it fits the dichotomy one
often finds in Romanisation studies between elite cooperation on the one
hand opposed to indigenous resistance on the other.27 But also a differ-
ent interpretation is available here. Speidel has convincingly argued that
sending embassies to Rome and providing the emperor with different
options was clearly what the Romans expected—and indeed there are
quite some parallel cases:
By peacefully sending embassies to Rome (and nowhere else, for that mat-
ter) and by presenting acceptable alternatives for the political future of
their country to the Emperor, the Commagenians proved that they were
fully aware of the emperor’s role, of their own possibilities and of the pro-
cedures required to obtain what they were hoping for. This shows that the
official representatives, at least, had fully accepted their fate as subjects of
the Roman empire (just as their kings had done), that they were prepared to
abide to the empire’s rules and to accept the emperor’s decision.28
Client kings like Antiochos III were, it is often argued, just another way
of administrating the Empire.29 The giving and taking of Commagene to
the royal family (taking in AD 17, giving and taking in AD 38, establishing
in AD 41) is a good illustration of this: Rome is in charge. It is interesting
to note, however, that there was certainly Commagenean agency involved
27 Cf. various contributions to G. Schörner (ed.), Romanisierung—Romanisation. Theo-

retische Modelle und praktische Fallbeispiele (Oxford: Archaeopress 2005), also for critique
on this model.
28 Speidel, “Early Roman Rule,” 11 rightly emphasises that qualifications suggesting this
would be Commagene’s “darkest hour” are thus misleading.
29 For the system of client kingship, see D. Braund, Rome and the friendly king: the char-
acter of client kingship (London etc. 1984) and T. Kaizer, M. Facella (eds.), Kingdoms and
Principalities in the Roman Near East (Stuttgart: Steiner 2010). For this essay I could not
fully take into account the article by M. Facella on Commagene in that volume.
here. After AD 17 the Commagenean royal house resided in Rome and the
Commagenean princes were members of the imperial household.30 The
fact that the kingdom, in AD 38 and 41, was “returned” to the Commage-
nean royal house—with a reimbursement of the taxes from the 21 years
in between: an amount of 100 million sesterces (Suetonius, Cal. 16)—will
certainly have had to do with the personal ties between Roman and
Commagenean emperors. We know, for instance, that Caligula was raised
together with Thracian and Pontic princes, which might explain his atti-
tude towards Commagene.31 It is only a homo novus like Vespasian—with
relatively little personal or dynastic relations—who could and would end
all this.32
What we see from Rome in Commagene seems to be urbanisation in
the first place.33 However, as most archaeological remains date from the
second and third centuries AD, it is difficult to provide a detailed account
of the Romanisation of the area during the first century AD in this respect.
Rescue excavations at Samosata have documented the use of opus reticu-
latum in building structures on the citadel that perhaps belonged to the
palace of the Commagenean kings (late first century BC/first half of the
first century AD).34 Outside Herodean Judea, the use of reticulatum is rare
in the East during this period and its presence in Samosata suggests that
Commagene was an active and eager player on the international stage we
call the Roman East. The find at Ancoz (30 km. upstream from Samosata)
of what might be a small podium temple, partly constructed of concrete
and to be dated around AD 50, underlines this view.35 An interesting epi-
graphic document from this period is a funerary text from the middle of
the first century AD, inscribed on an altar and probably belonging to a
30 The Commagenean prince and (later) king Antiochos IV was a Roman citizen:
C. Iulius Antiochus Epiphanes, cf. PIR(2) I, 149.
31 M. Sartre, D’Alexandre à Zénobie. Histoire du Levant antique. IVe siècle av. J.-C.–IIIe
siècle ap. J.C. (2001), 501.
32 A fine overview of almost all relevant aspects is now available in the exhibition cata-
logue Divus Vespasianus. Il bimillenario dei Flavi (edited by F. Coarelli) from 2009.
33 Sartre, D’Alexandre à Zénobi, 499. This would confirm the general Roman trend; cf.
C.R. Whittaker, “Imperialism and culture: the Roman initiative,” in: D.J. Mattingly (ed.),
Dialogues in Roman imperialism: power, discourse and discrepant experience in the Roman
Empire (Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology 1997), 143–164.
34 Cf. L. Zoroğlu, “Samosata. Ausgrabungen in der Kommagenischen Hauptstadt,” in:
Wagner, Gottkönige am Euphrat, 74–83, Abb. 3 shows the opus reticulatum found at the
acropolis.
35 M. Blömer provisionally presented this find at the conference. For the subject in
general, see S. Macready, F.H. Thompson (eds.), Roman architecture in the Greek world
(London: Society of Antiquaries 1987).
monumental tomb.36 The inscription presents a genealogy of a Commage-

nean elite family from the late first century BC and the first century AD.
By choosing names like Antiochos and Mithridates, the first generations
apparently emulated traditions at the royal court. From the second gen-
eration of sons onwards, however, decent Roman names like Tacitus and
Marcellus were chosen; something that did not change after the restora-
tion of the royal family by Claudius. The stationing of a legion in Samasota
will have been fundamental during the later part of the first century AD,
after the incorporation of Commagene into the province of Syria. Around
AD 75 it is probably the XVI Flavia Firma setting up its headquarters in
the former Commagenean capital, which might well have to do with a
Parthian threat during that period. Together with developments taking
place in Zeugma, where the Legio III Scythica established its headquarters,
this would change Commagene into a Roman frontier province.37
One of most eye-catching cultural responses—again related to Com-

magenean royalty—already takes us into the second century AD and
can be found in Athens: it is the so-called Philopappos monument dating
around AD 120.38 C. Iulius Antiochus Philopappos (AD 65–116) was born
in Samosata and moved to Rome after the events of AD 72/73, together
with his grandfather Antiochos IV and his entourage. Philopappos had
both Roman and Athenian citizenship and fulfilled important civic and
cultural functions in both cities. In Athens he was granted some rare privi-
leges, apparently through substantial benefactions. His impressive tomb
was built on the Hill of the Muses; prominently facing the Acropolis. His
sister Iulia Balbilla was a poet and very close to the emperor Hadrian.
Although the Commagenean royal house officially did not exist anymore;
its members apparently understood and advanced in the Roman system
to their own benefit as few others did.
36 The text was published by G. Schmitz, S. Şahin, J. Wagner, “Ein Grabaltar mit einer
genealogischen Inschrift aus Kommagene,” Epigraphica Anatolica 11 (1988) 81–95. Cf. Spei-
del, “Early Roman Rule,” 8–9 and SEG XXXVIII 1544; LV 1582.
37 For the Roman army at Zeugma, see the article by M. Hartmann and M.A. Speidel in
R. Early et al., Zeugma: interim reports. Rescue excavations (Packard Humanities Institute),
inscription of Antiochus I, bronze statue of Mars, house and mosaic of the Synaristôsai, and
recent work on the Roman army at Zeugma (Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology
2003), 100–126.
38 For this remarkable monument, see M. Santangelo, “Il monumento di C. Julius Antio-
chos Philopappos in Athene,” Annuario n.s. 3–4 (1941–1943): 153–253; D.E.E. Kleiner, The
monument of Philopappos in Athens (Roma: Bretschneider 1983) and Facella, La dinastia
degli Orontidi, 354–358 with further previous literature.
An important conclusion on Commagenean cultural responses towards

Roman power in the first century AD persists.39 Regarding cultural iden-
tity, the terms Roman and Commagenean (or Native) seem, in fact, to be
ill chosen to describe what goes on in the period. The royal family in fact
was Roman and acted Roman in all respects;40 and the fact that the elite
family we know of by its genealogy in the funerary text changed to Roman
names at the end of the first century BC and clung to this throughout the
first century AD, seems telling. This observation implies that, at least for
this part of Commagenean society, we should try and interpret it in terms
that go beyond Roman and Native and reason from the fact that people will
have used the various cultural identities at their disposal contextually.41
3. On the basis of a series of dedications made to Septimius Severus, it

is clear that during the period around AD 200 Commagene consisted of
four cities: Samosata, Caesarea Germanica, Doliche and Perrhe.42 A sub-
stantial number of archaeological remains testify to the transformation of
Commagene into a Roman frontier province. The rescue excavations at
Zeugma in particular have yielded a lot of information on life in this part
at the limes during the second and third centuries AD. The final archaeo-
logical reports documenting all these new finds are now in the process of
being published; an overall interpretative synthesis is lacking so far.43 In
terms of (material) culture Zeugma looks primarily Roman. For instance,
all the mosaics found fit the general Roman repertoire, as do the wall
paintings. The villae themselves were all characterised by an impluvium,
even when the Euphrates was nearby. The inscriptions of the civilian popu-
lation are almost all in Greek; the names, however, often are Semitic. Local
39 Note also here, however, the unbalance in our sources: we know quite a lot about the
royal family and their entourage but not so much about the people of Commagene.
40 The Commagenean royal family will have received Roman citizenship very early on,
as (part of ) one of the first groups in the East, cf. Sartre, D’Alexandre à Zénobie, 660. Note
also that Antiochos I was given the toga praetexta by Julius Caesar in 59 BC.
41 Cf. G. Woolf, “Beyond Romans and natives,” World Archaeology 28 (1995): 339–350. An
application of this perspective in M.J. Versluys, “Lokaal en globaal. Egypte in de Romeinse
wereld,” Lampas 42 (2009): 186–203.
42 Cf. A.H.M. Jones, The cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1937), 266.
43 This small section does not take all the new material systematically into account
but only highlights some remarkable features based on research by others. Important arti-
cles and abundant bibliography can be found in R. Ergeç, (ed.), International Symposium
on Zeugma: from Past to Future (Gaziantep 2004) (Gaziantep: Gaziantep University Press,
2006) and R. Ergeç (ed.), Belkıs-Zeugma ve mozaikleri (Istanbul: Archeology and Art Pub-
lications, 2006).
characteristics are traceable in the tombstones, which clearly belong to a

North Syrian tradition. Usually tomb stones are showing an eagle for men
and a wool basket for women. Figures depicted on the tombstones some-
times show Parthian garment, but are at the same time clearly orientated
on “western” as well as “eastern” examples, especially those from Palmyra.
Syrian lamps and red gloss wear from the eastern Mediterranean were in
common use. When asking the question of cultural character, we have
to conclude—provisionally—that many things look conveniently Roman,
with, of course, local characteristics as part and parcel of this package.44
In all aspects, so it seems, we see a typically eastern Mediterranean fron-
tier town, heavily influenced by the Roman army and well embedded into
the rest of the Empire.
But what about the existence, during this period, of “Commagene” as a

cultural or religious identity?45 What kind of cultural responses do we
see towards these major changes that will have affected large parts of the
population and the landscape? Exploring these questions enables us to
draw in some further evidence. An important bridge over the Chabinas
river was paid for by “the four Commagenean cities”; a formulation sug-
gestive of regional identity.46 Commagenean coinage suggests a similar
interpretation:
That the inhabitants of Commagene retained some sort of identity as Com-
magenians from the period of their kings to Roman rule is implied by some
of the coin legends. Most notable are the regal issues of Antiochos IV, which
are unique among the coinages of “client kings” in seeming to accord some
sort of recognition to their subjects. The obverses portray the king and his
family; the reverses read “of the Commageneans” (—). The reverse legends
are perhaps best understood as a continuation of the obverses: “The Great
44 I follow the conclusions by D. Kennedy, “Conclusions: Roman Zeugma,” in: Kennedy,
The twin towns, 237–243. He rightly notes an important disclaimer, which is the character
of the data to our disposal. Houses of the lower social strata, for instance, are missing from
the picture and might have been, for instance, Mesopotamian in character. On the basis
of work done in the 1990’s, however, other scholars reached a different conclusion in a
publication from 2000, see R. Ergeç, M. Önal, J. Wagner, “Seleukeia am Euphrat/Zeugma.
Archäologische Forschungen in einer Garnisons- und Handelsstadt am Euphrat,” in: Wag-
ner, Gottkönige am Euphrat, 105–113, 108: “Die archäologischen Funde der Jahre 1992–1999
machen deutlich, daß die Bevölkerung von Zeugma ihre kulturellen und religiösen Tradi-
tionen bewußt bewahrte” while their material culture would reflect “[. . .] ihre anatolisch-
persischen und mesopotamisch-syrischen Ursprünge.”
45 Jones, Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 265 argued that after being added to the
province of Syria, Commagene retained its individuality as a religious union.
46 Cf. J. Wagner, Kommagene. Heimat der Götter (Dortmund: Harenberg, 1987), 48–55.
King, Antiochus, of the Commageneans, etc.” When the Romans annexed

the kingdom it was attached to the province of Syria, but the name and the
geographical concept of Commagene remained. Under Roman rule Samosa-
ta’s coins seem to describe the city as “metropolis of the Commageneans” or
“of Commagene,” and Germanikeia qualifies itself as “of the Commagenians”
or “of Commagene.” Indeed, of all regions of northern Syria, Commagene’s
coinage provides the strongest evidence for regional (rather than simply
civic) identity.47
On the other hand: in the second century AD the famous writer and ora-
tor Lucian of Samosata refers to himself alternately as “Syrian” or “Assyr-
ian” and shows no reminiscences to a Commagenean identity at all.48 This
also seems to be the case with other people coming from Commagene, as
noted P.M. Fraser:
Almost without exception, the people of Kommagene themselves, whether
the natives, the Kommagenoi, or the citizens of the Greek cities of the king-
dom, notably Samosata, Seleukeia on the Euphrates/Zeugma and the two
Arsameias, and also the Kommagenian possessions and foundations in Cili-
cia Tracheia, notably Antiocheia-on-Kragos, or on-Sea, and Iotape, play no
part in the hellenistic and Roman worlds, whether it be as mercenaries, as
traders, large or small, or as slaves. This is in marked contrast, in regard to
the native population, to the prevalence of, for example, Cilicians, Cappado-
cians, Lydians, Phrygians et hoc genus omne, at the trading centres of Athens
and Rhodes, where Asiatic congregated in large numbers.49
Before evaluating this (ambiguous) evidence it is useful to first consider the
reception of the first century BC Antiochian Bildprogramm, which was dis-
played in Commagene all over and that had made even the landscape into
47 K. Butcher, Coinage in Roman Syria. Northern Syria, 64 BC—AD 253 (London: Royal
Numismatic Society special publication no. 34, 2004), 10. Note, however, that Butcher is
much more nuanced in his 2003 monograph Roman Syria and the Near East: “Some sort
of communal identity among the Commagenians of the first three centuries AD might be
implied by the use of the Greek term “of the Commagenians” on royal and later civic coins
of the region, but it is far from clear whether this identity was expressed in any other ways,
still less that there was a distinct Commagenian culture” (278).
48 For Lucian of Samosata and his background see S. Swain, Hellenism and Empire. Lan-
guage, classicism and power in the Greek world AD 50–250 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)
Ch. 9 and the article by M. Facella in this volume.
49 P.M. Fraser, “The kings of Commagene and the Greek world,” in: S. Şahin, E. Schwer-
theim, J. Wagner (eds.), Studien zur Religion und Kultur Kleinasiens. Festschrift F.K. Dörner
(3 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1978), II: 359–374, 371–372. It would be worthwhile to update this
evidence. Fraser explained this situation from the isolation of Commagene, which he saw
as a provincial backwater. This interpretation seems no longer tenable, especially not in
view of all the new evidence of the last decades (see also below). Still, many scholars seem
to agree on the marginality of Commagene. More to the point, in my opinion, is the view
of F.K. Dörner quoted as device to this essay.
something of a dynastic instrument.50 If one would have been looking for

a distinctly native Commagenean identity: here it was, ready for use. How-
ever, as far as we can tell, nothing happened: there seems to have been no
(significant) reception at all. What evidence do we have? The site of Nem-
rud Dağ itself shows no traces of any post-Antiochian interventions.51 The
monument, or at least the place where it was located, must have remained
highly visible throughout the Roman period, but the Commageneans did
not capitalise on it and, apparently, the site was (soon) forgotten.52 An
indication for a continuation of some sort of “Antiochian” past might be
a bulla found in Doliche showing a dexiosis between Jupiter Dolichenus
and a Roman emperor.53 The dating of the bullae is insecure, but the find
suggests that the Antiochian dexiosis motif survived its initial context;
although it must be realised that the dexiosis was a well known icono-
graphic formula in the Assyrian, Parthian, Greek and Roman worlds.54
We thus have to conclude that there is little, if any, unambiguous
evidence for the existence of a distinct local or religious Commagenean
identity in the Imperial era. The fact that the Antiochian past was not
capitalised upon, is significant in this respect, as is the fact that people
from the region apparently do not indicate themselves on a large scale as
Kommagenoi. The indication “of the Commageneans” as found on coinage
primarily has to do, again, with Commagenean royalty. It is not surprising
that a cosmopolitan Roman citizen with Oriental roots like Antiochos IV
50 Cf. A.T. Smith, The political landscape. Constellations of authority in early complex
societies (Berkeley CA: Univ. of California Press, 2003).
51 The theory that the lifting holes in the stone blocks indicate a post-Antiochian
reconstruction phase (cf. T.D. Stek, M.J. Versluys in Bulletin Antieke Beschaving 78 (2003):
151–154) must remain hypothetical; the suggestion this having to do with the expression
of a local identity speculative. The only indication for the awareness of Nemrud Dağ in
later periods is, perhaps, a passage in an epigram of Gregorius of Nazianz, a Christian
theologist living around AD 330–390, who has compiled a series of epigrams under the
title Against the tomb raiders (Anthalogia Palatina, 176–254). Part hereof (176–179) could
be applicable to Nemrud Dağ and, if so, would indicate that the site was violated by tomb
raiders in that period.
52 In 1835 the area of ancient Commagene was mapped meticulously by Helmuth Graf
von Moltke, a military advisor to the Porte, and in this process he described some of the
eye-catching archaeological monuments, such as the relief of Samos II in Gerger Kalesi.
He was, however, apparently not directed towards Nemrud Dağ, which suggests that the
monument had vanished from local cultural memory.
53 For the Commagenean bullae, see P. Weiß, “Tonsiegel aus Kommagene (Doliche),”
in: Wagner, Gottkönige am Euphrat, 100–103.
54 See Brill’s New Pauly 5, 834–835 s.v. “Dexiosis” and G. Petzl, “Antiochos I. von Kom-
magene im Handschlag mit den Göttern. Der Beitrag der neuen Reliefstele von Zeugma
zum Verständnis der Dexiosis,” in: G. Heedemann, E. Winter (eds.), Neue Forschungen zur
Religionsgeschichte Kleinasiens (Asia Minor Studien 49; Bonn: Habelt, 2003), 81–84.
wanted to stress that he indeed was “king of the Commageneans” when

the Romans gave him “back” the kingdom after more than two decades.
This seems to have little to do with an expression of local identity. What
is clear, however, is that Commagene existed as a (geographical) concept
from that period onwards. But also there we have to be careful not to
equate the use of what seem to be ethnic or cultural denominators too
easily with identity expression; especially not in this part of the Roman
Empire. For neighbouring Cilicia, Elton has argued that that region is, in
fact, merely a Roman geographical expression:
Although there were strong cultural and political identities within Kilikia,
they were not expressed at a regional level. Kilikia, then, was a label used
by the Romans in the early imperial period to define a region based not on
politics, ethnicity or any type of culture, but instead on geography, the lands
between the Tauros and Syria.55
More in general, we know that Romans often used (or invented) ethnicity
and ethnic denominators to create what, in reality, were social or adminis-
trative categories (see also the case of the Batavians discussed below).56 In
view of this it is dangerous to reconstruct a local Commagenean, regional
identity on the basis of evidence that probably must be understood pri-
marily in an administrative context.
II. Expressing Local Identity? Two Flavian Comparanda
It has become clear above that there is little evidence to reconstruct a

distinct, local Commagenean identity in the late Hellenistic and Roman
period, in whatever form. From kingdom to province, cultural responses
were characterised by a remarkable flexibility from the part of what must
have been a cosmopolitan elite that was well aware of the political and
55 H. Elton, “Geography, labels, Romans and Kilikia,” in: H. Elton & G. Reger (eds.),
Regionalism in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor (Pessac: Ausonius, 2007), 25–31, 31.
56 Roman Egypt provides succinct examples of this process. For instance: as a metropo-
lis Alexandria was considered to be a “Greek” city and treated as such in the administra-
tive system; although amongst its inhabitants there will have been a lot native Egyptians.
Moreover, the Romans indicated as Hellenes the important citizens of the somewhat big-
ger cities who were subjected to a different tax-rate: these “Greeks” could indeed be from
Greek descent but papyrological evidence shows that they often were Egyptian. Et cetera.
See the illuminating article by R. Alston, “Changing ethnicities: from the Egyptian to the
Roman city,” in: T. Cornell, K. Lomas (eds.), Gender and ethnicity in ancient Italy (London:
Accordia Research Institute, University of London, 1997), 83–96.
cultural situation in the Mediterranean and Near East at large, and that
was accustomed to practices of code switching as far as their identity was
concerned.57 At the same time it must be underlined that their behaviour
tells us little about Commagenian society in general. Most remarkable in
this respect is the “equilibrium” that seems to be the project of Antiochos
I.58 To better understand this state of affairs it is worthwhile to have a brief
look at two other regions in the Roman world where cultural responses to
Roman power and identity politics play an important role. To make the
comparison as relevant as possible, I have selected two areas that are, like
Commagene, on the border of the Roman Empire and where questions of
local identity are prominent during the period around AD 70.
In AD 60–61 a local queen of a tribe on the British isle called the Icenians—
Boudicca—revolted.59 Literary sources tell us that cities like Colchester,
London and Verulamium were destroyed in this outbreak: layers with
burnt and destroyed material are archaeologically documented and have
proven these sources to be true. A crucial factor that triggered the revolt,
apparently, was severe Roman misconduct towards the elite and the Ice-
nian people alike. Boudicca would have venerated a local Celtic goddess.
Excavations have revealed that local Icenian religious centres looked dis-
tinctly Celtic indeed; some of them even lacking the Roman imports that
could found all over the island. The world of the Icenians, so it seems, was
one that had only marginally embraced Rome. To a large extent the Bou-
dicca revolt confirms a Roman-Native dichotomy, with the accompanying
notions imperialist-defensive, modern-authentic, bad-good, et cetera.
In AD 69 a local leader of a tribe in the Low Countries called the Bat-
avians—Iulius Civilis—revolted. For the Netherlands this has developed
into the native revolt par excellence and Civilis played an important part
in, for instance, the self-fashioning of Dutch identity in the 17th century.60
A series of recently executed archaeological research projects has greatly
57 For code-switching, see A. Wallace-Hadrill, “The creation and expression of iden-

tity. The Roman world,” in: S.E. Alcock, R. Osborne (eds.), Classical Archaeology (Blackwell
Studies in Global Archaeology; Malden MA etc.: Blackwell, 2007), 355–380.
58 Cf. Fowler, “ ‘Most fortunate roots’,” 128: “Antiochus’ public image exists in a void; it
elicits no commentary, no interpretations, nor even any interesting misunderstandings.”
59 Cf. R. Hingley, C. Unwin, Boudica. Iron age warrior queen (London: Hambledon
Continuum, 2005) and D. Mattingly, An imperial possession. Britain in the Roman Empire
54 BC–AD 409 (London: Allen Lane, 2006), 106–113.
60 Cf. various contributions to the exhibition catalogue L. Swinkels (ed.) De Bataven.
Verhalen van een verdwenen volk (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw / Nijmegen: Museum
Het Valkhof, 2004).
expanded our knowledge on the Batavians and their cultural identity.61

The Batavians were shown to have a remarkable trajectory of Romanisa-
tion, as their incorporation into the Roman Empire was characterised by
recruitment, on a very large scale, of young adults for the Roman army.
From each family in the Batavian area on average probably two children
had to serve. This resulted in a heavy militarisation of Batavian society,
the creation of a kind of “middle class” of military families often having
Roman citizenship, and what has been called a “martial identity.”62 But
not only Batavian identity was formed in dialogue with Roman power
and identity. As a tribal unity, already the concept itself of Batavians was
probably defined by the role they played within the Roman system. The
Batavians do not constitute an ethnic group that had been living in the
area for centuries and that had developed distinct identities and tradi-
tions of their own on the basis thereof. They are better characterised as
a kind of “ethnic synthesis” that is only understandable in the context of
the Roman limes.63 Batavian identity is therefore not about the continuity
of a homogeneous ethnic group with native (material culture) traditions,
but about ethnogenesis in a Roman context.64 There are more examples
like the Batavians, and it has become clear that the Romans actively
used what we could call “invented ethnicities” for their own political and
strategic reasons.65 The “revolt” of Iulius Civilis is only understandable
against this background, as it cannot be explained in the Roman-Native
61 See now summarising N. Roymans, Ethnic identity and imperial power. The Batavians
in the early Roman Empire (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004) with earlier
bibliography.
62 Cf. N. Roymans, “Hercules and the construction of a Batavian identity in the context
of the Roman Empire,” in: T. Derks, N. Roymans (eds.), Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity. The
Role of Power and Tradition (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009), 219–229. For
a different view, see C. van Driel-Murray, “ ‘Ethnic’ soldiers: the experience of the Lower
Rhine tribes,” in: Th. Grünewald, S. Seibel (eds.), Kontinuität und Diskontinuität. Germania
inferior am Beginn und am Ende der römischen Herrschaft (Berlin [etc.]: De Gruyter, 2003),
200–217.
63 D. Whittaker, “The German frontier of Gaul on both sides of the limes,” in: D. Paunier
(ed.), Celtes et Gaulois, l’Archéologie face à l’Histoire, 5: La romanisation et la question de
l’héritage classique (Actes de la table ronde de Lausanne 17–18 juin 2005) (Bibracte 12/5,
Glux-en-Glenne: Bibracte, 2006), 233–247, 236 for this characterisation. For these proc-
esses more in general, see E.S. Gruen (ed.), Cultural borrowings and ethnic appropriations
in Antiquity (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2005).
64 Cf. Roymans, Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power, and, for the process of ethnogenesis
in general, the classic study by R. Wenskus, Stammesbildung und Verfassung: das Werden
der frühmittelalterlichen Gentes (Köln: Böhlau, 1961).
65 Cf. P.S. Wells, The Barbarians Speak. How the Conquered Peoples Shaped Roman Europe
(Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), Ch. 5: “Identities and perceptions.”
dichotomy at all.66 Telling is a remark by Tacitus (Hist. 4.59) that Iulius

Civilis changed his normal hair style to conform to a Roman stereotype of
German identity. Moreover, when the uprising was taking place, the son
of Iulius Civilis was in Cologne enjoying a thoroughly Roman education,
while Civilis himself personally knew Vespasian and had already found his
way around in the Roman political and cultural system. Also undermining
the Roman-Native dichotomy—and the reconstruction of the revolt as an
upheaval of native Batavian identity—is the fact that there were Batavian
commanders and troops that sided with the Romans: apparently this also
was an internal struggle.67
In what respect do these two comparisons help us understand what hap-

pened in Commagene in AD 72? In the first place, they show that revolts
and the expression of local identities could be very different things in dif-
ferent contexts, for which the degree of integration into the Roman world
was a crucial factor. Parallels between the Batavians and the Commage-
neans are remarkable; probably because both were excellently integrated
into the Roman system.68 Moreover one might consider the possibility
that the dynamics of adaptation and cultural innovation characterising
Batavians and Commageneans alike—and not in matters of ethnogenesis
and cultural identity alone—has to do with their frontier context.69 Anti-
ochos IV made a different judgement than Iulius Civilis, as he did not even
consider rising up against Rome. After the Romans “annexed” his king-
dom, he was received by Vespasian with all honours and he continued to
live as a king, financed by the Roman state. But both he and Civilis took
their decision as players in a Roman context, with quite a lot of agency
66 Note that also the Boudicca revolt cannot be explained out of dichotomies alone.
Prasutagus, king of the Iceni and husband of Boudicca, whose death set all the events in
motion, had made Nero co-heir to the kingdom, together with his two daughters. This was
no wish to “become Roman”: like the Commageneans in AD 17/18, he clearly knew what
the Roman system expected.
67 See J. Slofstra, “Batavians and Romans on the Lower Rhine. The Romanisation of a
frontier area,” Archaeological Dialogues 9 (2002): 16–38.
68 For an interesting case study on Pamphylia that illustrates how Rome is made part of
(and facilitates) local developments in that region, see the article by B. Levick, “ ‘How differ-
ent from us!’ Inscriptions of Pamphylian cities under the Roman Empire,” in: S. Follet (ed.),
L’Hellénisme d’époque romaine. Nouveaux documents, nouvelles approaches (Ier s. A.C.–IIIe
s. P. C.) (Paris: De Boccard, 2004), 255–275.
69 For the view that, in the development of world history, frontiers areas constitute
the most important dynamic factor, see W.H. McNeill, The Global Condition: Conquerors,
Catastrophes, and Community (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).
on their part. The remarkable ethnogenesis and identity of the Batavians

allows us perhaps to formulate this even more radical. Without the
Roman context the Batavians and their identity would not have existed.
Saying that they were “excellently integrated into the Roman system”
(as above) suggests that they also had an existence outside that context
as an independent element. But that seems not to be true. They were the
Roman system. Was this also true for Commagene? And, if so, what con-
sequences does this have for our understanding of Commagenean identity
and material culture?
The beginning of a Commagenean tradition is sometimes placed
already during the Hittite period— when the region was known as Kum-
muh—on the basis of the existence of cult places on distinct hill tops.70
Literary sources tell us that, due to an unsuccessful uprising against the
central Assyrian power, its population was deported into Mesopotamia
and replaced by people from there.71 From that period onwards, there is
little historical or archaeological information, until the reign of Antiochos
I in the first century BC.72
Legitimation was crucial to Antiochos I. This suggests that also he and
his kingdom might be considered a kind of “ethnic invention”—and that
if there already was a tradition, it was an invented one. In this view, the
Antiochian programme might well have been an attempt at ethnogen-
esis; although it remains difficult to explain then why Antiochos I looked so
much more to the Hellenistic kings around him than to his own kingdom.73
Be that as it may: from the evidence at our disposal we have to conclude
70 For territorial definitions of Commagene, see Facella, La dinastia degli Orontidi, Ch. 2.
71 See Facella, La dinastia degli Orontidi, 73–78 with all earlier literature and an over-
view of the debate.
72 It is debatable if the information Antiochos I provides us with on (the history of ) his
dynasty through his texts and monuments can be used as a historical source without serious
deconstruction.
73 Very accurate are the observations by F. Millar, “The problem of Hellenistic Syria,” in:
A. Kuhrt, S. Sherwin-White (eds.), Hellenism in the East: the interaction of Greek and non-
Greek civilisations from Syria to central Asia after Alexander (London: Duckworth, 1987),
110–133, at 125: “A combination of different cultural traditions is certainly expressed in
the monuments and inscriptions of one local dynasty which emerged in north Syria in
the second century, the royal house of Commagene. But if what we are interested in is a
‘local’ mixed culture, Commagene is not a true exception, for everything that we can
observe there is, first, a royal invention; and, secondly, though the kings consciously draw
on two traditions, they do so in relation to Greek and Persian elements, not Syrian or Ara-
maic ones: Greek gods and Ahuramazda; royal descent from Persia and Macedon; Persian
dress to be worn at festivals. It was natural, in creating a new, royal ideology, to look to
the two major monarchies of the Achaemenids and Seleucids. But there still is a contrast,
that Antiochian material culture did not develop into a Commagenean

tradition and that it was apparently not considered (typically) Commage-
nean by the inhabitants of Commagene.74
Why then, lastly, are scholars so keen to think in Roman-Native dichot-
omies, also with regard to Commagene? One of the reasons is probably
the (mis)conception that the Roman Empire would be a kind of pre-mod-
ern nation-state with the same notions of colonialism, cultural Otherness
and nationalism that 19th century imperialistic states had.75 This is cer-
tainly not true, especially not in the Eastern Mediterranean. What plays
a role with scholarly interpretation in this specific case, perhaps, is the
most famous revolt against the Romans in the East in this period, that
would culminate into the war in Iudea of AD 66–70.76 Here we have a
conflict that can—to a certain extent at least—be phrased in absolute
religious and ethnic terms. Perhaps the Jewish War has unconsciously
offered something of a narrative for other conflicts in the area during the
same period. However, as we have seen, the situation in Commagene was
markedly different in many respects.
III. The Mara Bar Sarapion Letter and Commagenean Identity
On the basis of an analysis of the events in AD 17/18, Speidel has charac-

terised the political power relations between Rome and Commagene as
follows:
Provincialization in AD 18 neither marked the end of Commagenian inde-
pendence nor was it an annexation of the country to the Roman Empire.
With Rome choosing its ruler, intervening into local affairs, determining its
foreign policy and (directly or indirectly) setting the standards for the royal
cult, the kingdom had long lost its independence. Hence, it was considered
for instance, with the contemporary coinage of the Hasmoneans in Judaea, which incor-
porates both Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic elements.”
74 Also with regard to Commagene it is important, therefore, to take seriously what
Whittaker, The German frontier of Gaul, 235 critically remarked on scholarly understand-
ing of “Gauls” and “Germans”: “Archaeologists, reinforced by 19th century linguists and
seduced by Roman writers who were obsessed with tribal names, have tried to equate
material culture and linguistic categories with ethnic distinctions.”
75 Cf. J. Thomas, Archaeology and modernity (London: Routledge 2004), Ch. 5 (“Nation
states”); R. Hingley, Globalizing Roman culture. Unity, diversity and empire (London;
Routledge, 2005) and N. Morley, Antiquity and Modernity (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008).
76 A historical narrative of the events in E. Mary Smallwood, The Jews under Roman rule.
From Pompey to Diocletian. A study in political relations (Leiden [etc.]: Brill, 2001) Ch. 12.
by Rome, by its former kings, and by the official representatives of its own
people as an integral part of the Roman empire.77
As in the case of the Batavians, it looks like Commagene was what we call
the Roman East already from a very early period onwards. This implies
that thinking about the situation in AD 72 as a war between two nation
states and as conquest or annexation in the customary sense of the word
is beside the point.78 Does this imply that there were no anti-Roman feel-
ings, or that there will have been no Commagenean indignation or local
resistance? Of course not; all these reactions are well imaginable and will
undoubtedly have been present.79 We have seen, however, that through-
out Commagenean history the elite tended to react differently. All we can
say, therefore, is that if Mara bar Sarapion is placed in the circle of the
royal court around AD 72/73 his reaction would be a-typical. I see no evi-
dence for the reception of the dynastic programme of Antiochios I in the
Mara bar Sarapion letter.80
Those observations notwithstanding, the letter is most interesting for
the Romanisation discussion in that Mara seems to try and make Roman-
isation philosophically acceptable for his readers. Mentioning the com-
rades taking refuge in § 9 mainly serves as a kind of parable, to contrast
with what follows in § 10: “but you my dear do not be sad about having
been driven from place to place all alone” (my emphasis), which leads to
the conclusion that “rather as a stranger you have prospered.” Following
from this is the observation in § 26: “Let us obey the kingdom that fate has
77 Speidel, “Early Roman Rule,” 11.

78 As already argued by Speidel, “Early Roman Rule.” One of the arguments of Merz/
Tieleman, Some comments to identify specifically the period of AD 72/73 as historical
context for the letter of Mara bar Sarapion in a whole series of Roman-Commagenean
conflicts is the fact that it would now concern the deposition of the king and the transfer
of Commagene to direct Roman administration while “Later conflicts all concerned the
maintenance of Roman rule and control over the region” (123). It could well be argued,
however, that this description in fact applies to the situation of AD 72/73 as well. Note
that Elton, “Geography, labels, Romans and Kilikia,” 30–31 explains the territory division
by Vespasian in AD 72 as follows: “ [. . .] it may have seemed easier to detach the uplands
from Kommagene and control them from the lowlands on that side of the Tauros. At the
same time, the increasing duties of the Syrian governor, now directly responsible for admi-
nistering Kommagene, may have suggested that this control might be better exercised
from Tarsos rather than Antioch. With a center at Tarsos, the natural name to use for this
command was Kilikia” (30–31).
79 For instance: when confronted with Roman power politics in AD 72, the two Com-
magenean crown-princes initially fled to the Parthians, apparently with plans for resist-
ance. But they returned, and were brought to Rome peacefully and with all honours.
80 Something that does not have to surprise us, as Antiochian material culture was
apparently not considered as a possible vehicle for Commagenean identity (see above).
given us” followed by the prerogative for this behaviour: “and let them not,
like tyrants, treat us like slaves.” This quote in fact very well summarises
what Romanisation was often all about; especially in the Roman East. In
a recent article, the American scholar Chin sees the Mara bar Sarapion
letter as a Greek rhetorical exercise—the so-called Chreia elaboration—
and dates it to late Antiquity.81 I cannot evaluate her dating proposal, but
it is interesting to note what she writes on the historical circumstances
described in the text:
Given the difficulty in matching the circumstances described in the letter to
any known Roman conquest of Samosata, however, it is worth considering
more seriously the possibility that the letter-writer is not describing actual
events at first hand, or at all. The muddled description of Mara bar Sera-
pion’s troubles could more easily have arisen from the clues given in the
chreia, namely, that Mara is imprisoned with certain companions, and that
the times are bad. The detail of Roman conquest would then be a rhetorical
flourish based on the knowledge that the Romans had, at some point in the
past, conquered Samosata.
To use the indication “rhetorical flourish” might be an overstatement; on
the other hand, one wonders why the text is characterised by a historical
vagueness throughout when it was meant to refer to specific historical cir-
cumstances. And so we end up with a conclusion that was drawn by Fer-
gus Millar now already more than 15 years ago: “Searching in incomplete
narrative sources for suitable contexts for enigmatic items of evidence is
a notoriously treacherous process.”82
81 “C.M. Chin, Rhetorical practice in the Chreia elaboration of the Mara bar Serapion
letter,” Hugoye. Journal of Syriac studies 9 (2) (2006), pars. 16 for the quote.
82 Millar, The Roman Near East, 461.
LANGUAGES, CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND ELITES IN THE
LAND OF MARA BAR SARAPION
Margherita Facella
“For wise people every place is equal,”1 writes Mara to his son, but this
meagre consolation scarcely convinces even Mara himself and at the
end of his letter he wishes for himself and for his exiled compatriots the
possibility of returning to their own country (§ 27). Mara’s homeland is
Commagene and its capital, Samosata, is the city he was forced to leave
(§ 8).2 Commagene is the scenery of the events, fictitious or real, implied
in the letter and Mara appears as a representative of its cultural elite.
Mara exhibits his knowledge of Greek literature and philosophy, some-
times awkwardly, throughout the letter. Greek education and the pursuit
of wisdom are praised as the targets of a free man and as the only way to
endure life’s vicissitudes. My contribution to this volume aims at inves-
tigating the cultural background of Mara’s homeland, patching together
the few available pieces of information on the socio-cultural tissue of this
region in Hellenistic and Roman times. This documentation is awash with
contradictions and raises complex questions, to most of which I can offer
only partial answers. The perspective from which I tackle this subject can
only be that of an ancient historian with particular interest in the epi-
graphic evidence produced by this region. An investigation into its cul-
ture will clearly be dependent on this kind of source, but as we will see,
during the period at issue our epigraphic evidence is wholly inadequate.
The letter of Mara therefore represents a document of exceptional inter-
est, being the product of a cultural milieu the profile of which is very
difficult to sketch. A full comprehension of Mara’s cultural background
1 Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum (London: Rivingtons 1855), 44, l. 23 (transl. D. Rens-

berger § 10). For an analysis of this theme in the letter and examples of this topos in Greek
and Latin literature see K.E. McVey, “A Fresh Look at the Letter of Mara Bar Sarapion,” in
R. Lavenant [ed.], V Symposium Syriacum 1988, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 236 (Roma:
Orientalia Christiana), 257–272, especially 262–263; C.M. Chin, “Rhetorical Practice in
the Chreia Elaboration of Mara bar Serapion,” Hugoye 9/2 (2006): http://syrcom.cua.edu/
Hugoye/Vol9No2/HV9N2Chin.html. I am very grateful to Domitilla Campanile and Chiara
Tommasi Moreschini for bibliographical advice and profitable discussions. Scholarly input
from Domitilla Campanile has been invaluable to explore the intellectual world of the
“Second Sophistic.”
2 Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 44, ll. 6–9.
68 margherita facella
should begin from what we know of the earlier stages of the process by
which Hellenism established itself in Commagene and interplayed with
local traditions.
I. Greek, Aramaic and the Epigraphic Evidence
Part of the Achaemenid empire, Commagene, the region comprised

between the Euphrates’ bend and the Taurus Mountains, started to be
exposed to Greek culture following the conquest of Alexander the Great,
when the territory was incorporated into the Seleucid territories.3 In the
middle of the 2nd century, encouraged by the slow decay of the Seleu-
cid Empire, the local dynasts gained strength and made Commagene an
independent kingdom. Its most famous king, Antiochus I, was the son of
a Seleucid princess, Laodike (daughter of Antiochus VIII of Syria) and of
a local king of Iranian origin, Mithradates Kallinikos.4
Greek was the language chosen by Antiochus I for the administration of
his kingdom and to communicate with his subjects. His nomos, a sacred law
which established the royal dynastic cult and which was engraved in various
sanctuaries of the kingdom is the most impressive example of Antiochus’
linguistic choice. Persian traditions played an important part in the royal
cult: a clear example of this is that the priests appointed to the cult had to
be arrayed in Persian vestments.5 The ancestral gods of Antiochus’ pantheon
originate from Persia and Macedonia, as he often specifies, and the names
given to them further illustrate this double origin: Zeus-Oromasdes, the
chief god, Artagnes-Heracles-Ares, Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes (fig. 1). In
3 On Commagene in the Persian period see in particular W. Messerschmidt, “Kom-

magene in vorhellenistischer Zeit,” in E. Winter (ed.), ΠΑΤΡΙΣ ΠΑΝΤΡΟΦΟΣ ΚΟΜΜΑΓΗΝΗ.
Neue Funde und Forschungen zwischen Taurus und Euphrat, Asia Minor Studien 60 (Bonn :
Habelt 2008), 1–35; M. Facella, “Darius and the Achaemenids in Commagene,” in Pierre
Briant et Michel Chauveau (eds.), Organisation des pouvoirs et contacts culturels dans les
pays de l’empire achéménide, Persika 14 (Paris: de Boccard, 2009), 379–414.
4 On the Commagenian dynasty see R.D. Sullivan, “The Dynasty of Commagene,” in
ANRW II. 8 (1977), 732–798; J. Wagner, “Dynastie und Herrscherkult in Kommagene,” Mit-
teilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts (Abt. Ist.) 33 (1983) : 177–224; M. Facella,
La dinastia degli Orontidi nella Commagene ellenistico-romana, Studi Ellenistici XVII (Pisa:
Giardini, 2006).
5 Nomos from Nemrud Dağı, l. 72 and l. 135 (OGIS 383; H. Waldmann, Die kommage-
nischen Kultreformen unter König Mithradates I. Kallinikos und seinem Sohne Antiochos I.,
EPRO 34 (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 62–71 [text], 71–76 [German translation]; F.K. Dörner in D.H.
Sanders (ed.) Nemrud Dağı. The Hierothesion of Antiochus I of Commagene, vol. I (Winona
Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 206–217).
languages, cultural identities and elites 69
Fig. 1. Nemrud Dağı, East Terrace: The gods of Antiochus I of Commagene

[photo-courtesy of K. Painter].
summary, Antiochus’ religious edifice stood distinctively on a Greco-Persian

duality. In his inscriptions the Commagenian king presented himself as a
descendent of two “most fortunate roots,”6 equally powerful and equally
celebrated by him. But when it comes to record and promulgate his law,
intended, as specified in the text, for all his subjects, the language selected
is Greek. Neither a Persian version of the nomos, nor a bilingual text of it
has been found to date.
This omission cannot be insignificant and it is certainly a frustration to
us since it leaves the linguistic reality of the Commagenian kingdom unre-
solved. To date we have, for Hellenistic and early Roman Commagene,
no concrete evidence of spoken languages other than Greek, of which, as
we will see, only a highly restricted elite had exclusive possession. It has
been assumed that a dialect of Aramaic was in use here,7 but there is no
6 See Nomos from Nemrud Dağı, ll. 30–31, on which cf. R. Fowler, “ ‘Most fortunate roots.’
Tradition and legitimacy in Parthian royal ideology,” in: O. Hekster—R. Fowler (eds.), Imag-
inary Kings. Royal Images in the Ancient Near East, Greece and Rome, Oriens et Occidens 11
(Stuttgart: Steiner, 2005), 125–155.
7 See for example R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (Harmondsworth: Viking, 1986),
249; M. Goodman, The Roman World, 44 BC–AD 180 (London – New York: Routledge), 1997,
244 and cautiously F. Millar, The Roman Near East 31 BC AD 337 (Cambridge MA-London:
document at present that can confirm this, only a few debated hints and
logical considerations to which I will briefly draw attention.
The Hellenistic Commagene was the heir of Kummuh, one of the so-
called Neo-Hittite (or Syro-Hittite) states that developed in some regions
of Syria and Mesopotamia following the fall of the Hittite Empire.8 Several
characteristics linked these states to their imperial predecessors (hence
the name), in particular the use of a hieroglyphic writing borrowed from
the Hittite and related to the Luwian language. The ethnic composition
of these territories was fairly assorted and in some states, mainly located
in southern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, it saw a predominance of
Arameans.9 A mixture of ethnic layers can be, as an example, observed in
Sam’al (Zincirli), which lay to the east of Kummuh: as the many Aramaic
inscriptions show an Aramean dynasty ruled here, but some of its mem-
bers bore Hittite names.10
Later, with the annexation of Commagene by the Achaemenids, the
territory became governed by an elite class of Iranian descent. We have
already mentioned how the land was exposed to the influence of Iranian
culture, reflected by Antiochus’ I religious construction. Presumably this
implied also a closer contact with Aramaic, the official language of the
empire.11 The revived Aramaic culture which developed in the first cen-
turies AD and had Syriac as its own language and Edessa as a birthplace
Harvard University Press, 1993), 456 ff. That the Commagenian population spoke Aramaic
was often assumed, but never fully discussed, by scholars who have written on Lucian and
his homeland (see below).
8 For a general introduction see the standard works of J.D. Hawkins, “The Neo-Hittite
states in Syria and Anatolia,” in CAH III².1 (1982): 372–441 and “The Political Geography
of North Syria and South-East Anatolia in the Neo-Assyrian Period,” in M. Liverani (ed.),
Neo-Assyrian Geography (Roma: Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, 1995), 87–101.
9 “We are probably right in assuming that the ethnic mix of the area was as variegated
as earlier, including Canaanites, Arameans, Hurrian, Hittites and Luwians”: A. Kuhrt, The
Ancient Near East c. 3000–330 BC, vol. 2 (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), 411. On
the presence of Semitic groups in Commagene cf. also M. Boyce – F. Grenet, A History of
Zoroastrianism, vol. III (Leiden-New York-København-Köln: Brill, 1991), 314 and 336 (three
languages, Aramaic, Persian and Greek, were spoken at court).
10 Cf. Hawkins, “The Neo-Hittite states,” 386. For the inscriptions see J. Tropper, Die
Inschriften von Zincirli: Neue Edition und vergleichende Grammatik des phonizischen,
sam’alischen und aramaischen Textkorpus, Abhandlungen zur Literatur Alt-Syrien-
Palastinas 6 (Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1993). A new monumental stele in Aramaic was
recently discovered in Zincirli during the ongoing excavations conducted by the Oriental
Institute of Chicago (see J.D. Schloen and A.S. Fink, “New Excavations at Zincirli Höyük
(ancient Sam’al) and the Discovery of an Inscribed Mortuary Stele,” Bulletin of the Ameri-
can School of Oriental Rerearch 356 (2009): 1–13 and in the same volume D. Pardee, “A New
Aramaic Inscription from Zincirli,” 51–71).
11 On the Semitic languages of the Roman Near East as development from the Aramaic
of the Persian chancellery cf. T. Kaizer, “Introduction,” in T. Kaizer, The Variety of Local
Fig. 2. Syriac inscription from Birecik [photo © H.J.W. Drijvers & J.F. Healey, The
Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene. Texts, Translations and Commen-
tary, Leiden – Boston – Köln: Brill, 1999, As55a, Plate 40].
could not exclude Commagene, considering the geographical location of

this region, just opposite to Osrhoene. In fact, the earliest Syriac inscrip-
tion known to date comes from a place very close to the Commagen-
ian border, modern Birecik, called Birtha in Roman times (see MAP 2),
which is located on the left bank of the Euphrates and almost opposite
to Zeugma, the city which once was part of the kingdom of Antiochus I.12
It is a funerary inscription dating back to the year 317 of the Seleucid
era (corresponding to AD 6), where the construction of a family tomb is
recorded by a personage (ZRBYN) who must have been quite important in
the region (fig. 2).13 Osrhoene and Commagene were two areas physically
Religious Life in the Near East, Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 164 (Leiden – Boston:
Brill, 2008), 16–18.
12 On Zeugma as part of the Commagenian kingdom see mainly J. Wagner, Seleukeia
am Euphrat/Zeugma, TAVO Beih. B 10 (Wiesbaden: L. Reichert 1976), 56–64; D. Kennedy
“Ancient sources for Zeugma (Seleucia-Apamea),” in D. Kennedy (ed.), The Twin Towns of
Zeugma on the Euphrates. Rescue Work and Historical Studies, Journal of Roman Archaeol-
ogy Suppl. Ser. 27 (Portsmouth- RI, 1998), 140–141. Cf. also C.V. Crowther, “Inscriptions of
Antiochus I of Commagene and other epigraphical finds” in R. Early et alii (ed.), Zeugma:
interim reports, Journal of Roman Archaeology Suppl. Ser. 51 (Portsmouth, RI 2003,
57–67).
13 The inscription was discovered by F. Cumont in 1907 in a tower of the Birecik old
castle (see F. Cumont, Études Syriennes, Paris: Picard 1917, 144 and ff.). It was first published
by M.-A. Kugener, “Une inscription syriaque de Biredjik,” Rivista degli Studi Orientali 1
(1907): 587–594. For further editions see A. Maricq, “La plus ancienne inscription syriaque:
celle de Birecik,” Syria 39 (1962), 88–100; J. Starcky, “Les premières inscriptions syriaques,”
Bible et Terre Sainte 119 (1970): 4; H.J.W. Drijvers, Old-Syriac (Edessean) Inscriptions, Semitic
separated by the Euphrates, but which undoubtedly had some cultural

exchanges during the centuries. Some observations from Strabo and Pliny
on affinities of Syrians with “Arabes” in language and culture hint, accord-
ing to Fergus Millar, to the fact that a Semitic language was spoken in
Osrhoene, leaving open this possibility also for the territories beyond the
Euphrates.14 The scholar, however, stresses the absence of documentary
evidence in a Semitic language from Commagene itself.
At this point, a question is inevitable: if an Aramaic dialect was in use
in Commagene (and possibly since a long time), how do we explain such a
lack of documentary evidence? First of all, it must be noted that Aramaic
was not a language customarily put down in inscriptions. Only very few
Aramaic inscriptions, none of which later than 7th century, are known
from Syria.15 Secondly, before drawing any conclusion from this absentia,
we should further consider the remarkable scarcity of epigraphic evidence
that involves Greek. In a span of roughly four centuries (from Alexander’s
conquest to the end of the royal dynasty in AD 72), the epigraphic evi-
dence from Commagene is mainly restricted to the inscriptions of Anti-
ochus I and of his successors.
There are very few inscriptions (two, as far as I am aware) which are
neither by a Commagenian king or a member of his family and which can
be dated back to this period, but even these do not stray far from the royal
environment. In one case the dedicator of the stele, which was found at
Kılafık Höyük (in the province of Adıyaman), is Apollas, who introduces
himself as one of hoi prōtoi kai protimomenoi philoi of Antiochus I, as
eklogistēs and stratēgos (figs. 3–4).16 The inscription is important, because
Study Series, New Series, No. III (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 1–2, no. 1. Cf. also R. Degen, “Zur
syrischen Inschrift von Birecik” in R. Degen – W.W. Müller – W. Röllig, Neue Ephemeris für
semitische Epigraphik 2 (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz), 105–109; J.B. Segal, Edessa, ‘the Blessed
City’, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 23 (with transl. at n.3); Millar, The Roman
Near East, 457–458; H.J.W. Drijvers & J.F. Healey, The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and
Osrhoene. Texts, Translations and Commentary (Leiden – Boston – Köln: Brill), 1999, 140–
144, As55; J.F. Healey, Aramaic Inscriptions and Documents of the Roman Period. Textbook of
Syrian Semitic Inscriptions, vol. IV, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, 223–225, no. 46.
14 Millar, The Roman Near East, 456. For the passages at issue cf. Strabo 1, 2, 34. = FGrHist
87 F 105a (= Edelstein and Kidd F 280); Plin. NH V 20.85; V 21.86.
15 Cf. F. Millar, “The Problem of Hellenistic Syria,” in A. Kuhrt and S. Sherwin-White
(eds.), Hellenism in the East (London: Duckworth), 1987, 110–133, esp. 111; K. Butcher, Roman
Syria and the Near East (London-Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003), 283–289.
16 On this inscription see H.H. von der Osten, “Discoveries in Anatolia 1930–1931,” Ori-
ental Institute Communications 14 (1933): 134 (Abb. 126); F.K. Dörner and R. Naumann,
Forschungen in Kommagene, Istanbuler Forschungen 10 (Berlin: Archäologisches Institut
des Deutschen Reiches, 1939), 43–47; H. Waldmann, Die kommagenischen Kultreformen,
48–49.
Fig. 3. Inscription from Kılafık Höyük, front of the stele [photos © H. Waldmann,
Die kommagenischen Kultreformen unter König Mithradates I. Kallinikos und sei-
nem Sohne Antiochos I., EPRO 34, Leiden: Brill, 1973, Tafel XXXVIII].
Fig. 4. Inscription from Kılafık Höyük, left side of the stele [photos © H. Wald-
mann, Die kommagenischen Kultreformen unter König Mithradates I. Kallinikos
und seinem Sohne Antiochos I., EPRO 34, Leiden: Brill, 1973, Tafel XXXVIII].
it confirms the use of Greek language in the royal entourage, it shows that
Antiochus adopted for his officers the same honorific titles used in the
royal courts of the major Hellenistic kingdoms and that the administrative
structure of his reign was modelled in particular on the Seleucid one.17
The second text is inscribed on a funerary altar18 recovered at Sofraz
Köy, near modern Besni (figs. 5–7). The inscription traces the genealogy
of a certain Markellos for seven generations, recording a combination of
Greek names, Latin names and what look like indigenous names (Apsebis
and Antas). The text is interesting not only for understanding the social
impact of Roman models,19 but also from several other points of view. The
dating of the inscription is uncertain: for reasons which would be too long
to list here; the editors of the text indicate a time between AD 50 and 80,20
but even a slightly later date cannot be ruled out. For my discussion it is
sufficient to remind ourselves that Markellos’ oldest ancestors have three
Commagenian royal names (Antiochus, Mithridates, Laodike) and one of
them (Mithridates) was monokritēs (l. 5). The word, unattested elsewhere,
may indicate an office which, if it is not royal, suggests that Markellos’
family belonged to a high cultural elite. This membership is even more
apparent when we note among the recorded ancestors the presence of
a rhetor, called Bacchios (l. 17). Even the remarkable quality of the altar21
points in this direction (figs. 6–7).
If one reflects on the absorption of Commagene into the Seleucid king-
dom, and considers the refined nomos of Antiochus I of Commagene, one
might be under the impression that Greek was understood at a variety
of levels and fully established in the country. It is therefore surprising to
discover that all of the inscriptions in Greek dating back to the Hellenistic
period are texts by individuals connected with the royal environment or
belonging to a cultural elite.
In the absence of documentary evidence it cannot be determined how
predominant the use of Greek was throughout the region during this
phase. We do not know, for example, how the local population reacted
17 As observed by I. Savalli-Lestrade, Les philoi royaux dans l’Asie hellénistique (Genève:
Droz, 1998), 201.
18 See G. Schmitz – S. Şahin – J. Wagner, “Ein Grabaltar mit einer genealogischen
Inschrift aus Kommagene,” Epigraphica Anatolica 11 (1988): 81–95. (with text at pp. 86–87).
A revised edition of this text (with English translation), is in preparation by C.V. Crowther
(University of Oxford, UK).
19 On which cf. Millar, The Roman Near East, 453.
20 See Schmitz et alii, “Ein Grabaltar” 85 and 91.
21 I owe the latter observation to M. Blömer, whom I warmly thank.
Fig. 5. Adıyaman Museum: The altar of Markellos from Sofraz Köy, front
[photo-courtesy of Charles Crowther].
Fig. 6. Adıyaman Museum: The altar of Markellos from Sofraz Köy, right side
Fig. 7. Adıyaman Museum: The altar of Markellos from Sofraz Köy, left side
Fig. 8. Coin of Samosata [photo-courtesy of P.-F. Jacquier].
to Antiochus’ religious and cultural project, which combined Iranian and

Greek elements, since we have not yet found any dedication to the gods
of Antiochus’ pantheon, not even from someone belonging to the elite.
Nor can the flowery diction of Antiochus’ inscriptions permit us to draw a
direct equation between the “Kunstprosa”22 of his texts and the knowledge
of the Greek language amongst those Commagenians who did not belong
to the royal elite. Actually, a certain scepticism arises when looking at
a particular piece of numismatic evidence from Hellenistic Commagene
(fig. 8). This item reproduced here comes from the auction market and,
more precisely, from a catalogue of P.-F. Jacquier Auction House, where
the coin was correctly attributed to Commagene and identified as a civic
22 So E. Norden, Die Antike Kunstprosa vom VI. Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis in die Zeit der
Renaissance (Leipzig: Teubner, 1898), 140–146, who for Antiochus’ inscriptions spoke of
“bombastische Stilart.”
issue from Samosata.23 The obverse shows a lion walking rightward (a

typical symbol of Antiochus I coins), while the reverse carries a city-god-
dess (or more precisely a personification of the city),24 sitting on rocks
and holding a palm-branch. The legend, displaced on the left and on the
right field of the reverse, has been described as “aramäische Umschrift,”
but no reading was suggested. As a matter of fact, the language of the legend
is misspelled Greek and the inscription which the coin should have born is
Samosatō poleōs, the usual one that occurs on this type of civic bronzes.25
Several coins of this Samosatean issue (lion walking/city goddess) are
present, for example, in the collection of the British Museum and a few
of them have blundered legends and a cruder style, as in our coin here.26
The dating of these coins is uncertain: Babelon proposed to place them
in the period between the reigns of Antiochus I and Antiochus IV (there-
fore between 31 BC and AD 38),27 but the re-examination of these Samosa-
tean issues by Kevin Butcher has shown that this coinage cannot be as late
as supposed, and that a date before the first century AD is likelier.28 Some
of the coins were, in fact, overstruck on Antiochene bronzes of the 40s and,
in particular, the group with blundered legends seems to be the earliest of
such examples. These coins are problematic from a number of points of
view, to the extent that their status has been questioned. It is opportune
to specify that already within the list of the British Museum collection it
appears that there was more than one die with blundered legends, and
23 P.-F. Jacquier, Auction’s Catalogue no. 15 (1993) 14, no. 97. I am very grateful to Paul-
Francis Jacquier for the original photo of this coin.
24 So Marion Meyer, Die Personifikation der Stadt Antiocheia. Ein neues Bild für eine neue
Gottheit (Berlin – New York: de Gruyter, 2006), 221–222, 232, 245–246.
25 For this issue see for example BMC Syria xlix–l and 116, nos. 4–14, RPC I 572, nos.
3849–3850, SNG Cop. Syria nos. 15–16, SNG XII-Milano 116, nos. 14–15; SNG XII-Glasgow
nos. 2392–2397; K. Butcher, Coinage in Roman Syria. Northern Syria, 64 BC–AD 253 (Lon-
don: Royal Numismatic Society, 2004), 468–469, nos. 2–4.
26 BMC Syria 16, nos. 11–14; Butcher, Coinage in Roman Syria, 468–469 nos. 3–4 (Group 3).
27 E. Babelon, Les rois de Syrie, d’Arménie et de Commagène, Catalogue des monnaies
grecques de la Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris: Rollin & Feuardent, 1890), CCXV: “Les mon-
naies d’Antiochus IV sont, au point de vue du style et des types, complètement étrangères
aux monnaies des rois antérieurs, ce qui s’explique par l’interruption du monnayage royal
pendant une période de près de 70 ans. C’est probablement dans cet intervalle que doi-
vent se ranger les monnaies autonomes de Samosate, au type du lion, comme les pièces
d’Antiochus Ier.” Now we know that there was not such a long interruption in the royal
coinage, because some of the successors of Antiochus I actually minted coins (see
M. Alram, Nomina propria iranica in nummis, Iranisches personennamenbuch IV, Wien:
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1986, 83–84).
28 See Butcher, Coinage in Roman Syria, 468 and his opportune remarks. Cf. also RPC I,
572, which favours a date in the 30s BC for the overstruck coins.
Fig. 9. Coins of Samosata from the British Museum Collection [photo ©

A. Burnett – M. Amandry – P.P. Ripollès, The Roman Provincial Coinage I. From
the death of Caesar to the death of Vitellius (44 BC–AD 69), vol. I, London – Paris
1992: British Museum Press, part II Plate 148, nos. 3848–3851].
that the coins were struck in both a larger and a smaller denomination.
This means that we cannot dismiss our numismatic evidence as a singu-
lar oddity. The possibility, which has been tentatively suggested,29 that
we are confronted by imitations, only increases the number of questions
(who? why? in what circumstance?). In any case, these bronze coins do
not suggest a good comprehension of the Greek language by the Com-
magenians, who were the intended users of these coins.
Another hint in this direction seems to be provided by the legends of
the other Samosatean issues. As mentioned, some of them show the leg-
end Samosatō poleōs or simply Samosatō (figs. 9.1–3). As a matter of fact,
though, the correct form of the city name in genitive is Samosatōn,30 a
form which appears only on the type with the head of Zeus/lion walk-
ing (fig. 9.4).31 How can we explain these irregularities in the legends of
the coins, especially when we compare them to the royal issues, where
misspellings or deviations from the standard Greek are absent? One pos-
sible interpretation is that during this period Greek language and Greek
cultural forms were yet to spread widely beyond the confined circle of the
royal court. If this were the case, the limited nature of Greek epigraphic
29 Cf. RPC I, 572, no. 3850.

30 See for example Strabo 14, 2, 29. Jos. AJ 14.15.9 (445) and BJ 1.17.2 (327).
31 Cf. for example RPC I 572, no. 3851; Butcher, Coinage in Roman Syria, 468 no. 1
(Group 1).
evidence from Hellenistic Commagene becomes a little more comprehen-

sible. It is important to stress, however, that such a conclusion is only
partially satisfying, since the shortage of inscriptions extends also to other
languages. Facing this disconcerting silence, uninterrupted over centuries
and not even broken by the voice of a funerary epigram or of a religious
dedication, a single answer would be overtly simplistic. Clearly, the scarce
number of archaeological investigations thus far conducted in Com-
magene greatly conditions our evaluation. But the inevitable and current
conclusion, suggested to us by the available data, is that for a long period
Commagene was not affected by the so-named “epigraphic habit.”32 It is
necessary to wait until after the absorption of the region into the Roman
Empire to see a certain change in this respect.
In the light of these observations, the lack of epigraphic evidence in
Aramaic should not be overvalued. On the contrary, the letter of Mara
bar Sarapion is sufficient testimony for assuming that a not insignificant
proportion of the Commagenian population might have spoken at that
time (and probably since Hellenistic times) a local form of Aramaic. This
conclusion can be arrived at via a logical argument: even if the text were
to be a fictional historicizing exercise it would have been conceivable
(and credible)33 only if a Syriac speaking community existed in Com-
magene at the time of the letter’s composition.34 I will not enter here
32 Such a silence can be only partially explained by the predominance of village struc-
tures in Hellenistic Commagene (on the “silence” of the rural areas cf. M. Rostovtzeff,
Storia economica e sociale dell’Impero Romano, new enlarged ed. by A. Marcone (Firenze:
Sansoni 2003), 297 and ff.). Various rural regions of Asia Minor produced inscriptions
in epichoric languages during the classical and Hellenistic periods, most of which were
later superseded by Greek and Latin (cf. S. Mitchell, Anatolia. Land, Men, and Gods in
Asia Minor, vol. I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 170–173, with ample bibliography). The
adoption of the Greek language in the countryside of Anatolia is particularly well attested
in the epigraphic material from Phrygia (on which cf. Cl. Brixhe, “La langue comme critère
d’acculturation: l’exemple du grec d’un district phrygien,” in R. Lebrun (ed.), Hethitica VIII.
Acta Anatolica E. Laroche oblata, Colloque anatolien, Paris 1–5 juillet 1985 (Louvain and
Paris: Peeters, 1987), 45–80.
33 Credibility is an essential ingredient for any fiction, as lucidly observed by G.W.
Bowersock, Fiction as History. Nero to Julian (Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of
California Press, 1994), 51–52 (“In reading fiction we must be able to accept the histori-
cal context, even though we know it is not real. It must fall within the boundaries of the
possible and represent what for the reader would be credible. [. . .] It reflects a historical
setting, a milieu, a way of life and thought, but not normally an event”). On the difficulty
to define fiction see G. Currie, The Nature of Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press 1990), 1–4.
34 If one believes that the letter of Mara is a rhetorical exercise (rather than a letter
arising from a real situation) a distinction between the time of the letter’s setting and the
time of the letter’s composition is opportune. The text could have been written later, in a
different historical and cultural context from the one to which the letter explicitly refers.
into the intricate issue of when the letter was composed. Analysing Mara’s
philosophical profile, Merz and Tieleman35 consider, with good reason,
the later dating proposed by McVey (3rd or 4th century AD) and by Chin
(5th or 6th century AD)36 to be highly improbable. To their arguments we
may add that the letter, whether fictitious or not, shows an anti-Roman
shade that would be difficult to justify in the political and cultural situa-
tion of the later centuries and would be more in accordance with a period
in which the Roman presence was more dominating.
Further support to the hypothesis of the use of Aramaic in Commagene
can be found in a few references in Lucian’s works, which seem to indi-
cate his knowledge of the language. The risk of an analysis entirely based
on evidence supplied only by the author is evident, in particular when
one considers the fictive character of Lucian’s literary production. Such a
difficulty, that is inherent to every attempt of reconstructing Lucian’s life,
should not discourage us from investigating his works, but rather warn us
from falling into the traps of distortion and exaggeration.37
II. Lucian “the Syrian”
The possibility that this writer of consummate skill, born between approx-
imately AD 115 and 125 at Samosata,38 had Aramaic as his first language
has often been contemplated.39 Yet, despite the general agreement of
But we have no element to define the temporal gap between the events inferred in the
letter and the actual moment of composition. Certainly the letter would have sounded
more plausible, if already at the time of the text’s setting there was an Aramaic speaking
community present in Commagene.
35 A. Merz and T. Tieleman, “The Letter of Mara Bar Sarapion. Some Comments on its
Philosophical and Historical Context” in A. Houtman, A. de Jong & M. Misset-van de Weg
(eds.), Empsychoi Logoi. Religious Innovations in Antiquity. Studies in Honour of Pieter Willem
van der Horst, Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 73 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 107–133.
36 See respectively McVey, “A Fresh Look,” 257–272 and Chin, “Rhetorical Practice.”
37 So C.P. Jones, Culture and Society in Lucian (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard
University Press, 1986), 6.
38 On Lucian’s biography see J. Schwartz, Biographie de Lucien de Samosate, Coll. Lato-
mus 83 (Bruxelles-Berchem: Latomus, 1965); L. Petersen, PIR² V 1, 1970, no. 370; Jones,
Culture and Society, 6–23; J. Bompaire, Lucien. Œuvres, tome I (Paris: Les Belles Lettres,
1993), XI–XIV; H.-G. Nesselrath, “Lukianos,” DNP 7 (1999), 493. An invaluable guide to the
vast literature concerning Lucian is now provided by P.P. Fuentes Gonzáles, “Lucien de
Samosate,” in R. Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, IV (Paris: CNRS Edi-
tions, 2005), nos. 66, 131–160 and in particular 135–144 for his biography.
39 See among the most recent ones J. Sirinelli, Les enfants d’Alexandre. La littérature et
la pensée grecques 334 av. J.-C.—519 ap. J.-C. (Paris: Fayard, 1993), 315; M.-F. Baslez, “L’auteur
du De Dea Syria et les réalités religieuses de Hiérapolis,” in A. Billault (ed.), Lucien de
viewing Lucian as the product of a multicultural environment that

included a strong Semitic element, the idea of this intellectual as an Ara-
maic speaker, who devoted his life to the mastery of Greek (and Atticizing
Greek), has often met with a certain resistance.40 In an important article
dedicated to Lucian’s composite cultural profile, Simon Swain emphasizes
the “Semitic face” of the writer.41 But if on the one hand Swain places
Lucian against a local background of Semitic culture, on the other he does
not concede to him the use (or at least a good use) of the language in
which this culture manifested itself. “Lucian’s knowledge of Aramaic at
Hierapolis may well be no more than that of the average tourist or Hero-
dotean ethnographer. There is absolutely no proof—Swain remarks—that
Aramaic was his first language.”42
Samosate. Actes du colloque international de Lyon (30 septembre–1er octobre 1993) (Lyon: de
Boccard, 1994), 171–176; Bompaire, Lucien. Œuvres, tome I, xii, n. 6 and id., “L’Atticisme
de Lucien” in Billault, Lucien de Samosate, 65–75, especially 75; H.-G. Nesselrath, “Lukian:
Leben und Werk” in M. Ebner et al., Lukian, Die Lügenfreunde oder der Ungläubige, SAPERE
3 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft), 2001, 12; Fuentes Gonzáles, “Lucien de
Samosate,” 138; B. Rochette, “La problématique des langues étrangères dans les opuscu-
les de Lucien et la conscience linguistique des Grecs,” in F. Mestre and P. Gómez (edd.),
Lucian of Samosata, Greek writer and Roman citizen (Barcelona: Publicacions i edicions de
la Universitat de Barcelona, 2010), 217–233. Jones, Culture and Society, 6–7 does not exclude
this possibility.
40 So for example N. Festa, “Luciano di Samosata,” Enciclopedia italiana XXI, 1934
(Milano: Rizzoli), 582; F.W. Householder, Literary Quotation and Allusion in Lucian (New
York: King’s Crown Press, 1941), 95, n. 206; E. Braun, Lukian: Unter doppelter Anklage. Ein
Kommentar (Frankfurt am Main: Lang), 1994, 236 and n. 2. Reacting to a widespread ten-
dency by scholars, and in particular classicists, to take the presence of an Aramaic linguis-
tic community in Commagene for granted, Millar, The Roman Near East, 456, remarks that
“we still do not know whether Lucian, or anyone else in Samosata, or in Commagene gen-
erally, spoke a dialect of Aramaic.” But cf. id., “Paul of Samosata, Zenobia and Aurelian: the
Church, Local Culture and Political Allegiance in Third-Century Syria,” Journal of Roman
Studies 61 (1971): 1–17, especially 4, where he is less hesitant to find in Lucian evidence for
the persistence of an Aramaic dialect in Commagene.
41 S. Swain, “The Three Faces of Lucian,” in C. Ligota and L. Panizza, Lucian of Samosata
vivus et redivivus (London and Turin: The Warburg Institute-Nino Aragno Editore, 2007),
18–44, in particular 30–36 and similarly in Hellenism and Empire. Language, Classicism, and
Power in the Greek World, AD 50–250 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 298–308. The com-
plexity and multi-layered identity of intellectuals (pepaideumenoi) in the age of the Second
Sophistic has been masterly illustrated by C.P. Jones, “Multiple identities in the age of the
Second Sophistic,” in B.E. Borg, Paideia: the World of the Second Sophistic, Millennium-
Studien 2 (Berlin – New York: de Gruyter 2004), 13–21.
42 See Swain, “The Three Faces of Lucian,” 34. At the beginning of his article (p. 21),
Swain opportunely invites “to concede a fairly high degree of bilingualism to such far-flung
communities [as Samosata], at least in the sense that different linguistic groups could be
expected to communicate with each other and be able to do so via some form of contact
language or through the ability to switch linguistic codes when in company in order to
include speakers of other tongues.” This ability, however, is not extended, in the course of
Once again our attention is drawn to the lack of evidence, but here
it is clear that we cannot expect to find conclusive proof inside Lucians’
works. A man who directed all of his efforts to learning classical culture,
to become skilled in the arts of rhetoric and to be included in the Graeco-
Roman intellectual world, would have only hinted at his knowledge of
a non-Greek language. This is exactly what Lucian does. In more than
one passage he presents himself as “Syrian” (or “Assyrian,” which was a
more literary version of the former)43 or “barbarian.”44 In particular in the
Pseudologista Lucian is called by the False Critic “barbarian in language,”45
a definition ascribed to him also in Bis accusatus and in Piscator.46 Before
analysing how this expression has been interpreted and drawing any con-
clusion, it is opportune to stress the absolute necessity to place each of
these references in context: only through comprehension of the specific
intentions behind them and of their implications can we avoid the risks of
an artificial operation that inevitably flattens and homogenizes Lucian’s
different allusions to his “barbarian” origin.
Mostly, Lucian reacts ironically to the Greek negative categorization of
non-Greek people as “barbarian,” demonstrating that he could become a
person of education and high culture despite his inadequate pedigree. But
Lucian does not always use such a self-defensive tone, which has led Bom-
paire to speak about “complexe de métèque.”47 In De dea Syria, a work
which celebrates the shrine of Atargatis at Hierapolis, he expresses pride
for the antiquity of the cult and, consequently, for the indigenous culture
which he declares, at the beginning of the treatise, to be a part of his own
the discussion, to Lucian, for whom Swain excludes an adequate knowledge of Aramaic.
Cf. also below Swain’s interpretation of Lucian’s self-definition “barbarian in language.”
43 See the classic paper by T. Nöldeke, “Assyrios, Syrios, Syros,” Hermes 5 (1871): 443–
468; Jones, “Multiple identities,” 19–20.
44 The occurrences have been collected by Swain, Hellenism and Empire, 299 n. 5. “Bar-
barian”: Bis acc. 27 and 34; Pisc. 19; Pseudol. 1; Scyth. 9. “Syrian” or “Assyrian”: Bis acc. 14
and 25; Ind. 19; Pisc. 19; Scyth. 9. On Lucian’s self-personifications see S. Dubel, “Dialogue
et autoportrait: les masques de Lucien,” Billault, Lucien de Samosate, 19–26.
45 Pseudol. 1: πῶς γὰρ ἂν ᾐτιῶ βάρβαρον εἶναί με τὴν φωνὴν ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ κτλ.
46 See respectively Bis acc. 27: βάρβαρον ἔτι τὴν φωνήν and Pisc. 19: τὴν φωνὴν βάρβαρος.
The expression occurs also in Ind. 4, referred to the illiterate book-fancier and to the rich
and ignorant people like him.
47 J. Bompaire, Lucien écrivain. Imitation et création (Paris: de Boccard, 1958) (new ed.
Les Belles Lettres-Nino Aragno Editore, 2000), 150. On various Lucian’s self-presentations
cf. R. Bracht Branham, Unruly Eloquence. Lucian and the Comedy of Traditions (Cambridge,
Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1989), 28–37.
background (“I that write, I am an Assyrian”).48 Lucian’s lifelong attempt

to wholly belong to the world of the Greek intellectuals never takes him to
the point of disowning that he was barbaros by birth.49 This term is often
used by Lucian to lay stress on the efforts that he made in order to reach a
proper paideia, and hence on his merits.50 The sarcastic allusion to Greek
cultural prejudices is patent, but we should not forget that these prejudices
are shared to a degree by Lucian himself in other contexts.51 It is therefore
hard to read behind Lucian’s various references to his barbarian phōnē
and to provide a single interpretation that succeeds in every context. The
most accepted explanation for this phrase is that it may allude to Lucian’s
local accent, to his intonation or to his ‘impure’ grammatical/semantic
usage.52 In Pseudologista 1 Lucian violently reacts against the False Critic,
who had charged him of being “barbarous” in his speech because of an
48 Syr.D. 1: γρἀφω δὲ Ἀσσύριος ἐών. On the authorship of this work see lastly J.L. Lightfoot,
Lucian. On the Syrian Goddess (Oxford: OUP, 2003), 184–208. Cf. also J. Elsner, “Describ-
ing Self in the Language of the Other: Pseudo (?) Lucian at the Temple of Hierapolis” in
S. Goldhill (ed.), Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the
Development of Empire (Cambridge: CUP 2001), 123–153, who clearly explains the various
aspects which this question involves and fully highlights the multifarious identity of the
author of De dea Syria.
49 Such an attitude is overrated by Rochette, “La problématique,” 218–219, in the para-
graph entitled “L’identité de Lucien: «Barbare et fier de lui». It should not be forgotten that
in the passages analysed by Rochette, Lucian is defending himself against heavy accusa-
tions: what he is proud of is not his barbarian origin, but rather of his having become
a pepaideumenos in spite of such an origin. Cf. also P. Angeli Bernardini, “Greci e Sciti
nell’opera di Luciano: due culture a confronto,” in L. de Finis, Civiltà classica e mondo
dei barbari. Due modelli a confronto (Trento: Manfrini, 1991), 171–183 some of whose argu-
ments are closely followed by Rochette, “La problématique.” Angeli Bernardini notes that
Anacharsis and Lucian are not “barbari comuni, ma debbono presentarsi in una posizione
di umiltà perché vengono per chiedere ospitalità e protezione e soprattutto per imparare”
(p. 177).
50 See in particular Bis acc. 27 and 30; Pisc. 19.
51 See Hist. Conscr. 24, where Lucian is afraid to be confused with people from Parthia
and Mesopotamia and cf. on this passage Swain, “The Three Faces of Lucian,” 32 (“Lucian
seems to be saying that it is all right to be a Syrian, so long as one is not cast off into the
Greekless—and therefore cultureless—land of the Parthians”). On Lucian’s contempt for
barbarian languages see Bompaire, Lucien écrivain, 151; T. Polańsky, Oriental Art in Greek
Imperial Literature (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1998), 87–88. Against this view,
Rochette “La problématique,” believes that Lucian follows here literary stereotypes with
no firm belief (“pour un Grec, il est de bon ton d’injurier le Barbare et de se moquer de sa
langue. Son sentiment profond est autre” p. 232). Rochette describes a Lucian inclined to
a cultural and linguistic relativism, forced by his origins to conciliate two antithetic posi-
tions: his respect for foreign languages and his atticist choice.
52 So for example F.W. Householder, Literary Quotation and Allusion in Lucian (New
York: King’s Crown Press, 1941), 95 n. 206 (“misuse of words and ignorance of grammar”);
E. Braun, Lukian: Unter doppelter Anklage. Ein Kommentar (Frankfurt am Main: Lang,
1994), 236 and n. 2; Swain, Hellenism and Empire, 299 (“linguistic performance”). Accord-
ing to Jones, Culture and Society, 7: “This phrase probably denotes accent or vocabulary
inappropriate use of the word apophras (“ill-omened”).53 Other passages,

however, seem to refer more directly to Lucian’s ethnic provenance and
to the language he first learnt. In Bis accusatus 27 the personified Rhetoric
speaks of her encounter with Lucian:
This man here, gentlemen of the jury, was a mere boy, still barbarian in
language and almost wearing a kandys in the Syrian fashion, when I found
him, still wandering in Ionia, not knowing what to do with himself; I took
him under my wing and gave him an education.54
In this respect Jane Lightfoot has observed that “it seems likelier, given the
rhetorical context, which is a highly coloured characterization of his ori-
gins, that Lucian means to imply the use of a language other than Greek;
the kandys, or kaftan, which Oratory mentions in the same breath, had
strong barbarian associations, and in one place [Deor. Conc. 9] it is explic-
itly connected with ignorance of Greek.”55 Moreover, we notice that this
is not the only passage where clothes and languages are closely associated
by Lucian to portray someone of foreign culture: in De mercede conductis
24 the wearing of the tribōn connotes the Greek intellectual, whose first
language was not the Rhōmaiōn phōnē, which he inevitably corrupts.56
Commenting on Lucian’s self-presentation as a foreigner, Fuentes Gon-
záles concludes that “en principe, il n’y a donc pas de raison de douter
qu’il était d’origine étrangère, plus concrètement syrienne, qu’il avait
appris la langue (et la culture) grecque comme un étranger et qu’il avait
même toujours gardé un certain accent étranger.”57 It was probably not
just a question of accent, as Pseudologista 1 shows, but Fuentes Gonzáles
is correct in returning to Lucian the knowledge of Aramaic.58
rather than language, but it is possible that this writer of crystalline Greek began as a
speaker of Aramaic.”
53 On this work see A. Billault, “Une «Vie de Sophiste»: le Pseudologiste,” in Billault,
Lucien de Samosate, 117–124.
54 Ἐγὼ γάρ, ὦ ἄνδρες δικασταί, τουτονὶ κομιδῇ μειράκιον ὄντα, βάρβαρον ἔτι τὴν φωνὴν καὶ
μονονουχὶ κάνδυν ἐνδεδυκότα εἰς τὸν Ἀσσύριον τρόπον, περὶ τὴν Ἰωνίαν εὑροῦσα πλαζόμενον ἔτι
καὶ ὅ τι χρήσαιτο ἑαυτῷ οὐκ εἰδότα παραλαβοῦσα ἐπαίδευσα.
55 J.L. Lightfoot, Lucian. On the Syrian Goddess, Oxford: OUP, 2003, 205 and n. 555.
56 Cf. on this Rochette “La problématique,” 230.
57 Fuentes Gonzáles, “Lucien de Samosate,” 138.
58 Such knowledge had been already granted to Lucian by L. Settembrini, Luciano, vol. I
(Firenze: Le Monnier, 1862), 47 “Più lungamente [Luciano di Samosata] parla di sé nell’
Accusato di doppia accusa, dove dice che essendo ancor giovinetto, parlante la lingua bar-
bara del suo paese e vestito quasi alla foggia d’un Assiro, capitò nella Ionia, dove apprese
la lingua e l’eloquenza dei Greci.” On Settembrini, intellectual and patriot, see F. Nicolini,
“Luigi Settembrini,” Enciclopedia italiana XXXI, 1936 (Milano: Rizzoli), 541–543. The strong
personality of Settembrini deeply impressed Thomas Mann, who was inspired by this intel-
lectual in the creation of the character Lodovico Settembrini, the Italian humanist of The
Another passage which has not been considered in this respect, but
which I believe to contain significant allusions, is Patriae encomium
6. Amongst the reasons to be grateful to one’s own native land, Lucian
counts the fact that “each of us began to speak there, learning first to talk
ta epichōria and there came to know the gods”: καὶ φωνῆς ἐνταῦθα ἤρξατο
τὰ ἐπιχώρια πρῶτα λαλεῖν μανθάνων καὶ θεοὺς ἐγνώρισεν. Lucian is speaking
here of some important steps in the learning process of a human being
and which include the learning of the local language.59 This language is
not necessarily Greek, as is made quite explicit by the hypothetical case
that follows: that of a man who has to leave his fatherland to attain a
higher education. This man—states Lucian—should be grateful to his
fatherland because he would not even have known the name of polis, if
he had not learnt through his country that something as the polis existed.60
Lucian’s example is hard to understand when applied to an inhabitant of
the old Greek world,61 but becomes very clear when referred to someone
who lived on its fringes. As I will demonstrate in greater detail in the next
paragraph, the situation which Lucian describes here is an allusion to his
personal experience, to his provenance from a land with a native language
other than Greek, where Greek could be learnt up to a certain level, but
one which was obviously insufficient for a career in rhetoric.
III. Greek Learning in Commagene: Lucian and Mara
Lucian devoted his entire life to pursuing culture and making a livelihood
from it. In the Somnium sive Vita Luciani, an account of Lucian’s chosen
career is given: it was following a dream that he decided to give up an
Magic Mountain (cf. I.B. Jonas, Thomas Mann and Italy, Alabama: University of Alabama
Press, 1979, 83). I am grateful to Domitilla Campanile for this information.
59 Slightly different interpretations of the words ta epichōria have been proposed. Just
to quote the most authoritative ones (see ad locum): W. Dindorf, Luciani Samosatensis
opera (Paris: Didot, 1867) (“patria lingua”); C.M. Wieland, Lukians von Samosata Sämtliche
Werke (Leipzig: Weidmannische Buchhandlung, 1788–1789; repr. 1974) (“die Sprache seines
Landes”); E. Talbot, Lucien de Samosate. Oeuvres complètes de Lucien de Samosate (Paris
: Hachette, 1912), (“le langage de leurs parents”); Settembrini, Luciano, vol. III (“le prime
parole del suo idioma”); A.M. Harmon, Lucian, vol. I, Loeb ed. (London and Cambridge,
Mass. 1953) LOEB (“native dialect”); Bompaire, Lucien. Œuvres, tome II, (“mots du pays”).
Cf. Herc. 1, where Lucian uses phōnē +epichōrios to mean “the language of the country,” in
this case the language of the Celts.
60 For the text and discussion see below.
61 This difficulty explains why some translators (see below n. 71) have forced the Greek
text of this passage to support their interpretation.
apprenticeship as a sculptor (an apprenticeship which lasted a single day)

and turn from craft to culture.62 In this dream Technē and Paideia, two
female personifications, appeared in front of him, each illustrating the
benefits Lucian could obtain from them. The choice was in favour of the
lady in elegant garments, Culture, who promised to make Lucian “conver-
sant with almost all knowledge,” to embellish his “soul with many noble
adornments” (temperance, justice, piety etc.), in one word, to teach him
“everything that there is, whether it pertains to the gods or to man.”63
Of particular interest, from my perspective, is that the Somnium is
addressed to Lucian’s fellow citizens and was probably delivered as a
speech in Samosata: the final paragraph, where he states “what I am now,
on my return to you” (Somn. 18) is quite explicit. Lucian’s works were
meant for public readings.64 In Verae historiae 1 Lucian affirms that he
wrote his work for “those who dedicated themselves to letters,”65 but
obviously his audience was not always what he would have hoped for
and it must have been highly variable according to both the place he was
visiting and to the circumstances. In Herodotus sive Aëtion 7–8 we have
an example of this, when Lucian explains his strategy for spreading his
name throughout Macedonia: due to the arduousness in visiting numer-
ous places, he chose to visit just one city (unfortunately unnamed) where
a general meeting of the province took place and “the cream of every city,
the epitome of Macedonia . . .” was gathered. With an ill-disguised capta-
tio benevolentiae, Lucian declares that his hearers are not a syrphetōdēs
ochlos (“vulgar mob”) more keen on watching athletics than thinking of
Herodotus, but rather “the most reputable of rethors, historians and soph-
ists.” We can imagine that while the audience at Samosata would have
been far from being so selected, a part thereof could not have been com-
pletely unfamiliar with the sophisticated Greek of Lucian and his literary
allusions (ainixeis), the most patent of which are, in the Somnium, the
reference to the dream described in Xenophon’s Anabasis (3.1.11) and to
Prodicus’ myth of the choice of Heracles (Mem. 2.1.21–34).66
62 See B. Schouler, “Lucien entre Technè et Paideia,” in Billault, Lucien de Samosate,

95–108.
63 Somn. 10.
64 A.R. Bellinger, “‘Lucian’s Dramatic Technique,” Yale Classical Studies 1 (1928): 3–40 has
shown that even the dialogues were written in order to be performed by a single actor.
65 VH 1: τοῖς περὶ τοὺς λόγους ἐσπουδακόσιν.
66 Cf. M.C. Waites “Some Features of the Allegorical Debate in Greek Literature,” Har-
vard Studies in Classical Philology 23 (1912): 1–46 and in particular, 43–46; Jones, Culture
and Society, 9.
The Patriae encomium is also taken to have been pronounced in front

of Samosateans. Here Lucian does not praise his own patris, his Com-
magene, but he wants rather “to honour the mere name of native land.”67
He justifies his choice by remarking on the natural affection of each man
for his own land, independently from its qualities. That there is a natural
affection—says Lucian—is demonstrated by the following fact:
When it is a question of choosing among poleis, nobody would choose the
more splendid and give up his own, he would pray that it too might be as
prosperous as any, but would choose it, no matter what it was.68
However, the explanation offered in these initial paragraphs to justify the
subject’s choice appears a bit twisted: it leaves one with the impression
that Lucian was trying to find an expedient to praise his own land, while
avoiding comparisons with other poleis that could be superior in many
aspects. One of the ambits where his city of origin could yield to many
poleis was that of Greek culture. Lucian is aware of that, as we can deduce
from his remarks at paragraph 6:
Ιf a man’s lot has been cast in such a land that he has required another for
a higher education, he should still be thankful to his fatherland for these
teachings, for he would not have known even the meaning of “state” if his
country had not taught him that there was such a thing.69
Here Lucian is clearly referring to his personal experience and to the
necessity of travelling abroad for those intellectuals who, like him, came
from the periphery of the old Greek world and wished to be culturally
integrated within it.70 Samosata was not far from the major hellenized
city of Antioch, but it was certainly much less well known, so that a con-
temporary of Lucian, a careless historian of Verus’ Parthian war, could
even misplace it and transplant it into Mesopotamia.71 But what should be
stressed here is that even if Samosata could not compete with the cultural
centres of Greece and Asia Minor, it still offered a decent base for an edu-
cation in Greek learning in Lucian’s times. This is implied, for example,
by a passage in Somnium 9, where the refined and eloquent Paideia tells
67 Patr. Enc. 2 (transl. Harmon): ἐμοὶ δὲ ἥδιον αὐτὸ τιμᾶν τὸ τῆς πατρίδος ὄνομα.
68 Patr. Enc. 2 (transl. Harmon).
69 Patr. Enc. 6 (transl. Harmon): εἰ δέ τις τοιαύτης ἔλαχε πατρίδος, ὡς ἑτέρας δεηθῆναι
πρὸς τὴν τῶν μειζόνων παιδείαν, ἀλλ᾽ οὖν ἐχέτω καὶ τούτων τῶν παιδευμάτων τῇ πατρίδι τὴν
χάριν· οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἐγνώρισεν οὐδὲ πόλεως ὄνομα μὴ διὰ τὴν πατρίδα πόλιν εἶναι μαθών. On this
passage cf. below.
70 An useful overview of the great centres of rhetoric can be found in G. Bowersock,
Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford: OUP 1969), 17–29.
71 Hist. Conscr. 24.
Lucian that he is already acquainted and familiar with her, even if he has
not yet completed his experience of her.72
Originating from a region like Commagene did not prevent full acquire-
ment of high Greek culture. In Piscator 19 Parrhesiades (Lucian’s portepa-
role) replies to Philosophy that culture has nothing to do with geographical
provenance and that even language is not an obstacle in the practice of
philosophy, if the way of thinking is right. In Patriae encomium 6, as we
have seen, Lucian remarks that each person begins to speak in his own
land, learning there to talk the local language and to know the gods; he
then emphasizes that it is in the fatherland that every man’s basic educa-
tion begins, and that without this education not even the name of polis
would be known.73 One may wonder how conventional such an assertion
is, how far Lucian’s indulgence to rhetorical models goes, whether or not it
is legitimate to identify an autobiographic reference in this passage. Here,
as anywhere within Lucian’s work, the weight of literary prototypes should
not be underestimated, but neither should the original contribution of the
writer and his variations of clichés. The analysis of Bompaire shows how
the Patriae Εncomium distinguishes itself from the models sketched by
rhetors and how this deviation can be explained interpreting the speech
as “un λόγος ἐπιβατήριος personnel comme le suggèrent des allusions, il est
vrai fugitives, ou plus exactement une (προ)λαλιὰ ἐπιβατήριος [. . .].”74
Lucian’s benevolent attitude towards his patris is not unusual for
contemporary Classicism: it embodies what Simon Swain has sharply
defined “the effort of local intellectuals to give their domiciles a desired
respectability.”75 Lucian knows how his Commagenian provenance could
make him subject to a charge of being barbarian; on such a common
72 Somn. 9: Ἐγὼ δέ, ὦ τέκνον, Παιδεία εἰμὶ ἤδη συνήθης σοι καὶ γνωρίμη, εἰ καὶ μηδέπω εἰς
τέλος μου πεπείρασαι.
73 Patr. Enc. 6: οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἐγνώρισεν οὐδὲ πόλεως ὄνομα μὴ διὰ ὴν πατρίδα πόλιν εἶναι μαθών.
For the interpretation here accepted cf. Harmon, Lucian, vol. I, 215 (“he would not have
known even the meaning of «state» if his country had not taught him that there was
such a thing”) and L. Settembrini, Luciano, vol. III, 146 (“perché non avrebbe conosciuto
neppure il nome di città, se la patria non avesse insegnato esservi una città”). Bompaire,
Lucien. Œuvres, tome II, 10 translates “Car il n’aurait même pas connu le nom d’une cité
s’il n’avait appris son existence grâce à sa patrie.” Dindorf, Luciani, (neque enim vel nomen
illius alterius urbis scivisset, nisi patriae beneficio urbem ejusmodi esse didicisset) and
Wieland, Lukians, (“denn woher hätte er nur den bloßen Namen jener anderen Stadt wis-
sen können, wenn er ihn nicht in seiner Vaterstadt erfahren hätte?”) assume before polis
an indefinite adjective which is not present in the text. Similarly Talbot, Lucien, adds a
demonstrative adjective (“puisque sans elle nous n’eussions pas connu le nom de cette
ville; nous ne nous serions pas doutés de son existence”).
74 Bompaire, Lucien écrivain, 280.
75 Swain, “The Three Faces of Lucian,” 21.
charge for intellectuals of non-Greek background he plays more than once

in his works, as we have seen. What is apparent, however, is that someone
of non-Greek roots, had the possibility in Commagene to receive a basic
Greek education.
“The absorption of commonplace Greek learning . . . within a Syriac-
speaking environment”—to use the words of Fergus Millar—is what
emerges from the letter of Mara.76 The exempla drawn from the classical
literature (Darius, Polycrates, Achilles, Archimedes and many others) point
to the education of Mara and to the influence of Greek thought for the local
elite of Syriac language in Commagene. A direct reference to Mara’s Greek
learning or education is contained, as Merz and Tieleman note, in the
ll. 10–11 Cureton (§ 3 Rensberger) of the letter which, despite a few read-
ing problems, seem to be quite explicit about this: if Schultess’ suggestion
ad locum is correct, we should intend that Greek education is the road to
freedom.77 This is a motive that also occurs elsewhere in the letter, where
Mara presents himself as a man educated in philosophy. Many passages
find thematic parallels in Greek and Roman philosophical and rhetorical
literature, as both earlier and present studies of the letter reveal.78 These
passages include the well known one in which Mara dedicates to the unjust
death of wise men. Here Socrates and Pythagoras are mentioned together
with “the wise king of the Jews” (§ 18), a possible reference to Jesus.79 The
comparison between Socrates and Jesus is a very standard one for the
Greek Christian apologists of the 2nd and 3rd century, who exploited
it from different perspectives.80 As far as we know, it is Justin Martyr
76 Millar, The Roman Near East, 462.

77 Cf. F. Schulthess, “Der Brief des Mara bar Sarapion: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
syrischen Literatur,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 51 (1897):
365–391; Merz & T. Tieleman, “The Letter,” 11 and n. 19.
78 For discussion and references see in particular McVey, “A Fresh Look”; Merz &
T. Tieleman, “The Letter”, and the other contributions to this volume.
79 Unsurprisingly this identification (already envisaged, but rejected by Cureton, Spici-
legium Syriacum, XIII–XIV) has attracted the attention of many scholars. See above all
R.E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament. An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence
(Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans, 2000), 53–57 and E. Norelli, “La presenza di Gesù nella
letteratura gentile dei primi due secoli” in A. Pitta (ed.), Il Gesù storico nelle fonti del II-II
secolo. Atti del X Convegno di Studi Neotestamentari (Foligno, 11–13 Settembre 2003) (Bolo-
gna: EDB), 175–215, especially 197–207, who both offer a clear treatment of the question
and bibliographical references. Cf. also lastly I Ramelli, “Gesù tra i sapienti greci persegui-
tati ingiustamente in un antico documento filosofico pagano di lingua siriaca,” Rivista di
Filosofia Neo-Scolastica 97/4 (2005): 545–570.
80 See in particular K. Döring, Exemplum Socratis. Studien zur Sokratesnachwirkung in
der kynisch-stoischen Popularphilosophie der frühen Kaiserzeit und im frühen Christentum,
Hermes Einzelschr. 42 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1979), 143–161.
(AD 100–165) who first makes explicit use of it.81 What is of interest con-
cerning this passage is that this alignment Socrates-Jesus is also presup-
posed by Lucian (chronologically not too far from Justin) in his biting
description of Peregrinus of Parion.82 A Cynic philosopher converted to
Christianity, Peregrinus was very much honoured by his brethren, who
revered him as a god, second only to their founder “whom they still wor-
ship, the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this
new cult into the world.”83 Interestingly Lucian records that Peregrinus,
who had experienced prison because of his faith, was called by his Chris-
tian disciples the “new Socrates.”84 Although modified through a prism of
satire, we have here further confirmation that, at least since the second
century, the Christians considered the unjustly persecuted Socrates their
predecessor and that a comparison between him and Jesus (or, more fre-
quently, the Christians) had already been established by this time. The
chronological proximity between Lucian and Mara bar Sarapion is difficult
to determine.85 Obviously, if the composition of the letter is to be dated
before the beginning of the 2nd century AD, then we will not only have,
as remarked upon many times, the first surviving testimony concerning
Jesus from a pagan source, but also the first literary evidence that aligns
Socrates and Jesus. Such an early appearance of this parallel in a Syriac-
speaking community of Commagene is, however, difficult to believe and
one would rather agree with Döring that “Sokrates, Pythagoras und «der
weise König der Juden», Jesus, werden hier als Beispiele mit einer Selbst-
verständlichkeit nebeneinandergestellt, die nicht anders erklärbar ist als
in der Weise, dass der Verfasser des Briefes eine Tradition aufgreift oder
zumindest einer in der Zeit liegenden Tendenz folgt.”86
81 Cf. Döring, Exemplum Socratis, 146 and ff.; Van Voorst, Jesus, 58 n. 103 and for a
detailed discussion E.R. Wilson, The Death of Socrates (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 2007), 145ff.
82 So rapidly Jones, Culture and Society, 7.
83 Peregr. 11 (transl. Harmon).
84 Peregr. 12: καινὸς Σωκράτης ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν ὠνομάζετο.
85 The historical setting of the letter is a major issue which has concerned many schol-
ars and which has been frequently addressed in this Symposium. See in particular the
contribution by Michael A. Speidel to this volume. However we may judge the “internal”
evidence detectable in the letter (conclusive or inconclusive) and the nature of it (fic-
titious or real), it remains difficult to reject the assumption that AD 72/73 (the year of
annexation of Commagene in the Roman empire) constitutes the terminus post quem for
the composition of the letter.
86 Döring, Exemplum Socratis, 144–145.
On the Greek learning of Mara it is unnecessary to further insist, as on

the penetration of Greek cultural forms into the Syriac-speaking elite of
Commagene. The letter provides a vivid example of the principle affirmed
by Bowersock and by other scholars: Hellenism should not automatically
be seen as in opposition to local cultures, but rather as in interaction with
them, since it often provided a framework for these cultures to express
themselves.87 The process through which Hellenism established itself in
Commagene and interplayed with local traditions was long and definitely
complex. The scarcity of the documentation allows us only a few glimpses of
this process, but these glimpses, however quick and partial they are, should
be sufficient to return to Commagene its multifarious cultural reality.
Abbreviations
ANRW = Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt.

BMC Syria = W. Wroth, A Catalogue of the Greek Coins in the British Museum.
Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Galatia, Cappadocia, and Syria, London 1899.
CAH = The Cambridge Ancient History.
Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum = W. Cureton, “The Epistle of Mara, Son of Sera-
pion,” Spicilegium Syriacum, London 1855, 43–48, 70–76, 101–102.
FGrH = F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Berlin-Leiden 1926–
1958.
OGIS = W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, Leipzig 1903–
1905.
RPC = The Roman Provincial Coinage.
SNG Cop. Syria = Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum. Syria: Cities, The Royal Collec-
tion of coins and medals, Danish National Museum, Copenhagen 1959.
SNG XII-Glasgow = Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum. The Hunterian Museum, Uni-
versity of Glasgow: Roman Provincial Coins: Spain—Kingdoms of Asia Minor,
Oxford 2004.
SNG XII-Milano = Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum. Italia, Milano: Civiche raccolte
numismatiche, vol. XII, 1, Milano 1992.
87 G.W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity, Cambridge: CUP, 1990. Cf. also on this
matter Butcher, Roman Syria, 270–289 and 332–334.
RELIGIOUS LIFE OF COMMAGENE IN THE LATE HELLENISTIC AND
EARLY ROMAN PERIOD
Michael Blömer
The author of the letter of Mara bar Sarapion reports in § 8 how a group
of people from Samosata—forced to leave their hometown—lamented
their fate: “We are now far removed from our home, and we cannot return
again to our city, or behold our people, or offer to our gods the greeting of
praise.”1 Here, the letter refers to the ancestral gods, tied to mother city
and home country. In other passages allusions to divine power are less
specific, but the letter conveys a general picture of an intellectual as well
as religious sphere.2 It could therefore provide an important contribution
to the knowledge of the intellectual history of the country at the onset of
Roman rule.3
To investigate the context of the letter and the correlation of the text
with the culture of Commagene in the 1st century CE a look at contem-
porary religion in Samosata may be helpful. However, the crucial question
is: What do we know about the religious life of Commagene in the late
Hellenistic and early Roman period? At first sight an answer seems close
at hand. In modern scholarship as well as in the perception of a wider
audience there is a strong link between “Commagene” and “religion.” The
country is frequently tagged as “Land der Götter,” as “home of the gods,”
where “Gottkönige” acted as brokers of religious ideas.4 Closely related to
1 Translation by William Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, London: Rivingtons, 1855, 43.

2 For a discussion of the philosophical and historical background see Annette Merz
and Teun Tieleman, “The Letter of Mara Bar Sarapion: Some Comments on its Philosophi-
cal and Historical Context,” in Empsychoi Logoi. Religious Innovations in Antiquity: Studies
in Honour of Pieter Willem van der Horst, ed. by Alberdina Houtman, Albert de Jong and
Magdalena Misset-van de Weg. Ancient Judaism and Christianity 73 (Leiden: Brill, 2008),
107–133, with further references.
3 The date of the letter is still disputed, but a dating in the context of the roman occupa-
tion in 72/73 CE seems very probable, see Merz and Tieleman, “Some Comments,” 122–133.
For a discussion of alternative contexts see the article of Speidel in this volume.
4 Friedrich K. Dörner, Der Thron der Götter auf dem Nemrud Dağ. Kommagene—
das große archäologische Abenteuer in der östlichen Türkei (Bergisch Gladbach: Bastei-
Lübbe, 1987); Jörg Wagner, Kommagene. Heimat der Götter (Dortmund: Harenberg, 1987);
Gottkönige am Euphrat. Neue Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Kommagene, ed. by Jörg
Wagner (Mainz: v. Zabern, 2000) and by now Michael Blömer and Engelbert Winter,
96 michael blömer
this assumption is the widespread view of Commagene as a bridge between

East and West. Located as it is between Asia Minor, Armenia and Mesopo-
tamia, it is widely viewed as a crossroads of civilisations.5 Ancient Com-
magenian identity has therefore been characterised as showing a large
degree of syncretism, in which various influences have to be taken into
account.6 “The crucial position of Commagene, and also Pontus, between
the Persian and Roman empires inevitably made them a meeting ground
for religious forms . . . ,” as Bruce Lincoln concluded in 1982.7 It has even
been suggested that Commagene played a pivotal role in the introduction
of the mystery cult of Mithras into the Mediterrenean.8 Unsurprisingly, a
large part of research on Commagene is concerned with religion.
However, this general characterisation of Commagene is almost exclu-
sively based on the monuments of the late Hellenistic kingdom, and in
particular on the numerous sculptures and inscriptions commissioned by
Commagene. The Land of Gods between the Taurus and the Euphrates. An Archaeological
Guide (Istanbul: Homer, 2011).
5 Anke Schütte-Maischatz and Engelbert Winter, Doliche. Eine kommagenische Stadt
und ihre Götter. Mithras und Iupiter Dolichenus, Asia Minor Studien 52 (Bonn: Habelt 2004),
1–3 with further references. More cautious on this matter are, for example, Mary Boyce
and Frantz Grenet, A History of Zoroastrianism III: Zoroastrianism under Macedonian and
Roman Rule, Handbuch der Orientalistik I 8, 1. 2. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 314f.
6 Patrizia Petroff, “Die griechisch–persische Tradition in Kultordnung und Herrscher-
repräsentation des Antiochos I. von Kommagene,” in Religion–Wirtschaft–Technik. Althis-
torische Beiträge zur Entstehung neuer kultureller Strukturmuster im historischen Raum
Nordafrika/Kleinasien/Syrien, ed. by. Leonhard Schumacher, (St. Katharinen: Scripta-
Mercaturae, 1998), 21–96; K. Koch, “Persisch-hellenistischer Synkretismus am Beispiel
Kommagene. Mit einem Seitenblick auf Israel,” in Religion und Religionskontakte im Zeit-
alter der Achämeniden, ed. by : Reinhard G. Kratz (Gütersloh: Kaiser, Gütersloher Verl.-
Haus, 2002), 281–301.
7 Bruce Lincoln, “Mithra(s) as Sun and Savior,” in La soteriologia dei culti orientali
nell’imperio romano. Atti del Colloquio Internazionale su la Soteriologia dei Culti Orientali
nell’ Impero Romano, Roma 24–28 settembre 1979, ed. by Ugo Bianchi and Maarten J. Ver-
maseren, EPRO 92 (Leiden: Brill, 1982), 514.
8 The literature on this subject is abundant; see for example Friedrich K. Dörner, “Mith-
ras in Kommagene,” in Études Mithriaques, ed. by Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin (Leiden:
Brill, 1978), 123–133; Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin, “Iran and Greece in Commagene,” in
Études Mithriaques, ed. by Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin (Leiden: Brill 1978), 187–199; Elmar
Schwertheim, “Monumente des Mithraskultes in Kommagene,” in Kommagene, Geschichte
und Kultur einer antiken Landschaft, ed. by Friedrich K. Dörner. Antike Welt Sondernum-
mer 1975 (Küsnacht: Raggi, 1975), 63–68. Roger Beck, “The Mysteries of Mithras: A New
Account of Their Genesis,” Journal of Roman Studies 88 (1998): 115–128; Roger Beck, “New
Thoughts on the Genesis of the Mysteries of Mithras,” Topoi 11/1 (2001): 59–76. Beck argues
that the Mithras cult was transmitted by members of the royal family of Commagene sub-
sequent to Antiochos I. See also Schütte-Maischatz and Winter, Doliche, 189–201.
religious life of commagene 97
Antiochos I (70–36 BCE).9 The excavations in Arsameia on the Nymphaios

and on Nemrut Dağ as well as further research in the various royal Com-
magenian monuments resulted in a large corpus of evidence for the royal
religion from the reign of this king, who has influenced the image of Com-
magene more than anyone else.10
On the base of this evidence it is generally presumed that we are well
informed about Commagene and about its religious life in particular.
This view has been vigorously asserted by the scholars who have dealt
most extensively with the archaeology and history of Commagene. Elmar
Schwertheim, for example, concludes: “Wir besitzen zwar wenige histo-
riographische Quellen für dieses Königreich [Kommagene], dafür ver-
fügen wir über schriftliche Selbstzeugnisse seiner Herrscher, wie sie für
kein anderes der Königreiche Kleinasiens vorhanden sind. Die archäolo-
gischen Denkmäler ergänzen die Schriftzeugnisse in einzigartiger Weise.”11
9 The reign of Antiochos and his agenda is masterly examined by Margherita Facella,
La Dinastia degli Orontidi nella Commagene Ellenistico-Romana. Studi Ellenistici 17 (Pisa:
Giardini, 2006), esp. 225–297.
10 On Arsameia on the Nymphaios see Friedrich K. Dörner and Theresa Goell, Arsameia
am Nymphaios. Die Ausgrabungen im Hierothesion des Königs Mithridates Kallinikos 1953–
1956, Istanbuler Forschungen 23 (Berlin: Mann, 1963); Wolfram Hoepfner, Arsameia a. Nym-
phaios II. Das Hierothesion des König Mithridates I. Kallinikos von Kommagene nach den
Grabungen von 1963 bis 1967, Istanbuler Forschungen 33 (Tübingen: Mann, 1983); Wolfram
Höpfner, “Arsameia a. Nymphaios und der Allgötterkult Antiochos I,” in Gottkönige am
Euphrat, 57–73. A comprehensive study of Nemrut Dağ and its monuments is still eagerly
awaited. For a collection of the material see Nemrud Dağı. The Hierothesion of Antiochos
I. of Commagene. Results of the American Excavations Directed by Theresa B. Goell, ed. by
Donald H. Sanders (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996). Sanders posthumously edited man-
uscripts written by Goell, Young and Dörner. For a general overview of the royal temene
and monuments see Helmut Waldmann, Die kommagenischen Kultreformen unter König
Mithridates I. Kallinikos und seinem Sohne Antiochos I., EPRO 34 (Leiden: Brill 1973); Jörg
Wagner, “Dynastie und Herrscherkult. Forschungsgeschichte und neuere Funde,” Istan-
buler Mitteilungen 33 (1983): 177–224; Facella, Dinastia, 251–254. On more recent finds
from Ancoz, Zeugma and Samosata see Charles Crowther and Margherita Facella, “New
Evidence for the Ruler Cult of Antiochus of Commagene from Zeugma,” in Neue Forschun-
gen zur Religionsgeschichte Kleinasiens, ed. by Gudrun Heedemann and Engelbert Winter.
Asia Minor Studien 49 (Bonn: Habelt, 2003), 41–80; Jörg Wagner and Georg Petzl, “Relief-
und Inschriftenfragmente des kommagenischen Herrscherkultes aus Ancoz,” in Neue For-
schungen zur Religionsgeschichte Kleinasiens, ed. by Gudrun Heedemann and Engelbert
Winter, Asia Minor Studien 49 (Bonn: Habelt 2003), 85–96; Charles Crowther and Margh-
erita Facella, “A New Commagenian Nomos Text from Samosata,” in Von Kummuḫ nach
Telouch. Archäologische und historische Untersuchungen in Kommagene, ed. by Engelbert
Winter, (Dolichener und Kommagenische Forschungen 4, Asia Minor Studien 64 (Bonn:
Habelt, 2011), 355–366. A new corpus of all royal inscriptions from Commagene is under
preparation by Charles Crowther, Margherita Facella, Gregor Staab and Georg Petzl.
11 Elmar Schwertheim, Kleinasien in der Antike. Von den Hethitern bis Konstantin
(München: Beck, 2005), 77.
98 michael blömer
This statement must be challenged, however. Apart from the restricted

royal perspective on the land, our knowledge of Commagene is extremely
vague. Little is known about the king’s predecessors and his successors
alike.12 Sources on everyday life, culture and society in the late-Hellenistic
and early Roman periods hardly exist. Until recently no excavation and no
survey have succeeded in casting light on the material culture, the social
and intellectual environment of the local population. For this reason it
is ill-advised to form a general picture of Commagenian religion on the
basis of the personal testimony of Antiochos—even more so since his syn-
cretistic programme must be considered as an artificial and idiosyncratic
creation in the context of late Hellenistic kingship.13 Moreover, the Ira-
nian and the Greek elements which are so prominent in the royal inscrip-
tions and sculptures have proved to be alien to Commagene. Remarkably
enough, in spite of all the suggestive power of the king’s monuments, the
ideology behind them was abandoned soon after his death. Clearly the
image of Commagenian identity as a fusion appeals to modern scholar-
ship more than it did to the ancient inhabitants of Commagene itself.
None of the gods propagated by the king is attested beyond his reign. The
significance of this realization cannot be overstated. Mithras for example
reappears in Commagene only in the 2nd century CE, when the Roman
army transferred his mystery cult from the West to the East.14
While the religion of Antiochos I is of utmost importance for the study
of late Hellenistic royal ideology and ruler cult, it seems unsuitable as a
starting point for the study of religious life in Commagene in the context
of the letter of Mara bar Sarapion, written more than a hundred years
after the king’s death. It is rather advisable to exclude the royal testimony
12 Margherita Facella, “Basileus Arsames. Sulla storia dinastica di Commagene,” in Studi

Ellenistici 12, ed. by Biaggio Virgilio (Pisa: Giardini, 1999), 127–158 and Facella, Dinastia,
199–224. 299–337.
13 Peter F. Mittag, “Zur Selbstinszenierung Antiochos’ I. von Kommagene,” Gephyra 1
(2004): 1–16; Facella, Dinastia, 294–297. For indigenous traditions in the ruler cult of
Antiochos see Wolfgang Messerschmidt, “Grabstele eines Herrschers von Kummuḫ—zu
den späthethitischen Wurzeln des kommagenischen Königs- und Ahnenkultes,” in Von
Kummuḫ nach Telouch, 283–308.
14 On the spread of Mithras in Roman Syria in the 2nd century see Richard Gordon,
“Trajets du Mithra en Syrie romaine,” Topoi 11/1 (2001): 77–136. The Mithrea of Doliche have
been dated to the late-Hellenistic/early Roman period (see Schütte-Maischatz and Winter,
Doliche, 88f. 200f.), but a re-evaluation of the evidence clearly suggests a date in the 2nd
century CE. Confer also Richard Gordon, “Mithras in Dolichê. Issues of date and origin.”
Review of Anke Schütte-Maischatz and Engelbert Winter, Doliche. Eine kommagenische
Stadt und ihre Götter. Mithras und Iupiter Dolichenus, Journal of Roman Archaeology 20
(2007): 602–610.
and to concentrate on the scattered and scarce evidence of popular reli-

gion instead.
In doing so, Samosata, the Commagenian capital and hometown of
Mara bar Sarapion, would suit best as the prime object of investigation.
The place was one of the most important sites along the Upper Euphrates.
It offered an easy crossing of the river and was occupied since Chalcolithic
times.15 It is named Kummuḫ in Iron Age sources and was the centre of
an eponymous independent Syro-Hittite kingdom from the 12th to the 8th
century BCE. The Assyrian king Sargon II conquered Kummuḫ in 708 BCE,
but it remained an important provincial town during late Iron Age. In
Hellenistic times it was capital of the kingdom of Commagene. The city
was renamed Samosata by a predecessor of the Commagenian royal fam-
ily, the Armenian king Samos I, in the 3th century BCE. After the Roman
occupation in CE 72, Samosata prospered as a major commercial, cultural
and military centre of the roman province of Syria.16
Unfortunately, Samosata drowned in the Atatürk reservoir in 1989.
Until then the ancient city walls as well as a Roman aqueduct and medi-
eval buildings have still been extant (fig. 1). An impressive tell on the river
bank formed the core of the vast ancient city (fig. 2). Under massive medi-
eval layers rescue excavations have yielded parts of a late-Hellenistic pal-
ace as well as extensive remains of the Iron and Bronze Age occupation.17
It seems however that no temple or other religious installation has been
discovered.18 With the exception of two stelae which give evidence of the
ruler cult of Antiochos I only a very small number of findings pertain to
15 For the history of the region see Wolfgang Messerschmidt, “Kommagene in vorhel-
lenistischer Zeit,” in Patris Pantrophos Kommagene, ed. by Engelbert Winter. Asia Minor
Studien 60 (Bonn: Habelt, 2008), 19–35.
16 See the contribution by Facella in this volume.
17 On the results of the fieldwork directed by Theresa Goell in the 1960s see Therese
Goell, “Samosata Archaeological Excavations, Turkey 1967,” National Geographic Society
Research Reports: 1967 Reports (1974), 83–109. A brief summary of the rescue excavation
conducted in the 1980s under the auspices of Nimet Özgüç is provided by Levent Zoroğlu,
“Samosata. Ausgrabungen in der Kommagenischen Hauptstadt,” in Gottkönige am Euphrat,
74–83 and Jörg Wagner, “Samosata und Seleukeia am Euphrat-Zeugma. Entdeckung und
zweiter Untergang römischer Grenzstädte am Euphrat,” Nürnberger Blätter zur Archäolo-
gie 20 (2003/2004): 131–139 with further references. Meanwhile the results of the Turkish
excavations have been published in some detail, see Nimet Özgüç, Samsat. Sümeysat,
Samosata, Kumaha, Hahha, Hahhum. Bir Başkent ve Kalenin Yaşamının 6000 Yıllık Döne-
minden Kesitler (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2009).
18 Nimet Özgüç, “The Early Hellenistic Findings at Samsat,” Istanbuler Mitteilungen 46
(1996): 213–215 claims to have cleared an altar of the Hellenistic period, but the published
evidence is rather vague.
100 michael blömer
Fig. 1. City walls of Samosata (Urfa-Gate) [photo © Levent Zoroǧlu, Samosata.

Ausgrabungen in der kommagenischen Hauptstadt, in Gottkönige am Euphrat.
Neue Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Kommagene, ed. by Jörg Wagner, Mainz:
v. Zabern, 2000, p. 76 fig. 102/103].
Fig. 2. General view of Samosata [photo-courtesy of the Forschungsstelle Asia

Minor, Dörner-Archiv].
the religious sphere.19 A male bearded head of a main deity, who may ten-
tatively be identified with Zeus, has been found on the acropolis (fig. 3).20
Furthermore, a fragmented limestone relief of high quality, which is now
in the Adıyaman Museum, likewise represents Zeus.21 Both sculptures can
be roughly dated to the 1st century CE. Neither their original context can
be reconstructed nor their religious significance. Iconography and style
are in Greek tradition and it may be assumed that they have been exe-
cuted by sculptors trained in a hellenised centre. The high quality indi-
cates that they have been ordered either by the royal court or the civic
elite. Thus they barely witness to local religion. Other evidence for deities
worshipped in Samosata is even more elusive. Images on coins, for exam-
ple, are a rather problematic source. While early specimens minted in
Samosata may simply imitate contemporary coins of Antioch, the motifs
19 On the royal stelae of Samosata (Sx and Sy) see Waldmann, Kultreformen, 16–32.
Recently a fragment of another stele has been discovered in the depot of the Adıyaman
Museum, see Crowther and Facella, “New Commagenian”, 355–366 with a general discus-
sion of the evidence from Samosata.
20 Zoroğlu, Samosata, 78 with fig. 105 and by now Özgüç, Samsat, 44 with fig. 250 a–b.
21 Özgüç, Samsat, 35 with fig. 217.
102 michael blömer
Fig. 3. Head of Zeus from Samosata [photo © Levent Zoroǧlu, Samosata. Aus-
grabungen in der kommagenischen Hauptstadt, in Gottkönige am Euphrat. Neue
Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Kommagene, ed. by Jörg Wagner, Mainz: v.
Zabern, 2000, p. 77 fig. 105].
of the later provincial coinage represent a purely elite agenda and do not
necessarily reflect popular religion.22
In conclusion, the meagre contemporary remains do not allow drawing
a conclusion about which deities have been worshipped in Samosata in
the 1st century CE. The precise identity of the ancestral gods to whom the
exiles refer in the letter of Mara bar Sarapion must remain unsolved.
22 On the coins of Samosata see Kevin Butcher, Coinage in Roman Syria. Northern
Syria, 64 BC–AD 253, Royal Numismatic Society Special Publication 34 (London: Royal
Numismatic Society, 2004), 467–476, esp. 467f. For a discussion of the intrinsic value of
the iconography of provincial coinage cf. Kevin Butcher, “Information, Legitimation, or
Self-Legitimation? Popular and Elite Designs on the Coin Types of Syria,” in Coinage and
Identity in the Roman Provinces, ed. by Christopher Howgego, Volker Heuchert and Andrew
Burnett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 143–156.
Nevertheless, it seems possible to get further than this if we pay atten-

tion to Pre-Hellenistic traditions and the question of continuity. Various
reliefs and hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions from Samosata as well as from
other sites attest to the religious world of Commagene during Iron Age.23
By and large, the evidence attests a pantheon in Hittite tradition with some
Aramaic influence. The storm god, the great goddess Kubaba and Runtiyas,
a tutelary god of the fields are attested in Commagene.24 The picture of
Commagenian religion before the Hellenistic period correlates to what is
known from neighbouring Syro-Hittite kingdoms in North Syria.25
With respect to the religious life of the 1st century CE it is notewor-
thy that many places which yielded evidence for Iron Age sanctuaries
can actually be identified as religious centres of the late Hellenistic and
Roman periods as well. Of these sites many have been known for a long
time, but until recently gained attention only in the context of the ruler
cult of Antiochos I. However, the king integrated his temenē in well-estab-
lished sanctuaries, which had been focal points for the inhabitants of the
surrounding regions.26 Thus it is of great importance to explore the nature
of these gods to get an idea of the local religious life of Commagene.
Unfortunately, none of the sites has been thoroughly explored. This even
applies to a prominent place like Arsameia on the Euphrates (Gerger) at
the north-eastern border of Commagene. Spectacularly situated on an
23 For the evidence from Samosata see John David Hawkins, Corpus of Hierogylyphic
Luwian Inscriptions I. Inscriptions of the Iron Age 1 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2000), 352–355. On
Iron Age religion in Commagene in general, see John David Hawkins, “Hieroglyphic Hit-
tite Inscriptions of Commagene,” Anatolian Studies 20 (1970): 69–110; Hawkins, Corpus,
330–360; Messerschmidt, Stele.
24 Hansgerd Hellenkemper and Jörg Wagner, “The God on the Stag. A Late Hittite Rock-
Relief on the River Karasu,” Anatolian Studies 27 (1977): 167–173; John David Hawkins,
“Kubaba at Karkemiš and Elsewhere,” Anatolian Studies 31 (1981): 149.
25 Manfred Hutter, “Das Ineinanderfließen von luwischen und aramäischen religiösen
Vorstellungen in Nordsyrien,” in Religionsgeschichte Syriens. Von der Frühzeit bis zur
Gegenwart, ed. by Peter W. Haider, Manfred Hutter and Siegfried Kreuzer (Stuttgart: Kohl-
hammer, 1996), 116–122 and M. Hutter, “Aspects of Luwian Religion,” in The Luwians, ed.
by H. Craig Melchert. Handbuch der Orientalistik I 68 (Leiden: Brill, 2003) with further
references.
26 Anke Schütte-Maischatz, “Götter und Kulte Kommagenes. Religionsgeographische
Aspekte einer antiken Landschaft,” in Religion und Region. Götter und Kulte aus dem östli-
chen Mittelmeerraum, ed. by Elmar Schwertheim and Engelbert Winter, Asia Minor Stu-
dien 45 (Bonn: Habelt, 2003), 111–112. She rightly rejects the assumption of a suppression of
indigenous religion by the religion of Antiochos, as asserted for example by Elmar Schwert-
heim, “Iupiter Dolichenus, der Zeus von Doliche und der Kommagenische Königskult,” in
Studien zum Antiken Kleinasien. Friedrich Karl Dörner zum 80. Geburtstag gewidmet, Asia
Minor Studien 3 (Bonn: Habelt, 1991), 35 and Jörg Wagner, “Die Könige von Kommagene
und ihr Herrscherkult,” in Gottkönige am Euphrat, 11–26, 23.
104 michael blömer
Fig. 4. Arsameia on the Euphrates (Gerger Kale): General view from eastern
direction. The site is situated on top of the isolated rock [photo-courtesy of
Michael Blömer].
isolated promontory the ancient fortress commands the confluence of the

Gerger River and the Euphrates (fig. 4).27 The only sources on the ancient
history of the place are two inscriptions still in situ and a monumental
relief, which were commissioned by Antiochos I.28 In the main inscrip-
tion the castle is called the hierothesion, sacred burial place, of his royal
predecessors. Their names are not detailed. It can however been assumed
that at least Antiochos’ grandfather Samos II was buried here, since he is
shown in the rock relief (fig. 5). Moreover the inscription mentions the
name of the place: Arsameia on the Euphrates, named after the Armenian
king Arsames in the 3rd century BCE.
However, the site had been previously occupied. The inscription explic-
itly states that a sacred precinct of a goddess named Argandene was
27 Carl Humann and Otto Puchstein, Reisen in Kleinasien und Nordsyrien (Berlin:
Königliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1890), 353–367; Friedrich K. Dörner, “Gerger
und die große Inschrift von Gerger,” in Forschungen in Kommagene, ed. by Friedrich K.
Dörner and Rudolf Naumann, Istanbuler Forschungen 10 (Berlin: Deutsches Archäolo-
gisches Instituts, 1939), 17–29.
28 Waldmann, Kultreformen, 123–141; Facella, Dinastia, 176–177, 205.
Fig. 5. Arsameia on the Euphrates (Gerger Kale): Rock-relief of king Samos II

[photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer].
situated there.29 The nature of the goddess remains enigmatic, her name
occurs in this inscription only. It is remarkable that it has not been ren-
dered in an interpretatio graeca. This makes evident that the goddess was
embedded in Pre-Hellenistic local tradition. She must therefore be a local
goddess, possibly related to Kubaba.30
Slightly more revealing is the evidence from the sanctuary of Ancoz
(Eskitaş). The site is situated in the rolling hills of the Commagenian Heart-
land, 20 km upstream from Samosata.31 Surprisingly, it has been largely
neglected by modern scholarship, and no detailed account of its remains
has so far been compiled.32 The extant ruins are all of Hellenistic-Roman
date, but several fragments of basalt blocks bearing Luwian inscriptions
29 Waldmann, Kultreformen, 126.

30 Boyce, Zoroastrism, 315–316.
31 It is close to a village formerly known as Ancoz but named Eskitaş today. An ancient
settlement was situated at the site of the present village. It is however only attested by
scattered finds of pottery and re-used masonry. Furthermore, some rock-cut graves of
Roman or late Roman date are present in the wadi to the south of the village. The ruins of
the temple are situated at a distance of 1 km to the south-west of the village on a gentle
slope. The place is known as Han Mevkii.
32 The site has first been visited by Theresa Goell, see Machteld J. Mellink, “Archaeol-
ogy in Asia Minor,” American Journal of Archaeology 64 (1960): 64 with pl. 12, 6–8. A brief
description of the site is provided by Blömer and Winter, Commagene, 117–121.
106 michael blömer
Fig. 6. Ancoz (Eskitaş): Remains of the temple [photo-courtesy of Michael

Blömer].
have also been found.33 Among these is a dedication to Kubaba, Runtiyas

and others. Some fragments mention the king of Kummuḫ Šuppiluliuma
and his son Hattušili, thus dating the original monument to the early 8th
century BCE. The basalt blocks strongly suggest an Iron Age shrine here.
Moreover, the existence of a flourishing sanctuary in Late-Hellenistic
times is indicated by several fragments of inscriptions and reliefs, provid-
ing evidence of the ruler cult of the Commagenian king Antiochos I.34 As
in other places the king established his cult at contemporary sanctuaries.
Of a temple building some very interesting traces still remain, even
though in a very bad state of preservation (fig. 6). This is due to annual
ploughing of the site and frequent illicit digging. Pieces of the cornice, col-
umn capitals and bases are scattered in the adjacent field. Various Greek
inscriptions of Roman date have been retrieved from the site and are cur-
rently under investigation by Charles Crowther and Margherita Facella.
Still in situ is the core of the temple podium. Its present size is approx-
imately 20 m by 8 m. The podium is made of opus caementitium. The
use of opus caementitium is a very peculiar characteristic (fig. 7). It is a
33 Hawkins, “Hieroglyphic Hittite Inscriptions,” Hawkins, Corpus, 345–351; Massimo

Poetto, “Un frammento inedito luvio geroglifico da Ancoz,” Orientalia 73 (2004): 469–471.
34 Wagner and Petzel, Ancoz.
Fig. 7. Ancoz (Eskitaş): Wall revetted with opus reticulatum in the substruction
of the temple [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer].
specifically Roman building technique, which was rarely employed in

the Near East if the Roman administration or the Roman army was not
directly involved. Another feature of the Eskitaş temple is even more
striking: inside, the podium is partly preserved and the walls of a nar-
row corridor are coated with opus reticulatum. The only examples of opus
reticulatum known from the Near East are buildings commissioned by
king Herod of Judea, the Tomb of Sampsigeramus, a local dynast of Emesa
(Homs in Syria) in the 1st century CE and some early Roman monuments
in Antioch (Antakya), which was the seat of the Roman governor of Syria.35
35 On the use of opus reticulatum in the Roman East in general see Ahmet A. Tırpan,
Anadolu’da Opus Reticulatum, in 10. Türk Tarih Kongresi (Ankara 1990), 101–112; Marcello
Spanu, “L’opus reticulatum e mixtum nelle provinche asiatiche,” in L’Africa Romana. Atti
dell’XI convegno, ed. by Mustapha Khanoussi, Paola Ruggieri and Cinzia Vismara (Ozieri:
Il Torchietto, 1996), 923–939. On the occurrence of opus reticulatum in the Near East see
Werner Oenbrink, “. . . nach römischer Art aus Ziegelsteinen. . . .” Das Grabmonument des
Gaius Iulius Sampsigeramos im Spannungsfeld zwischen Fremdeinflüssen und lokaler
Identität,” in Lokale Identitäten im Römischen Nahen Osten. Kontexte und Perspektiven,
edited by Michael Blömer, Margherita Facella and Engelbert Winter. Oriens et Occidens
18 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2009), 196–197.
108 michael blömer
In addition, the city walls of Samosata use opus reticulatum (fig. 1).36 The
occurrence of this building technique in Samosata is usually explained by
the deployment of a Roman legion after the annexation of Commagene
in 72 CE. However, the many pieces of architectural decoration from the
temple of Ancoz would be in accordance with an earlier date of origin as
well. Thus, it may be that the temple was commissioned by the last Com-
magenian king, Antiochos IV. Like Herod of Judea and Sampsigeramos
of Emesa, Antiochos probably adapted the Roman building technique
as a vivid expression of his allegiance to Rome and his familiarity with
Roman customs.37 The same might apply to the city walls of Samosata,
especially since opus reticulatum was not usually used in fortification
works.38 However, this demonstrative display of “Roman-ness” does not
necessarily imply a high level of Romanization, and should instead be
seen in the context of monarchic representation under the auspices of
Roman supremacy.
In conclusion, it is reasonable to assume that the shrine of Ancoz was in
continuous use from the Iron Age to the Roman period. It was adapted to
contemporary religious and political trends in the age of Antiochos I and
Antiochos IV, but the main focus of worship remained unchanged. Again,
it may be concluded from the evidence that the people of Commagene
remained attached to their indigenous customs and beliefs, rooted in a
Syro-Hittite tradition, during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods.
A similar constellation can be observed at the site of Boybeypınarı.
This place is located in the south of Commagene between the Çakırhöyük
plain and the Araban valley. In 1931, von der Osten discovered four large
basalt blocks with hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions in the village.39 The
blocks had been re-used in a wall of the Hellenistic-Roman period. They
36 Ahmet A. Tırpan, “Samosata Aşağı Şehir Sur Duvarları,” AST 4, 1986, 183–201; Ahmet
A. Tırpan, Roman Masonry Techniques at the Capital of the Commagenian Kingdom, in
The Eastern Frontier of the Roman Empire. Proceedings of a Colloquium held at Ankara in
September 1988, ed. by David H. French (BAR Int. 553), Oxford: B.A.R., 1989, 519–526.
37 Achim Lichtenberger, “Herod and Rome: Was Romanisation a Goal of the Building
Policy of Herod?” in Herod and Rome. Papers Presented at the IJS Conference, 21st–23rd June
2005, ed. by David M. Jacobson and Nikos Kokkinos (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 43–64; Andreas
Kropp, Earrings, Nefesh and Opus Reticulatum: Self-Representation of the Royal House
of Emesa in the First Century AD, in Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East,
ed by Ted Kaizer and Margherita Facella. Oriens et Occidens 19 (Stuttgart: Steiner), 2010,
199–216.
38 Shelagh Gregory, Roman Military Architecture on the Eastern Frontier from AD
200–600 (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1997), 124–128.
39 Hans Henning von der Osten, Discoveries in Anatolia 1930–31 (OIC 14) (Chicago: Univ.
of Chicago Pr., 1933), 140 with fig. 127–128.
form two pairs that serve as some sort of podium. The original arrange-
ment of the blocks was reconstructed by John Hawkins.40 The texts are
dedications to the goddess Kubaba by Panamuwatis, wife of the king of
Kummuḫ in the early 8th century BCE, Šuppiluliuma.
On a nearby hill-top called Çaputlu Ağaç Dörner found a fragmented
stele with a Greek inscription referring to a sanctuary of the Commagen-
ian ruler cult.41 No further research has been undertaken here, but in line
with the evidence of the other temenē we have to assume the existence
of an established sanctuary at the site. There may well be a relationship
between this sanctuary and the Late-Hittite finds from the village.42
At the west bank of the Euphrates, 30 km south of Samosata, another
small but very important sanctuary is located near to the hamlet of Damlıca
(fig. 8). It was not discovered until 1989 and gives sound evidence of Com-
magenian religion after Antiochos I.43 In spite of its importance, the sanc-
tuary has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Only the inscription has
received scholarly attention.44 Therefore all observations about the sanc-
tuary are somewhat preliminary.
The layout of the sanctuary differs from that which might be expected.
It consists of two floors cut into the rock. On the lower floor a gallery
opens to two rectangular rooms. A stairway, now partly destroyed, gives
access to the upper floor, which has two adjacent rectangular rooms with
no decorative features. A well-worked rectangular manhole is located next
to the stairs of the gallery. It probably descends to the ancient level of the
river and supplied the sanctuary with water. Pairs of steps enabled ascent
and descent via the manhole. The entire western edge of the gallery has
broken off; other parts are concealed by boulders that have tumbled down
from the cliff. The main entrance must have been located here. To the east
are two adjacent rooms, which must have formed the core of the sanctu-
ary. It is not possible to identify further ancient installations inside these
40 Hawkins, Corpus, 334–340.

41 Friedrich K. Dörner, “Kommagene. Forschungsarbeiten von 1967 bis 1969,” Istanbuler
Mitteilungen 19/20 (1969/1970): 287f. A new edition of the inscription in Crowther and
Facella, New Evidence, 76–77.
42 Dörner, Forschungsarbeiten, 288, refuses the equation of the Iron Age and the Hel-
lenistic site and points to the relative distance of the find spots. However, according to von
der Osten, Discoveries, 140, the Iron Age blocks have been found reused as a wall and may
well have been transported from Çaputlu Ağaç to the village.
43 Sencer Şahin, “Forschungen in Kommagene I: Epigraphik,” Epigraphica Anatolica 18
(1991): 101–105.
44 Facella, Dinastia, 307–309. See also Blömer and Winter, Commagene, 150–155 for a
brief description of the site and a sketch plan.
110 michael blömer
Fig. 8. Damlıca. Site of the sanctuary in the escarpment of the Euphrates River
[photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer].
rooms. A narrow corridor runs from the gallery to the north; how it was
entered in antiquity is not clear. Here too, the western face is broken off,
however, it did not collapse entirely: most of the face cracked and slid
down about 0.5 m. An apsidal niche, carved in the western face of the cor-
ridor, has therefore been preserved and is accessible. In the centre of the
apse a small recess might have contained an object of veneration.
No kind of decoration is extant today, but a Greek inscription next to
the entrance to the largest room of the ensemble reveals the sacred char-
acter and the date of the complex (fig. 9). The inscription consists of 10
lines. It is very well preserved, but parts have been vandalized and are
illegible (fig. 10). Nevertheless it can be understood that under the rule
of king Mithridates II, son of king Antiochos I, a certain Ariaramnes, an
architect for Mithridates II, completed the sanctuary.45 As the inscription
states, the sanctuary had not been completed by either his or the king’s
father, i.e. Antiochos I. Furthermore, he donated a statue of Zeus Soter.
It should be stressed that no traces of Iranian-Greek syncretism can be
detected in the inscription: and that only a few years after the death of
45 Şahin, Forschungen, 102 for a text with translation. Facella, Dinastia, 308.
Fig. 9. Damlıca: Corridor with inscription below a recess in the wall [photo-
courtesy of Michael Blömer].
112 michael blömer
Fig. 10. Damlıca: Detail of the inscription [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer].

Antiochos I the god venerated in the sanctuary is called Zeus Soter with
no further epithet. The deceased king Antiochos I is labelled solely as
Epiphanes Philoromaios and not Theos and Dikaios, in other words, he is
no longer deified. This indicates the failure of the old king Antiochos’ reli-
gious programme—after his death his son Mithridates II did not pursue
his father’s syncretistic religious policy.
Consequently, it has been assumed that a purely Greek Zeus was vener-
ated in the Damlıca caves. However, this is improbable, considering the
archaeological context. The layout of the sanctuary and its general setting
do not correspond to Greek customs, and it could hardly have met the
requirements of a purely Greek cult. Therefore, the god worshipped in the
rock sanctuary of Damlıca should instead be interpreted as a local indig-
enous deity, who might be related to the river Euphrates running next to
the shrine. Only in the interpretatio graeca is he rendered as Zeus Soter.
The statue dedicated by Ariaramnes is lost; its effigy might have revealed
more about the character of the god. It would also be interesting to know
where the statue was placed. The present state of the caves reveals nei-
ther their function nor anything about the rituals performed there. If the
inscription did not explicitly call the cave complex a sanctuary, one would
certainly have regarded it as one of the countless rock dwellings of the
medieval period.
Statues as well as any other kind of representation of local gods from
the Hellenistic and early Roman period are extremely rare in Commagene.
In general, the production of sculptures (and inscriptions) ceased after
the fall of the Assyrian empire and was revived only after the establish-
ment of Roman rule. With the notable exception of the royal monuments
commissioned by Antiochos I and his son Mithridates II there is virtu-
ally no sculpture at all from the Hellenistic period.46 However, it must
be assumed that throughout this time Iron Age stelae remained in the
sanctuaries and continued to be the main objects of veneration. This is
on the one hand indicated by the continuity of cult places, which must
have entailed, at least to some degree, a survival of the original furnish-
ings and ancient cult images. On the other hand, several images of local
46 For possible exceptions see Michael Blömer, “Das Felsrelief von Haydaran (Taşgedik),”
in Von Kummuḫ nach Telouch, 395–407. Robert Fleischer, “Augustusporträt und Klien-
telkönig. Ein Bildnis des Antiochos III. von Kommagene,” in Augustus—Der Blick von außen.
Die Wahrnehmung des Kaisers in den Provinzen des Reiches und in den Nachbarstaaten, ed.
Detlev Kreikenbom et al. (Wiesbaden: Harassowitz, 2008), 321–333 identifies a portrait
found in Samosata as Antiochos III, but this attribution remains highly speculative.
114 michael blömer
Fig. 11. Yarımca: Relief of a mountain god in a Roman quarry [photo-courtesy of

Michael Blömer].
deities produced at a later stage, in the 2nd/3rd centuries CE, imitate Iron
Age archetypes.47 This required an intimate knowledge of the ancient
Near Eastern iconography and necessarily implies a continued presence
of original monuments.
A rock relief in a quarry close to the village of Yarımca in the Merzu-
men valley may serve as an example (fig. 11).48 The quarry is of Roman
date. The stones may either have been used for a Roman road passing
by the quarry or for the construction of a nearby bridge. At a vertical
face of the quarry a relief of a deity is carved into the dressed rock. It is
much worn and the face has been arbitrarily chipped off. The figure does
not have legs or feet. The lower part of the body is conically shaped and
both arms are raised. In his hands he holds ears of corn or some similar
47 Guy Bunnens, “The Storm-God in Northern Syria and Southern Anatolia from
Hadad of Aleppo to Iupiter Dolichenus,” in Offizielle Religion, lokale Kulte und individuelle
Religiosität, ed. Manfred Hutter and Sylvia Hutter-Braunsar. AOAT 318 (Münster: Ugarit,
2004), 57–82; Michael Blömer, “Stelen mit Darstellungen lokaler Wettergottgestalten im
römischen Nordsyrien,” in Lokale Identitäten, 13–47.
48 Anthony Comfort, Catherine Abadie-Reynal and Rifat Ergeç, “Crossing the Euphra-
tes in Antiquity: Zeugma Seen from Space,” Anatolian Studies 50 (2000): 99–126, 117 and
Blömer and Winter, Commagene, 198–200.
Fig. 12. Ain Dara: Orthostat with mountain god [photo-courtesy of Michael

Blömer].
vegetable insignia, which denote fertility. Of the head no traces are left,
but its outline indicates that he wore some kind of headgear. Left of the
god is an eagle carved into the rock. Projecting below the relief is a cubic
piece of rock with a hollow carved in its surface, suggesting that it was
used as an altar.
The peculiar shape of the deity closely matches images of Near Eastern
mountain gods as known, for example, from the temples at Ain Dara or
Aleppo in Syria (fig. 12).49 Typically these gods have a lower body of coni-
cal form and raised arms holding branches of ears of corn. The survival
of this ancient Near Eastern type of god can also be observed in the cult
of Jupiter Dolichenus: the so-called “castores” or “dioskuroi” who some-
times accompany the god display a similar iconography.50 It ought to be
49 Ali Abu Assaf, Der Tempel von Ain Dara, Damaszener Forschungen 3 (Mainz: von
Zabern 1990). On the iconography of mountain gods in general see Peter Calmeyer, “Wan-
dernde Berggötter,” in Languages and Cultures in Context. At the Crossroads of Civiliza-
tions in the Syro-Mesopotamian Realm, ed. Karel van Lerberghe and Gabriela Voet (Leuven:
Peeters, 1999), 1–32; Dominik Bonatz, 2009, 22 May, Art. Mountain god (Ancient Near East)
in J. Eggler and Ch. Uehlinger (eds.), Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient
Near East, http://www.religionswissenschaft.unizh.ch/idd/prepublications/e_idd_mountain_
god_ane.pdf (29.12.2010).
50 Ernest Will, “Les castores dolichéniens,” Mélanges d l’Université Saint- Joseph, Beyrouth
27 (1947/1948), 23–36; Henri Seyrig, “Antiquités Syriennes 40. Sur une idole hiérapolitaine,”
116 michael blömer
Fig. 13. View of the Doliche and the Dülük Baba Tepesi with the sanctuary of Jupi-
ter Dolichenus [photo-courtesy of the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster].
concluded that the relief at the quarry also shows a mountain god in Iron
Age tradition.
It has been argued that the apparent survival of Iron Age iconography
has not been result of an actual continuity, but rather indicates a deliber-
ate reference to a remote and opaque past in order to suggest age and
dignity of a cult.51 However, the results of recent fieldwork in the extreme
south of Commagene, in the sanctuary of Jupiter Dolichenus near Doliche,
have added new evidence in support of a continuous tradition. The sanc-
tuary is located on 1208 m high top of Dülük Baba Tepesi mountain range
at a distance of 3 km from the town of Doliche (fig. 13).52 From here, the
Syria 26 (1949): 17–28; Pierre Merlat, “Observations sur les Castores Dolichéniens,” Syria
28 (1951): 229–249.
51 On this discussion see Kevin Butcher, Roman Syria and the Near East (London: Brit-
ish Museum Press, 2003), 336–341 and Achim Lichtenberger, “Continuity, Discontinuity
and Change in the Religious Life of Northern Jordan in the Roman Period,” in: Redefin-
ing the Sacred: Religious Architecture and Text in the Near East and Egypt 1000 BC–AD 300,
ed. Elizabeth Frood and Rubina Raja, Contextualising the Sacred 1 (Turnhout: Brepols,
forthcoming).
52 On the ancient city, which is assumed to be a foundation of the Hellenistic period,
see Jörg Wagner, “Neue Denkmäler aus Doliche. Ergebnisse einer archäologischen Lande-
saufnahme im Ursprungsgebiet des Jupiter Dolichenus,” Bonner Jahrbücher 182 (1982):
133–142; Engelbert Winter, “Doliche in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit. Eine kommagenische
Stadt zwischen Tradition und Innovation,” in Stadt und Stadtentwicklung in Kleinasien, ed.
cult of the god spread across the Roman world in the 2nd century CE. For
a century Jupiter Dolichenus ranked among the most important deities
of the Roman Empire. More than 600 epigraphic and archaeological finds
attest to his popularity in the western Empire.53 The main factors that
favoured the spread of the cult were the integration of Jupiter Dolichenus’
hometown of Doliche into the Roman Empire, and its strategic position
in the communication system of North Syria. Even more important was
the god’s popularity with soldiers. The military network and the frequent
exchange of troop units facilitated the rapid spread of the cult.54 Despite
the prominence of the cult the site of the main sanctuary did not attract
much attention.55 Only in 2001 did fieldwork at the site start under the
auspices of the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor.56
The iconography of Jupiter Dolichenus—a god in a military dress
standing on a bull brandishing his weapons, double-axe and a thun-
der-bolt, conforms to the image of the ancient Near Eastern storm god
(fig. 14).57 Nevertheless it has been debated whether there was a straight-
forward connection between the Roman cult and the storm-god of the
Elmar Schwertheim and Engelbert Winter. Asia Minor Sudien 50 (Bonn: Habelt, 2003),
51–56; Schütte-Maischatz and Winter, Doliche, 53–78.
53 The best survey of monuments and inscriptions pertaining to the cult still is Monika
Hörig and Elmar Schwertheim, Corpus Cultus Iovis Dolicheni, EPRO 106 (Leiden: Brill, 1987).
Various aspects of the religion of Jupiter Dolichenus are discussed in Iuppiter Dolichenus.
Vom Lokalkult zur Reichsreligion, ed. by Michael Blömer and Engelbert Winter (Tübingen:
Mohr-Siebeck, 2012).
54 Michael P. Speidel, The Religion of Iuppiter Dolichenus in the Roman Army, EPRO 63
(Leiden: Brill, 1978), 4–12. 38–45; Michael Blömer, “The Cult of Iupiter Dolichenus in the
East,” in: Religious Flows in the Roman Empire. The Expansion of Eastern Cults from East
to West and Back Again, ed. Joachim F. Quack and Christian Witschel, Tübingen: Mohr-
Siebeck, forthcoming and, with a diverging perspective, Anna Collar, “Military Networks
and the Cult of Jupiter Dolichenus,” in Von Kummuḫ nach Telouch, 217–246.
55 Franz Cumont identified the site already in 1907, cf. Franz Cumont, Études Syriennes,
Paris: Picard, 1917, 173–202. Subsequently only Helmuth Bossert and Jörg Wagner surveyed
the site, cf. Helmuth Th. Bossert, “Bemerkungen zur kleinasiatischen Religionsgeschichte,”
in Studia Biblica et Orientalia III. Oriens antiquus, Analecta Biblica 12 (Rom: Pontificio Insti-
tito Biblico, 1959), 13–24 and Wagner, Neue Denkmäler, 1982, 143–148.
56 For the results of the excavations see Engelbert Winter, “Der Kult des Iupiter Doli-
chenus und seine Ursprünge. Das Heiligtum auf dem Dülük Baba Tepesi bei Doliche,” in:
Von Kummuḫ nach Telouch, 1–18 with further references. See also the internet presence of
the excavation with updated bibliography under www.doliche.de.
57 On the origin of this motif Halil Demirçioğlu, Der Gott auf dem Stier. Geschichte
eines religiösen Bildtypus, (Neue Deutsche Forschungen 6) Berlin: Junker & Duennhaupt,
1939; Guy Bunnens, Tell Ahmar II: A New Luwian Stele and the Cult of the Storm-god at Til
Barsib—Masuwari (Louvain: Peeters 2006). On the Near Eastern storm god in general cf.
Alberto R. W. Green, The Storm-God in the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns,
2003).
118 michael blömer
Fig. 14. Bronze statuette of Jupiter Dolichenus from Maur an der Url

[photo © M.P. Speidel, The Religion of Iuppiter Dolichenus in the Roman Army,
EPRO 63, Leiden: Brill, 1978, Frontispiece].
Iron Age.58 The excavations at the sanctuary have supplied important new
evidence in this regard. In contrast to the prevailing view, its origin does
lie in the Iron Age. Currently it seems that the first occupation of the site
dates back to the 9th–8th century BCE. However, it is only in the period of
Persian rule, starting in the mid-6th century after the collapse of the Neo-
Babylonian empire, that the sanctuary emerges as a regional centre.59
Considerable architectural remains of this period are visible in a large
area excavated at the centre of the plateau (fig. 15). Thick layers of ash
from sacrifices associated with the early structures have been excavated.
Large quantities of animal bones, many of them burnt, have been found
in the ash layers and speak for numerous animal sacrifices. It seems likely
that an altar was located in this area. A zooarchaeological analysis of these
bones has shown that the large majority of animals were around the same
age (3 months old).60 Considering the birthing season for cattle and sheep
in this region we may assume that a large festival took place in the sanc-
tuary in the early summer of every year, when huge amounts of young
animals were sacrificed to honour the god. The bones also reveal special
rituals at the sanctuary. For instance, only right lower legs were chosen
for the fire ritual at the altar (ratio left-right 1:50). A 2009 analysis of the
bones from Roman contexts has revealed that this type of ritual was still
in use, important evidence for the continuity of the cult from the Iron Age
to Roman period.
In addition to the overlying debris, the ash layers have also produced a
vast number of small finds from the late Iron Age. It seems that most were
deliberately deposited and must therefore be regarded as votive offerings.
So far, a total of about 500 scarab, stamp and cylinder seals have been
recovered, as well as more than 3,500 beads and amulets (fig. 16)—an
assemblage unique in its diversity and magnitude.61 Further precious
58 Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1993),
249; Butcher, Roman Syria 337.
59 Margherita Facella, “Darius and the Achaemenids in Commagene,” in Organisation
des pouvoirs et contacts culturels dans les pays de lʼempire achéménide, ed. Pierre Briant and
Michel Chauveau. Persika 14 (Paris: De Boccard 2009), 400–407.
60 Nadja Pöllath and Joris Peters, “ ʽSmoke on the Mountainʼ– Animal Sacrifices for the
Lord of Doliche,” in Von Kummuḫ nach Telouch, 47–68.
61 For a preliminary analysis of the glyptic evidence see Andreas Schachner, “Babylonier
und Achaemeniden auf dem Dülük Baba Tepesi. Kulturelle Vielfalt in der späten Eisenzeit
im Spiegel der vor-hellenistischen Funde vom Dülük Baba Tepesi,” in Patris Pantrophos
Kommagene, 69–96; Andreas Schachner, “Die Welt des östlichen Mittelmeers in kleinen
Bildern—Weitere Beobachtungen zu den Siegeln und Kleinfunden der späten Eisenzeit
vom Dülük Baba Tepesi,” in Von Kummuḫ nach Telouch, 19–46.
120 michael blömer
Fig. 15. Dülük Baba Tepesi: Late Iron Age wall and adjacent pebble floor
[photo-courtesy of the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster].
Fig. 16. Dülük Baba Tepesi: Small finds from Late Iron Age deposits in the sanc-
tuary of Jupiter Dolichenus [photo-courtesy of the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor,
Münster].
finds, such as numerous bronze fibulas, imported Attic and Cypriot pot-
tery or Phoenician sand-core glass point to the importance of the sanctu-
ary in the Persian period. The wealth and status of the shrine at this time
fits well in the general picture of the development of religious centres in
North Syria.62
In the Hellenistic period the Iron Age buildings were levelled and the
ground level was raised. The Iron Age walls were enclosed by the founda-
tions of an extensive building, of which only a confusing mass of disturbed
ashlar masonry survives today. The severe damage results from later inter-
ventions and the robbing out of stone. However, the central position at
the highest point of the plateau, directly in line with the entrance, sug-
gests that this may be the sad remnant of the main temple of Jupiter
Dolichenus. Recently discovered architectural elements have revealed the
proportions of the building and enable a reconstruction of its elevation.
62 Facella, Darius, 406–407.

122 michael blömer
In general, Hellenistic and Roman period contexts at the sanctuary

have been severely damaged by the continued use of the site and illegal
digging. Although a great number of structures can be dated back to those
periods, it is still hard to see a clear picture of the architectural develop-
ment of the sanctuary. Especially difficult is the Hellenistic phase. In some
cases, it has been possible to assign single contexts to this period on the
basis of pottery and coins, but the overall architectural layout has yet to
be clarified. A fragment of an inscription of the Commagenian king Antio-
chos I (ca. 69–36 BCE) was discovered in the 1970s, providing evidence
for the presence of a temenos for the royal cult at Dülük Baba Tepesi.63
Finds of late Hellenistic architectural decoration confirm building activity
in this period.64
After the battle of Actium in 31 BCE Doliche and the sanctuary were
attached to the Roman province of Syria. The period of Roman rule saw
the heyday of the cult and the sanctuary. The main reason was the popu-
larity of the cult with Roman soldiers. During the 2nd century CE several
wars with the Parthians required a massive deployment of troops from all
over the Roman Empire to Syria. One of the main military routes passed
through Doliche, and it seems that military units were temporarily sta-
tioned in the city.65 It seems that the sanctuary was popular with sol-
diers stationed in Doliche, who either came to know the deity when they
were deployed here, or had already adopted his worship in their western
garrisons. The high esteem they felt for the god is demonstrated by the
continuous augmentation of the sanctuary. The poor conditions of the
buildings discovered and the fact that only a small part of the plateau
has been excavated so far inevitably limits our picture. Nonetheless, rel-
evant information on the various building phases of the sanctuary can
be derived from elements of architectural decoration.66 A large number
have been re-used in the buildings that occupied the site in the medieval
period. Fragments of marble panels provide rich evidence for the import
of different kinds of marble and illustrate the luxurious interior decora-
tion of the sanctuary.
63 See Wagner, Neue Denkmäler, 161–162. The fragment seems to be lost.

64 Werner Oenbrink, “Späthellenistische und frühkaiserzeitliche Bauornamentik vom
Dülük Baba Tepesi,” in Patris Pantrophos Kommagene, ed. by Engelbert Winter, Asia Minor
Studien 60 (Bonn: Habelt, 2008), 111–112.
65 Margherita Facella and Michael A. Speidel, “From Dacia to Doliche (and back). A
New Gravestone for a Roman Soldier,” in Von Kummuḫ nach Telouch, 207–216.
66 For a preliminary report on the architectural elements see Oenbrink, Bauornamen-
tik, 2008.
Fig. 17. Dülük Baba Tepesi: Bronze applique in the shape of Jupiter Dolichenus
[photo-courtesy of the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster].
Of special interest are finds attesting the religious function of the place,
in particular votive offerings and altars. The most important discovery in
this respect is a votive stele depicting the divine couple of Doliche, to
which we will return. Another important find is a bronze fitting in the
form of Jupiter Dolichenus, which was probably once attached to a trian-
gular bronze tablet, which topped cultic standards (fig. 17).67 Such tablets
are known from various sites in the western parts of the empire. The god
is presented in a “Roman” form and dressed in military attire, trousers and
a Phrygian cap.
67 For a detailed discussion of this object see Michael Blömer, “Iuppiter Dolichenus
zwischen lokalem Kult und reichsweiter Verehrung”, in Bloemer / Winter (eds.) Iuppiter
Dolichenus, 39–98, esp. 65–71.
124 michael blömer
Besides this, votive inscriptions in Greek and Latin confirm cult

activity,68 while an increasing volume of military equipment from the
Imperial period implies the presence of Roman soldiers at the sanctuary.69
Precious objects such as military fibulas of various types of the 1st–3rd
century CE, or fragments of scaled and mail armour must be regarded as
votive offerings to the god. Many fragments of statues and reliefs belong-
ing to the sculptural decoration of the sanctuary have also been recov-
ered. Unfortunately most of these are of small size and are often in poor
condition, being mainly pieces of draped statues, usually of limestone.
Particularly relevant with regard to question of religious continuity is
a large basalt stele found in 2007, which is the first sculptural evidence
for the divine couple of Doliche found in the sanctuary at Dülük Baba
Tepesi (fig. 18).70 On the lower level two priests are performing a sacri-
fice on an altar. In the main field, the god is represented standing on a
bull next to his consort, who stands on a stag. In his left hand he holds
a thunderbolt, in his right a double axe. The goddess holds a mirror and
a pomegranate. The representation of these deities follows the tradition
of the ancient Near Eastern storm-god. The long pigtail, the horned cap,
and in particular the belted dress are in strict accordance with Iron Age
models. This close correlation goes far beyond what is usual in the ico-
nography of Jupiter Dolichenus although the sacrificial scene in the lower
level clearly indicates a Graeco-Roman cultural context. The stele clearly
indicates that the image of the god was formed in the sanctuary during
the Iron Age, and that it remained unchanged until the Roman period.
Doliche was a place in which an image and a purely oriental religious
concept were preserved.
It is quite likely that the sanctuary at Dülük Baba Tepesi was destroyed
during the campaigns of the Persian king Šapur I in 253 CE, but so far
no archaeological evidence can ascertain this beyond doubt. However,
recently a layer of burnt debris was found at the centre of the hill-top,
68 Margherita Facella and Engelbert Winter, “Neue Inschriften für Iupiter Dolichenus
aus dem östlichen Mittelmeerraum,” in: Vom Euphrat bis zum Bosporus. Kleinasien in der
Antike. Festschrift für Elmar Schwertheim, Vol. 1, ed. Engelbert Winter. Asia Minor Studien
65 (Bonn: Habelt, 2008), 220–225. Fragments of further inscriptions will be published by
Margherita Facella.
69 Thomas Fischer, “Teile von römischen Waffen und militärischer Ausrüstung aus den
Grabungen auf dem Dülük Baba Tepesi in den Jahren 2004‒2009,” in Von Kummuḫ nach
Telouch, 105–120.
70 Blömer, Wettergottgestalten, 31–35; Michael Blömer, “Die Stele von Doliche,” in Von
Kummuḫ nach Telouch, 69–103.
Fig. 18. Dülük Baba Tepesi: Basalt stele [photo-courtesy of the Forschungsstelle

Asia Minor, Münster].
126 michael blömer
dating from the middle of the 3rd century CE. This destruction did not
spell the final end of the sanctuary, but it declined after the adoption of
Christianity by the Roman emperors. A final blow may have been the
decree issued in 391 CE by the emperor Theodosius, which renewed the
ban on sacrifices, closed all pagan shrines and forbade people from enter-
ing them. It must be assumed that the worship of Jupiter Dolichenus on
Dülük Baba Tepesi came to an end at the latest by this point.71
The continuity of cult activities, which can be archaeologically ascer-
tained from Iron Age until the Roman period, make Dülük Baba Tepesi
a significant site for understanding historical-religious processes which
do not relate exclusively to Jupiter Dolichenus, but also to other Com-
magenian deities. Local religion remained attached to the ancestral gods
of Luwian origin. Even in the Hellenistic and Roman periods the indig-
enous population of Doliche still venerated the gods of their country in
the traditional way.
This brief survey of religious sites and monuments from Commagene in

the Hellenistic and Roman period hardly permits any final conclusions
about religion in Commagene in the 1st century CE.72 However, some
general remarks can be made. It seems misleading to concentrate on the
impressive monuments of Antiochos I when questions of the religious
life of the people beyond the royal court are addressed. His syncretistic
religion combining Iranian and Greek elements is rooted in Hellenistic
thought, not in a local Commagenian tradition. Obviously his religious
program perished immediately after his death and had no lasting impact
on the people.
71 Occupation of the site did not end then, and the place eventually rose to become
an important Christian site. Indeed, a large proportion of the material retrieved in the
excavations derives from this late period, when a monastery was established on the ruins
of the sanctuary. Excavation results have confirmed that this was the renowned mon-
astery of Mar Salomon, which is known from literary sources, see Pier Giorgio Borbone
and Werner Oenbrink, “Das christianisierte Heiligtum auf dem Dülük Baba Tepesi. Eine
syrische Inschrift, Architekturbefunde und Bauglieder,” in Von Kummuḫ nach Telouch.
Archäologische und historische Untersuchungen in Kommagene, ed. Engelbert Winter, Doli-
chener und Kommagenische Forschungen 4, Asia Minor Studien 64 (Bonn: Habelt, 2011),
187–206; Margherita Facella and Matthias Stanke, “Eine Inschriftenplatte für Theodoros
Stratelates und weitere christliche Zeugnisse vom Dülük Baba Tepesi,” in E. Winter (ed.),
Von Kummuḫ nach Telouch, 157–186.
72 Some sites have been omitted, as for example the impressive sanctuary of Direk Kale
near Arsameia on the Nymphaios, cf. Wolfram Hoepfner, “Direk Kale. Ein unbekanntes
Heiligtum in Kommagene,” Istanbuler Mitteilungen 16 (1966): 157–177. At the present state
of research, a Pre-Roman origin remains speculative.
A closer examination of the reasons why Antiochus’ programme’s failed

suggests that we may be dealing with a case of mistaken identity. The
distinctive choice of iconographical features in the sculpture of Antiochos
and the complex referential language used in the inscriptions suggests
an audience familiar with Iranian and Greek culture. The singular way
of amalgamating these two traditions has been seen as the attempt to
merge the two prevailing identities in Commagene and to forge a coher-
ent Commagenian community. However, if one considers this assumption
in the light of the archaeological record, one is inevitably led to doubt
its tenability. We do not find either a long-standing Iranian tradition or
a profound Graeco-Macedonian impact: neither tradition forms a main
component of the material culture of Hellenistic Commagene beyond the
royal court.73
The coming of Alexander did not affect Commagene as much as other
parts of Syria. At the end of the 4th century BCE the country had been
rather backward, as the main lines of communication connecting the cities
of Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia bypassed Commagene completely.
The country possessed no urban centre of importance. Although the Syro-
Hittite heritage, the dominant feature of the wider region throughout the
Iron Age, still lingered on, it no longer retained its former splendour. The
centuries following the Assyrian occupation had seen a steady process of
ruralisation. Artistic production as well as the epigraphic habit declined,
and the concurrent decline of urban centres north of the Taurus Moun-
tains entailed the decreasing importance of the Taurus passes. Therefore
the Seleucid kings did not show much interest in the region, which was
only nominally subdued. While many efforts were made to urbanise and
control the area south of Commagene, which functioned as a vital corridor
between the seat of Seleucid power—the cities of coastal Syria and the
Orontes valley—and the kingdom’s eastern possessions, no Seleucid foun-
dation is known from the Commagenian heartland. Beyond the line con-
necting the cities of Seleuceia on the Euphrates, Doliche and Nicopolis,
traces of Greek culture are minimal until we reach the Roman period.
Instead, the country was for a long time exposed to Armenian influence, a
73 This may explain why one faction of the Commagenian people preferred Roman rule
to the Orontid kings, as is reported by Tac. Ann. 2, 42 and Jos. AJ 18, 2, 5., whose accounts,
however, differ. According to Tacitus the majority of the people favoured a provincial sta-
tus, while Josephus says that only the Commagenian aristocracy supported this option,
in opposition to the masses. See on this subject Michael A. Speidel, “Early Roman Rule in
Commagene,” Scripta Classica Israelica 24 (2005): 90f. and Facella, Dinastia, 316–318.
128 michael blömer
tradition probably rooted in the Persian period. This Armenian supremacy

saw the creation of an elite with Iranian traditions, and the slow recov-
ery of the country. The Armenian nobles eventually became independent
kings, and Antiochos I was recognised as a regional power broker by the
Romans and their Parthian opponents in the troublesome period follow-
ing the final demise of Seleucid rule. He was a player on the international
stage of oriental Hellenistic kingship, and used the well-established Hel-
lenistic concepts of representation, staging, and ruler cult to cement his
position. However, it is clear that his cultural concepts do not have indig-
enous roots and are not based in the local community. It is for this reason
that his cultural programme vanished so quickly after his death without
having any impact on a wider Commagenian audience, or even on his
own successors.
To get a better idea of the religious background of Commagene at the
time of Mara bar Sarapion it may therefore be advisable not to rely on the
corpus of royal monuments too much. However, hardly any attempt has
been made to look at what lies beyond, and, admittedly, there are not many
contemporary clues for Commagenian culture once we discard the evidence
of Antiochos I. Not much survived from the period of his successors, but the
advent of the Roman occupation brought considerable change.
Taking this material into consideration to assess the culture of Com-
magene from a perspective of longue durée, we can make some general
statements that are also applicable to the Hellenistic period. We find
continuity from the Iron Age to the Roman period, a continuity most
discernible in the fields of landscape archaeology, religion, funerary rites
and language. However, only occasionally do we catch a glimpse of the
Luwian and Aramaic remnants under their Hellenised cloak. The same
dominance of Graeco-Roman culture can be observed in almost every
form of high-status representation. While this should not be regarded as
an obliteration of local traditions, it suggests a continuous hybridisation
of cultures. It must be noted however, that from the long perspective the
Iranian elements seem to be somewhat irrelevant to this process.
JESUS AS THE EVER-LIVING LAWGIVER IN THE LETTER OF
MARA BAR SARAPION
Petr Pokorný
I. The Problem
The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion was written in Syriac. There is no evidence
for any original version in Greek.1 Syriac literature from its very beginning,
when Syriac parted from Aramaic, was written mostly by Christians. Meli-
ton of Sardes and Bardesanes, whose writings were published together
with the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion by William Cureton in 1855,2 were
Christians. And yet in Syriac there also exists Menander’s Monosticha—a
collection of fragments from this Greek classic writer’s comedies and simi-
lar sayings.3 But we are not interested in Mara bar Sarapion’s Letter as a
piece of Syriac literature, in which it does not play any important role, but
rather as a document that (anonymously) mentions Jesus of Nazareth and
documents the impact of his story. We would like to evaluate its signifi-
cance, discuss its authenticity (i.e. whether Mara bar Sarapion was really
its author), to ask why it was written and how the words about Jesus were
intended. We cannot consider it as an independent testimony for Jesus’
existence,4 but every piece of historical research into a certain person also
includes an interest in the impact of this person in history and in how
he or she was viewed outside the immediate group of his or her follow-
ers. This may also be indirect evidence of the person’s historicity, but the
1 See already F. Schulthess, “Der Brief des Mara bar Sarapion,” ZDMG 51 (1897): 366
n. 1.
2 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum Containing Remains of Bardesan, Meliton, Ambrose
and Mara bar Sarapion (London: Rivingstons, 1855).
3 Later it was translated into Paleoslavic, too.
4 As John McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 1979),
81–87, does. Unfortunately, J.J. Lowder in his polemic against McDowell does not consider
the fact that testimonies about the impact of the person we are interested in are also
valuable. The burden of proof lies on those who deny Jesus’ existence. The polemic on
the website www.infidels reminds me of the theses of the Soviet Marxist research from
the early 1950s about Jesus being the result of the mythical imagination of the oppressed
masses. Only a few years later this position was replaced by another one, viz. that the
person of Jesus was only later linked with mythical elements.
130 petr pokorný
fact that Jesus lived in history does not have to be proved. The remark
of Paul of Tarsus, who can never be considered a mythical figure, about
his meeting James, the brother of the Lord (Gal. 1:19), demonstrates both:
1) that Jesus was a historical personality and 2) that the myth concerning
his exaltation (“Lord”) was indeed related to him. 3) Since it was related to
him in various ways (by different “christologies”), it must have been Jesus
who gave the original impulsion.
Our introductory observations on the letter as a whole intend to recon-
struct the overarching structure into which the few sentences about Jesus
are interwoven; we do not offer a full analysis of the document.
II. Genre, Structure, and Philosophy
To define the intention of the Letter we have at least approximately to

define its genre. Obviously it is a literary letter intended for a wider pub-
lic. The experience of the addressee is constantly being generalized:5
Vainglory—“quickly comes to us harm” (§§ 6–7);6 loneliness—“for it is
to these things that human beings are born” (§ 10) etc. and many maxims
are formulated: “People’s lives, my son, vanish from the world; but their
praises and their virtues endure forever.” (§ 13) “Where riches abound,
there are many bitter agonies” (§ 15), etc. Together with the parenetic
passages it reveals the letter’s intention to teach the best way of life and
stimulate the readers to adopt it. We know this kind of letters from antiq-
uity, e.g. Epicurus’ Letter to Menoiceus7 (which is also comparable to the
Letter of Mara in length), or the Moral Letters to Lucilius by Seneca. The
Letter of Mara is a parenetic letter of this type.
The special appeal of the Letter is due to the situation in which the
literary writer finds himself: he is a prisoner and his moral teaching is in
fact a testament, the significance of which is enhanced by the shadow of
death hanging over Mara bar Sarapion.
5 Numbers relate to the paragraphs of the new edition of Rensberger and the transla-
tion is by Rensberger from A. Merz, D. Rensberger, T. Tieleman, Mara bar Sarapion: Letter
to His Son (SAPERE. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2012), if not otherwise indicated.
6 In this case the interpretation of sentence structure and translation follows B.P. Prat-
ten, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 8., 735.
7 Epicurus wrote many letters, but unfortunately only a few of them are extant.
jesus as the ever-living lawgiver 131
The structure of the Letter corresponds to its parenetic character. The

opening paragraph is followed by an appeal to strive after the wisdom
which belongs to the character of a free man (§ 4), and close to the end
(§§ 27.29) we read a similar appeal to preserve wisdom and inner cheer-
fulness even in times of trials and suffering. The central section of the
epistle is devoted to a commentary on persistent values such as wisdom,
joy and independence from possessions, as well as a description of the
so-called values that are not able to make our lives happy. A logical frame-
work is missing. The author was well trained in rhetoric, but not so uch
in philosophy. The reference to Jesus appears in ch. 18. It is rather short
and, from the point of view of the general intention of the letter, only
illustrative.
The intention of the letter is a Stoic one, even if the philosophical argu-
ment is not consistent enough. Only a minor part of the argument may
have been concealed by the poor quality of the only copy that we have at
our disposal. Perseverance in wisdom (chakmútó, sophia) leads to freedom
(cf. e.g. Seneca, epist. 75,18: absoluta libertas). Wisdom can act in such a
way that the divine power will not afflict people as fate. In fact, wisdom is
almost identical with the supreme law and can lead to joy even when the
wise man loses his possessions and his power. Even in his anecdotal con-
cluding remark Mara laughs over his own misfortune (§ 30). The aim of
an authentic life and in the deepest sense a joyful life is not pleasure (Gr.
hēdonē). Rather, it is a sense of proportion in relation to one’s own inner
spiritual (and rational) kingdom, to the community, family and human-
kind as a whole. Wealth and programmatic poverty are both equally dan-
gerous (§ 14–17). The parenetic Letter of Mara bar Sarapion is thus also an
example of wisdom literature.
III. Origin, Authenticity and Intention
It is difficult to determine the time of origin of the Letter of Mara. Accord-

ing to the concluding paragraphs Mara is in Roman captivity, even if at
the beginning he describes how his fellow-countrymen were led off as
prisoners—obviously a group which resisted the Roman occupation.
What is referred to is the Roman occupation of Samosata, the residence of
the kings of Commagene. Commagene used to be an autonomous ally
of Rome. When the Emperor Vespasian learnt of the tendencies of some
of its leading inhabitants to attain full freedom, he decided to incorpo-
132 petr pokorný
rate Commagene into the Roman Empire. When Roman soldiers came,
king Antiochus was captured and escorted to Rome, but the Emperor
heard about it and decided to allow him to live in Sparta and later in
Rome with full royal honors. This is what we know from Josephus Flavius
(BJ 7.7.1–3).
When we try to fit the information from the Letter into this context,
Mara, obviously a friend of the king, tried to make contact with the cap-
tured king, but was detained in custody as well and when writing the
Letter he was still undergoing the sufferings of a prisoner (§ 9, see also
§§ 26–27). The problem is why he did not follow the king from the very
beginning. In addition, the king and his company would have suffered
only in the first period of the captivity, before Vespasian learnt about his
fate and gave him back his honours.
This is why the Letter has been tentatively dated to other periods of
the history of northern Syria: the Roman re-conquest of Syria after the
Parthian invasion in AD 161–165 or during the defensive wars of Emperor
Valerianus in the mid-third century AD.8 However, no deportation or
capture of a group of significant figures is reported from those periods.
Together with the problem of the successfully studying son, to whom the
captured and suffering father managed to write a long letter and send it
by an apparently reliable person, all that we have said leads to the gen-
erally accepted conclusion that the Letter of Mara, Son of Sarapion, is a
literary epistle. Schulthess rejected this conclusion (“Für die Öffentlichkeit
war das Schreiben gewiss nicht bestimmt”),9 since the Letter evoked the
impression that it has been written into a concrete situation in history,
but the situation of the writer as described in the Letter rather serves as
an illustration of a possible change of fate for which the more fortunate
son has to be prepared. It is namely a situation which even the king is
not able to avert. The fact that the author is writing in chains gives his
exhortations an existential appeal, as was the case with Paul of Tarsus in
his pseudepigraphic letters10 and the danger of death makes the Letter
into a testament.
Under these circumstances it is difficult to date the Letter. The intended
setting is the dramatic events of AD 72, which lived on in the collective
memory for several decades. However, since the narrative is adapted to
8 K. McVey, “A Fresh Look at the Letter of Mara Bar Sarapion to his Son,” Orientalia
Analecta Christiana 236 (Rome 1990) (= V Symposium Syriacum 1988), 257–272, at 259–260.
9 Schulthess, “Der Brief des Mara bar Sarapion,” 375–376.
10 Eph. 6:20; 2 Tim. 1:16.
the literary needs, the letter must have been written some time (at least
about one generation) later, when history had been transformed into a
legendary tradition. The other events mentioned in the Letter have also
been quoted from legendary traditions, which have been recorded in
some contemporary texts of popular religious literature. The notion about
the destruction of the island Samos by a flood (§ 18) has its parallel in 4th
Pseudo-Sibylline Book (l. 91; the same verse also appears in the 3rd book,
l. 364). It is difficult to determine the original event that gave rise to such
a legend. In any case, the parallel in the Sibylline Books indicates that
it was a widespread tradition, useful for illustrating the bad end met by
those who hate and persecute wise men.
It follows that the Letter of Mara is not a historically authentic docu-
ment but rather a parenetic text intended to address the young Syrian
generation in the first decades of Roman rule, and to educate young
people in the spirit of Stoic ideals (it was the time of the third apex of
Stoicism) and help them to take advantage of the best aspects of Roman
civilization: the Romans . . . “will display their majesty in letting us go free.
Let us obey the kingdom that fate has given us” (§ 27).
IV. The Reference to Jesus
The reference to Jesus in its immediate context reads as follows:

For what benefit did the Athenians derive from the slaying of Socrates? For
they received the retribution for it in the form of famine and plague. Or
the people of Samos from the burning of Pythagoras? For in one hour their
entire country was covered with sand. Or the Jews [from the killing] of their
wise king? For from that very time their sovereignty was taken away. For
God rightly exacted retribution on behalf of the wisdom of these three. For
the Athenians starved to death, and the people of Samos were covered by
the sea without remedy, and the Jews, massacred and chased from their
kingdom, are scattered through every land. Socrates did not die, because
of Plato; nor yet Pythagoras, because of the statue of Hera; nor did the wise
king, because of the new laws that he gave. (§ 18)
Jesus is mentioned here as one of the three wise men: Socrates, the Athe-
nian philosopher (about 469–399 BC), the sculptor Pythagoras of Samos
from the 5th century, identified with the philosopher Pythagoras of
Samos from the 6th century, and from the less distant past Jesus, intro-
duced as a Wise King—his name is not mentioned. The whole paragraph
consists of three parts. The first deals with the martyrdom of each of them,
134 petr pokorný
the second with the catastrophic consequences of their death, and the
third with the immortality that the murdered wise men acquired. The
three wise men represent the cosmopolitan wisdom in its main represen-
tations in history: philosophy, mathematics and law.
By confusing the sculptor Pythagoras with the philosopher Pythagoras
the author of the Letter betrayed the fact that he was not an educated
philosopher or scholar, but rather a gifted journalist. What is important,
however, is that Jesus appears here as one of the three wisest men of
history. The suggestion that the Wise King may have been some other
person cannot be substantiated. Moses, whom the books of the Law and
later Philo of Alexandria (in his Vita Mosis) considered to be not only the
greatest lawgiver (Gr. nomothetēs) but also a king, was not rejected by his
people. And the Teacher of Righteousness from Qumran was not popular
or even known outside Judea. The Wise King was obviously a title given
by the author or some of his contemporaries to Jesus of Nazareth.
Why does Jesus appear under this title, which at the same time func-
tions as his pseudonym? It was not due to the fact that mentioning the
name of Jesus in a positive context was dangerous at that time. The Chris-
tians were persecuted only in certain areas and in certain periods, when
they refused to sacrifice to the deified emperor. A censorship of opinions
and ideas as we know it from the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century
was unknown in Greek and Roman society. One factor may have been
the fact that Jesus was practically unknown among the pagan citizens
of the Roman Empire and the title Christ (Gr. Christos; Hebr. Messiah—
the Anointed One) must have been considered a meaningless nickname,
something like “smeary.” It could have been understood as a slave’s name:
Chrēstos = Useful (identical pronunciation), like Onēsimos. That is why
Greek literature on several occasions identified him indirectly. For exam-
ple in Lucian’s satire Peregrinus he is described as “the man who intro-
duced new mysteries and was sentenced at the stake in Palestine” (ch. 11).
Since Jesus is referred to together with two other wise men and the
sentences do not include any elements typical of Christian professions of
faith, it is quite improbable that the author intended to present a Chris-
tian testimony for him as Messiah or Saviour. Admittedly, Jesus would
benefit from the company of the two other famous men, and the author
obviously was his sympathizer. However, he did know much more about
him and the Christians, as can be deduced from the wording of the
remark, and he was hardly a Christian himself. A good illustration of how
such a missionary statement would have been formulated is the Chris-
tian inclusion in the Archaiologia (AJ 18,3,3, i.e. the so-called Testimonium
Flavianum).11 Jesus is characterized here as “more than a human being”

who performed “incredible deeds,” the teacher of all humans who with
joy accepted the truth, and many Jews and pagans followed him. Pilate
sentenced him to death, but “the third day he appeared alive to his adher-
ents” as the prophets foretold. The race of Christians still exists today.—
This is genuine Christian propaganda (missionary activity). The difference
between this segment of text, which was inserted by a later Christian
copyist, and the simple mention of the death of James the Just as brother
of Jesus (AJ 20,9,1) is striking. What was written about Jesus in the Letter
of Mara bar Sarapion could have been further elaborated into a profes-
sion of faith such as we find in the Pseudo-Josephus, but as it stands it
does not fulfil such a function. The Testimonium Flavianum probably had
a similar predecessor in the original text of Josephus, and its Arabic ver-
sion quoted in the 10th century by Agapius, the bishop of Hierapolis, may
be the original text.12 It is unthinkable that somebody would have com-
posed the whole Letter in order that the sentences about Jesus might be
noticed by the readers.13 It follows that the reference to Jesus has a certain
historical value. Although it cannot count as ‘evidence for his existence’,
it does reproduce rumours circulating about him about a hundred years
after Easter and the Christian creed as reflected in society at large.
V. The Theology of the Reference to Jesus
My intention now is to ask what image of Jesus lies behind the reference
in Mara’s Letter.14 Jesus is called “the wise King of the Jews” (§ 18)—a
11 On which see Gerd Theissen – Annette Merz, Der historische Jesus (Göttingen: Van-
denhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996, 4th ed. 2011), 74–82, with further references.
12 See Theissen—Merz, Der historische Jesus, 81.
13 Pace McVey, “A Fresh Look,” 272, who submits that the letter is a ploy by a Christian
author posing as a pagan intellectual, viz. Mara. Soon after Cureton’s publication of the
Letter in 1855, Mara’s opinion about Jesus was almost forgotten. When Ernst Barnikol (Das
Leben Jesu der Heilsgeschichte, Halle: Niemeyer 1958, 405–406) published the part related
to Jesus in 1958 as a source for his biography, it was neglected. He was a peculiar scholar
and his interpretation of the sentences about Jesus was a little naïve. As far as I know
the paragraph about Mara’s Letter in the monograph about Jesus by Gerd Theissen and
Annette Merz (§ 3.3, pp. 84–86) marks the beginning of a new interest in this document.
14 A somewhat different interpretation of the congruities with the Gospel of Matthew
and Q has been presented by A. Merz and T. Tieleman, “The Letter of Mara bar Sara-
pion: Some Comments on its Philosophical and Historical Context,” in A. Houtman –
A. de Jong – M. Misset-van de Weg (eds.) Empsychoi Logoi. Religious Innovations in Antiq-
uity. Studies in Honour of Pieter Willem van der Horst (Leiden 2008) 107–33, esp. 127–131
136 petr pokorný
paraphrase of the title “Son of David,” which we come across as early as

Romans 1:3–4 and later in the synoptic Gospels as well as in the Gospel of
John (7:42), and which survived in the early Christian literature, especially
in Ignatius of Antioch (e.g. Smyrn. 1,1). Jesus himself may be called Son of
David in the Palestinian Jewish setting (Mark 10:48). In the Gospels the
title “King of the Jews” appears during the trial of Jesus (Mark 15:2, 9) and
in the inscription on his cross (titulus crucis; Mark 15:26; John 19:21). This
means that the Roman authorities took it over. Even a few decades later
it may have been understandable for those who knew something about
the Christians and Jesus, in spite of the fact that in the Church it survived
practically in the liturgical readings only. This means that the author of
the Letter may have used this designation because it was more under-
standable to the wider public than the title or name Jesus Christ.
The third part of the paragraph on the three wise men characterizes
Jesus as the one who enacted new laws. This was his particular way of
demonstrating his wisdom. One may recall that in Greek culture lawgivers
were held in the highest regard. Solon (end of the 7th and the first part of
the 6th century BC) even became one of the legendary Seven Wise Men.
However, Jesus may have been called philosopher, teacher, prophet, myst-
agogue, or God’s messenger (so Thom. Ev. Log. 13.2) also. The appellations
“Wise King” and “Giver of New Laws,” one may assume, were chosen by
the author of the Letter intentionally and as pertaining to specific fea-
tures of the image of Jesus with which he had become acquainted. The
antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount may have been seen as involving
the introduction of new laws (e.g. Matt. 5:21 ff.: “You have heard that it
was said to those of ancient times . . . But I say to you . . .”). So, too, may
the radical new interpretation of the prescriptions on defilement: “Do you
not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since
it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?
Thus he declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:18b–19).15 The double com-
mandment of Love (first attestation in Mark 12:28–34) may be considered
a fundamental new law, especially in the Matthean version: “In these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (22:34–40).16 This is
indeed an enactment of radical new laws.
who consider the Letter to be authentic and to draw on pre-Matthean Syriac Christian
traditions.
15 Translation according to the New Revised Standard version.
16 Jesus is most probably the author of the double commandment, even if in Paul the
two great commandments appear separated (love of God—Rom. 8:28; 1 Cor. 8:3; love of
According to the Gospel of Matthew this Jesuanic tradition remained

valid after Easter as well. Jesus said to his disciples: “Go therefore and
make disciples (mathēteysate) of all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching (didaskontes)
them to obey (tērein) everything that I have commanded (eneteilamēn)
you” (Matt. 28:19–20a). This is an admonition to keep his new law, which
thereby defines the identity of his followers. Not the proclamation of Jesus
as the living Lord, but the teaching of Jesus is the content of the mission-
ary proclamation and the norm for what happens at the Last Judgment:
“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these members of
my family, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40). Jesus as the Risen Lord plays
an important role, but a different one from that in the Pauline post-Eas-
ter proclamation. He guarantees that the new law has indeed expressed
the will of God and that it is accompanied by an absolute promise: “And
remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20b). In
the Gospel of Thomas (its Greek version, the first under this name, which
originated about the middle of the second century), the story of Jesus,
including his death on the cross and his resurrection, is absent, and Jesus
is predominantly a bearer of God’s revelation concerning the divine sub-
stance of the human soul—a truth that human beings in their alienation
have forgotten. This is the Thomasine Gospel. Dangerous, but it is still
considered to be wisdom. The positive hero of a parable (that of the pearl,
Log. 76) is called to be prudent (wise, Copt. cabe) since he anticipates the
law of the kingdom of God.
A crucial role is played by the statement that none of the three wise
men died. In the immediate context it means that the wisdom or truth
that they taught prevailed. The Christian interpretation of this statement
as a paraphrase of Jesus’ resurrection is called into question by the fact
that the same is proclaimed about all the three wise men. If the author
has heard the proclamation about Jesus’ resurrection, then he may have
interpreted it at the most as a unique expression of a generally valid
truth, according to which wisdom and goodness have an eternal qual-
ity, in which those who testify to them, like Socrates or Pythagoras, also
participate. However, since the author writing under the name of Mara
neighbour—Rom 13:9) and theoretically Mark may have combined the two command-
ments himself. But it is very probable that Paul did know the double commandment of
love: he stresses above all the love of God towards humanity, but e.g. in Rom. 5:5 he tries to
interpret the love in human hearts through the love of God who, through the Holy Spirit,
poured love into our hearts.
138 petr pokorný
most probably was not a Christian, we may understand it primarily as an

expression of how the pagan society may have interpreted the Christian
proclamation, when it understood it in a positive way. Since the Gospel
of Matthew and the Gospel of Thomas, in spite of their differences, both
originated in Syria or Edessa, it is not impossible that the interpretation
in the Letter of Mara has been influenced by the Judaeo-Christian com-
munity that used to read Matthew. The tradition of Jesus as a prophetic
teacher found a problematic renaissance in the Gospel of Thomas.
When in Mara we read about Jesus as one who did not die thanks to
his new laws, this does not run counter to the intention of Syrian Thom-
asine Christianity. In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus is the (always) living
One (Prologue). There is no mention of his death anywhere in the Gospel
of Thomas. According to the Gospel of Thomas those who are aware of
the immortality of their soul do not die (Log. 11). The Double Command-
ment of Love here unfortunately recedes into the background, but Mat-
thew and Thomas share a theological position according to which Jesus is
present in his words, in his teaching (to drink from my mouth—become
like me: Log. 108). That he lives thanks to his laws may be an understand-
able expression of this truth in the language of the society of that time. It
is not an explicitly heretical statement. The oldest Christian testimonies
and theological reflections admittedly understand the resurrection as a
unique (new) event, but at the same time see it as an event revealing
God’s eternal intention and a general reality. Other humans can partici-
pate in this reality or rather in this movement, like Christians in baptism.
It has its analogies on a lower level, such as the seed, which sprouts up
after it has been buried in the earth (1 Cor. 15:36; John 12:24). The reason
for the perseverance and unexpected dynamics of good intentions in his-
tory, in spite of the power of violence, can be explained from this kind of
faith, from this understanding of resurrection.
VI. Conclusion
The Letter of Mara Bar Sarapion is not an authentic epistle by a Syrian

philosopher, as F. Schulthess supposed. It is a literary epistle and so a
fiction from a purely historical point of view. We differ from Kathleen E.
McVey in that we are not convinced, either that it may have originated as
late as the third century, or that it was intended to support Christianity.
It may reflect the opinion and creed of Syrian Christians but it is repro-
duced by means of Stoic philosophical concepts. Only the stress on the
proclamation of the eternal life of the wise men goes beyond Stoic ideas
and may reflect the influence of some groups of Syrian Christians. Some
analogies with Matthean theology are striking. The roots of such a con-
cept can be traced back to the Collection of Jesus’ sayings (Q). The Gospel
of Thomas tried to revive such ideas in the 2nd century.
The results are not surprising or shocking. And yet they present us with
an intriguing echo of Jesus’ teaching and life story in 2nd century Syria
among people who were not educated in biblical traditions. From the
viewpoint of classical Christian theology this is an incomplete and sketchy
interpretation, but it is not opposed to the authentic Christian teaching.
MARA’S GOD(S) AND TIME
Albert de Jong
The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion is not, strictly speaking, a religious text,
but religion certainly is part of the context of that composition. My inter-
est in the Letter does not derive as much from its general importance as
a source for the religious history of the Syrian cultural realm in the first
few centuries of the Common Era, as from a number of very specific sug-
gestions that have been made in this connection. So, although the present
contribution will contain some general observations on the (meagre) ref-
erences to religious practice in the Letter, it will largely be devoted to the
issue of its cultural/religious setting in the context of the unique cultural
and geographical settings of the Syrian-speaking world, between the pull
of the Roman Empire and the “push” of the Iranian world.
My work in recent times has been devoted to the history of the Par-
thians, and especially of Parthian culture and religion. Chronologically,
the Letter seems to belong to the Parthian period and geographically, it
would fit nicely into one of my main areas of interest, the intersection of
Greco-Roman, Near Eastern and Iranian cultures in antiquity. Although
there has been a steady stream of publications on the interaction between
Greco-Roman and Near Eastern cultures in the past few decades, the pres-
ence of Iranians and of Iranian culture is not a richly developed theme
within that general literature.1 If we take, for example, Fergus Millar’s
much-acclaimed study of the Roman Near East, it is very difficult to
find any interest in the Iranian elements in his sources, largely, I think,
because he chose—probably wisely—not to engage with those parts of
the world he was studying that were never, or only fleetingly, part of the
Roman Empire. More serious and less estimable, in that connection, is his
reluctance to deal with Armenia and the Armenians, even though there
were well-attested cultural contacts between, for example, the kingdom of
1 F. Millar, The Roman Near East. 31 BC–AD 337 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University
Press, 1993); M. Sommer, Roms orientalische Steppengrenze. Palmyra, Edessa, Dura-Euro-
pos, Hatra: Eine Kulturgeschichte von Pompeius bis Dioketian (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner 2005);
T. Kaizer (ed.), The Variety of Local Religious Life in the Near East, in the Hellenistic and
Roman Periods (Leiden: Brill, 2008).
142 albert de jong
Edessa and the various Armenian kingdoms, up to the point that Strabo
notes that “the nation of the Armenians and that of the Syrians and Ara-
bians betray a close affinity, not only in their language, but in their mode
of life and their bodily build, and particularly wherever they live as close
neighbours.”2 This living as close neighbours happens to be the case also
with Commagene, bounded as it is to the north by the Armenian kingdom
and later district of Sophene, Cop’k’ in Armenian, ruled at one time by a
branch of the Orontids,3 as was Commagene, and the site of important
burial places of the Orontids at the fortress of Angl.4
Although it is not very well explored, there is a considerable body of
evidence for the spread of Parthian culture in these territories. This is
wholly uncontested in the case of Armenia, especially since the rise of the
Arsacid kings of that country, kinsmen of the Parthian Kings of Kings and
the virtually undisputed rulers of the Armenians in the first four centuries
of the Common Era, first as a Zoroastrian dynasty and then as a Christian
one. Zoroastrianism was the religion of the Armenians long before the
rise of the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia, flourishing and developing its own
unique variety of that religion much earlier, under its Orontid and Artax-
iad kings.5 That is to say, we known of the existence of various clusters
of shrines and temples among the Armenians, most of them (but signifi-
cantly not all of them) dedicated to Iranian deities, almost none of which
was claimed as an Arsacid foundation.6 Almost all our evidence comes
from Armenian literature, which is exclusively Christian, and which paid
more attention to the narrative of the destruction of these temples by
King Tirdat IV, who converted to Christianity, and St. Gregory the Illumi-
nator—who brought this conversion about—than to their actual history.7
2 Strabo, Geography 1.2.34, quoted by Millar, Roman Near East, 10.

3 C. Toumanoff, “A Note on the Orontids,” Le Muséon 72 (1959): 1–36; R.E. Hewsen,
“Introduction to Armenian Historical Geography III: The Boundaries of Orontid Armenia,”
Revue des Études arméniennes n.s. 8 (1984): 347–365.
4 These are mentioned by “Faustus” in the Epic Histories 4.24: see N. Garsoïan, The Epic
Histories attributed to P’awstos Buzand (Buzandaran Patmut’iwnk’) (Cambridge MA: Har-
vard University Press, 1989), 157; for their archaeological remains, cf. T.A. Sinclair, Eastern
Turkey: an Architectural and Archaeological Survey III (London: The Pindar Press, 1989),
198–199 with pls. 79–81.
5 J.R. Russell, Zoroastrianism in Armenia (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press,
1987).
6 The first investigation of these shrines was A. Carrière, Les huits sanctuaires de
l’Arménie païenne d’après Agathange et Moïse de Khoren. Etude critique (Paris: E. Leroux,
1899).
7 Particularly important in this respect is the fifth-century History of the Armenians by
an Armenian author writing under the name Agathangelos; see R.W. Thomson, Agath-
angelos. History of the Armenians (Albany: SUNY, 1976).
mara’s god(s) and time 143
Added to this is the historical tragedy of the destruction of the Armenians

in their traditional homelands, historical Armenia, in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, one of whose dramatic consequences is the
fact that there is little meaningful archaeological exploration of ancient
Armenian culture in the main parts of the historical Armenian world.8
The situation is radically different in most other parts of the geographi-
cal zone for which I usually use the expression of the “Parthian common-
wealth,” that is to say, the western parts of the Parthian Empire: Edessa
or Osrhoene, Adiabene, Hatra, Babylonia, and Mesene. These were never,
in any sense, Zoroastrian cultures, but they have yielded some of the
most important clusters of evidence for the widespread adoption of other
aspects of Parthian culture. This is evident from names and titles, social
institutions, costume, jewelry and weaponry, and possibly—though this is
very controversial—art and architecture.9 For these regions, there is very
little literary evidence, but the texts we have—almost all in Greek, a tiny
portion in Syriac—show abundant traces of Iranian, and more specifically
Parthian, literary conventions, even though these are almost never rec-
ognized as such.10 On the contrary, there has been an almost depressing
trend in modern scholarship to highlight in these texts everything that
is Greek or Roman, as well as everything that is specifically Jewish or
Christian, but to relegate all those aspects that do not fit in any of these
categories comfortably to the realm of free invention, of Oriental “décor”
without much meaning. Perhaps the best-known victim of this trend is the
romance known as the Babyloniaca, written by a certain Jamblichus and
preserved only in a lengthy summary made of it by the Byzantine patri-
arch Photius and a few fragments.11 Even though it has long been known
8 The only, but crucially important, exception is J.M. Thierry, Monuments arméniens
du Vaspurakan (Paris: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1989), which is largely
devoted to Christian monuments (as the main ones to have survived).
9 The “Parthian” background of “Parthian art” has been the subject of endless debate
since M. Rostovtzeff, “Dura and the Problem of Parthian Art,” Yale Classical Studies 5 (1935):
155–304. There appears to be a general consensus, however, that the Parthians acted as
“enablers” rather than as “creators” of the art of the cities of the Syro-Mesopotamian world.
Although art historians appear to find this an acceptable solution (M. Gawlikowski, “L’art
‘parthe’ et l’art ‘arsacide’,” in: Akten des VII. internationalen Kongresses für iranische Kunst
und Archäologie (Berlin: D. Reimer, 1979), 323–326), the present author has some doubts,
in light of the massive evidence for Parthian contributions to other aspects of this pre-
sumed “local” (or worse, “indigenous”) culture.
10 Some of them have, however, been included in U. Hackl, B. Jacobs & D. Weber (eds.),
Quellen zur Geschichte des Partherreiches (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010, 3 vols.).
11 E. Habrich, Iamblichi Babyloniacorum Reliquiae (Leipzig: Teubner, 1960); translated
by G.N. Sandy in: B.P. Reardon (ed.), Collected Ancient Greek Novels (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1989), 783–798.
144 albert de jong
that the names of its main protagonists are Parthian,12 and that the plot
ultimately derives from Iranian epic,13 and even though it contains certain
developments that can only be understood from an Iranian background—
such as the fact that the dead must remain unburied—these Parthian
connections are habitually ignored and in fact the romance has been said
to be a “typical Greek romance set in exotic foreign parts.”14 Much the
same can, must and will be said (elsewhere) about Josephus’ narrative of
the conversion of the royal house of Adiabene to Judaism, of the Acts of
Thomas, equally figuring protagonists with characteristic Parthian names,
such as Bezhan, and that well-known little gem of Syriac literature that is
included in the Acts of Thomas, the Hymn of the Pearl.
I realize I am giving the impression of believing in a conspiracy, so I
should hasten to add that the main reason behind this state of affairs must
be sought in the failure on the part of Iranists to educate their colleagues,
or indeed to engage seriously with Parthian history and culture. The other
aspect that is at work here is, of course, the fact that our academic train-
ing, in the variety of fields involved in the study of such materials, condi-
tions us to see those things we know, at the risk of overlooking others.
This has been illustrated most convincingly by David Bivar in his book
on the Iranian god Mithra, with almost every conclusion and suggestion
of which I fiercely disagree, but which I admire nonetheless.15 He uses the
example of the art of Gandhara and writes, the following:
[. . .] in any field of scholarship, researchers see the elements which their
background and training condition them to see, and to overlook those with
which they are less familiar. A similar situation prevails with regard to the
analysis of the art of Gandhara in Central Asia [. . .].
It is [. . .] evident that this art depicts a highly cosmopolitan society.
Under the rule of the once-nomadic Kushan emperors, there prevailed in
Gandhara an élite made up of Tocharians and Kushans, Indo-Scythians, Par-
thians and other Iranians.[. . .]
The sometimes intense debates arising between scholars, concerning
the character and content of Gandharan art, more frequently reflect the
training and interests of the debaters than essential distinctions concern-
ing the society and its culture. For Mortimer Wheeler, champion of Roman
12 J. Oelsner, “Zur Bedeutung der ‘Graeco-Babyloniaca’ für die Überlieferung des Sum-
erischen und des Akkadischen,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Orientforschung 17 (1972):
356–365, p. 361, n. 23.
13 R. Merkelbach, Mithras (Königstein: Anton Hain, 1984), 253–259.
14 Millar, Roman Near East, 491.
15 A.D.H. Bivar, The Personalities of Mithra in Archaeology and Literature (New York:
Bibliotheca Persica Press, 1998).
archaeology, and arriving in the subcontinent by sea or air, the Classical

element of Gandhara was Roman. [. . .]
For Foucher and Schlumberger, viewing the scene from the perspective
of Afghanistan, Gandharan art was essentially of Greek derivation. [. . .]
For Heras and Coomaraswamy, the heritage of Gandhara was Indian, and
claims of Classical participation irrelevant. The Iranian element has had less
prominent advocates, but is equally perceptible: Parthians, Arachosians and
Zoroastrianism are certainly reflected. Yet to acknowledge the presence of
any of these factors in Gandhara art and society need not involve the denial
of others.16
Armed with such interests and thoroughly prepared by Bivar’s remarks,
I approached the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion with much interest, fully
preparing myself to apply to it the same trick as I intend to apply to these
other texts, that is to say, to show the presence in it of ideas, expressions,
or notions with an Iranian, and hopefully specifically Parthian, back-
ground. The editors of this volume, Annette Merz and Teun Tieleman,
have, moreover, recently suggested possible connections in this respect
in their contribution to the Festschrift for Pieter Willem Van der Horst,
and so their remarks there at least deserve careful consideration from
someone with a background in Iranian studies.17 But I think I have to
admit here that to speak of my hopes of finding such Iranian traces being
dashed would be a euphemism. For not only does the text seem to me to
be of purely Greek derivation, it actually contains a few statements that
go against some of the most important Parthian institutions, institutions
moreover that are fairly well attested in most of Commagene’s neighbour-
ing countries. I think I should mention at least two.
The first is its warm, indeed almost overly warm, celebration of litera-
ture, conceived of, as far I can make out, as written texts, possibly with
known authors. Although an invitation to devote one’s life to literature
may not strike a modern reader as something particularly shocking, it
differs markedly from the enjoyment of literature in the Iranian world,
including the Parthian commonwealth. It never occurred to the Iranians
in general, and to the Parthians in particular, to apply the art of writing
to the domain of literature. Several things were in the way: one, without a
doubt, was cultural snobbishness; Parthian aristocrats employed clerks to
16 Bivar, Personalities of Mithra, 6–8.

17 A. Merz & T. Tieleman, “The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion. Some Comments on its
Philosophical and Historical Context,” in: A. Houtman, A. de Jong & M. Misset-van de
Weg (eds.), Empsychoi Logoi. Religious Innovations in Antiquity. Studies in Honour of Pieter
Willem van der Horst (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 107–133.
146 albert de jong
do their writing and the indications are that they thought of it as a prac-
tical task that could safely be left to one’s servants. They also employed,
in some numbers, members of another social group, much higher on the
social ladder, for literary purposes: these are the gosāns, or minstrels, a
professional class of singers, whose presence was much enjoyed all over
the Parthian world.18 Their craft consisted of performing episodes from
religious as well as secular narratives, interweaving traditional motives
with matters of local or contemporary interest, including, of course, a lot
of panegyric to honour their patrons and their patrons’ families. This they
did either by giving these families a noble lineage tracing back to mythical
heroes of the religion or of early history, or by comparing their exploits
to those performed in mythical times by these same heroic figures. Freez-
ing such traditions in writing would not only threaten the whole class
of gosāns, but would probably also have seemed to destroy the general
purpose of literary works. The presence of gosāns in the Parthian com-
monwealth is not only attested for the Parthians themselves, but also for
Armenia and Georgia and, in stray indications, in Mesopotamia. When
it comes to traditions that were, indeed, frozen, these belonged to the
domain of the religion, were the prerogative of priests who memorized
the texts, and they were not to be written at all. So, the whole notion of
“reading” as a pleasant aspect of life is alien to the Parthian world—the
Parthians enjoyed literature very much, indeed, but it was literature that
was performed, not texts one would read privately.
The second small subject in the letter which would seem extremely odd
to a Parthian audience is the expression of amazement at people bring-
ing up children who are not their own: “For I am astounded at the many
who expose their children, and I am amazed at the others who bring up
children who are not their own.”19 These remarks seem to be part of the
rather gloomy atmosphere of certain parts of the letter—those, possibly,
with the greatest historical interest. They are probably connected, so that
the fact that there are people who take it upon them to look after lost chil-
dren is an act of mercy to counterbalance the ruthless acts of others who
have abandoned their offspring. It is still remarkable, however, from a Par-
thian perspective, for in Parthian society the custom of bringing up chil-
dren that are not one’s own is one of the best attested social institutions,
18 The evidence was brought together by M. Boyce, “The Parthian gosān and Iranian
Minstrel Tradition,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 89 (1957): 10–45.
19 Letter, 11 (transl. Rensberger).
especially among the ruling classes.20 The person performing this duty is
known as a dāyag, which in Persian means “wet nurse” and has often been
misinterpreted as such in texts of Parthian origin. The Parthian institu-
tion, well attested again in Georgia, Armenia and Mesopotamia, can best
be rendered as “noble fosterage,” for it implied that the children of noble
families were sent to be brought up in the houses of other noble families
of equally high rank, in a system intended to prevent family feuds and to
support solidarity among the ruling class. The system itself is also attested
for the Seleucids, but by no means as abundantly as it was in the Parthian
world. The bonds of love and responsibility between the fosterer and his
or her ward endured for life, which has recently been illustrated by two
new Greek inscriptions that were found in Georgia, inscribed on behalf of
a certain Anagranes, the fosterer of the Queen of the Iberians, who was
herself daughter of the Armenian king.21
The letter thus contains no evidence, as far as I can see, of the general
trends of the period of the countries belonging to the Parthian Empire,
of the “Parthian Commonwealth,” in other words. As to the possibilities
of other Iranian aspects in Mara’s philosophy, I shall come to this in a
moment, but it must be clear that if one wants to detect them, a different
historical reconstruction becomes necessary, including, most probably,
serious reflection on the religious situation in Commagene.22 First, I think
it would be useful to comment briefly on other aspects in the letter that
are relevant for the history of religions.
Any reader will notice that God occurs rather often in the text. Also
noticeable is the repeated occurrence of a word that has been translated
20 Although it is outdated, the best survey can still be found in G. Widengren, Der Feu-
dalismus im alten Iran: Männerbund, Gefolgswesen, Feudalismus in der iranischen Gesell-
schaft im Hinblick auf die indogermanischen Verhältnisse (Köln / Opladen: Westdeutscher
Verlag, 1969).
21 See for these new inscriptions (but disregarding all Iranian evidence), D. Braund,
“Anagranes the τροφεύς: the Court of Caucasian Iberia in the second–third centuries AD,”
in: O. Lordkipandze, D. Kacharava, M. Faudot & E. Geny (eds.), Autour de la Mer Noire:
Hommage à Otakar Lordkipanidzé (Besançon: Presses universitaires franc-comtoises,
2002), 23–34; important corrections (with evidence for the Iranian and local practice) in
G. Traina, “Un dayeak armeno nell’Iberia precristiana,” in: V. Calzolari, A. Sirinian & B.L.
Zekiyan (eds.), Bnagirk’ Yišatakac’. Documenta Memoriae. Dall’Italia e dall’Armenia: Studi
in onore di Gabriella Uluhogian (Bologna: Univ. di Bologna, 2004), 255–262.
22 Although some of the conclusions given there depend on assumptions that have
failed to win general consent, there is no better treatment of the subject than that of
M. Boyce & F. Grenet, A History of Zoroastrianism III. Zoroastrianism under Macedonian
and Roman Rule (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 309–352.
148 albert de jong
as Fate, but which is also the ordinary Syriac word for “time,” zabna. Only
once do we find the divine world “pluralized,” at the beginning of the
letter, where Mara quotes his comrades, who share his exile from their
native city, as saying: “Now we are far away from our families, and we
cannot return to our city, or see our parents, or receive our gods with
praise.”23 It is not a very revolutionary thing to say, but I found the use
of the plural elahin telling, precisely in this context. As long as Mara, the
philosopher, speaks words of wisdom and comfort to his son, God is this
single being who determines everything, who brings blessing and before
whom one can bring one’s grievances (the “God” of the philosophers, so
to speak). But the moment the memory of real life in a now distant home-
land makes itself felt, there is a whole network of relations to which one
belongs and the plurality of its social world is mirrored by the plurality of
its divine inhabitants. In his beautifully written and thought-provoking
essay “Towards Monotheism,” M.L. West ends with the words “People
are slow to adjust their religion to their philosophy.”24 I have serious
doubts whether he was right in stating this in these terms, for the two
domains—philosophical speculation and the actual practice of religion—
seem to belong to two different registers of human experience, the one as
detached as possible from day-to-day affairs, the other wholly informed by
it. Mara’s letter, in this respect, illustrates the differences well in its single
philosophical “lapse” into a pluralized spiritual world.
Annette Merz and Teun Tieleman have argued recently that there is a pos-
sible connection between Mara’s use of the word zabna in the meaning
“time” as well as “fate” and the variety of Zoroastrianism known as Zurvan-
ism, in which the first divine being, Zurvān, likewise carries associations of
both.25 Conversely, Professor Rensberger, while denying a connection with
Zurvanism, has posited some kind of dualism in Mara’s letter, with a good
God opposed to an evil Fate, and with the stated possibility that there would
be some kind of Iranian impact on this notion of a single God and his evil
Adversary.26 The name of Zurvan, it is generally known, means “time” or
23 Letter, 8 (transl. Rensberger).

24 M.L. West, “Towards Monotheism,” in: P. Athanassiadi & M. Frede (eds.), Pagan
Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 21–40, at p. 40.
25 Merz & Tieleman, “The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion,” 113–114.
26 It was summarized in this sense in Merz & Tieleman, “The Letter of Mara bar Sara-
pion,” 113; in the published version of Rensberger’s article, the position is stated in a more
circumspect way: D. Rensberger, “Reconsidering the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion,” in: E.M.
“age” and he is a minor deity in several Avestan texts.27 He is mainly known,

however, as the first divine being in a variant story of the Zoroastrian cos-
mogony, where he is seen as the father of the Two Spirits.28
That there was room for a father to these two was suggested, it is
thought, by a well-known, probably the best known, verse from the Gathas
(Y. 30.3), in which—according to one interpretation—the two spirits are
presented as “twins.”29 It appears, then, that one priest, pondering the
meaning of the verse, concluded that if they were twins, they were evi-
dently in need of a father.30 Alternatively, perhaps more likely, the notion
of a single god preceding the two spirits developed and this verse was
used to argue for it actually being part of the revelation. In other words,
we do not know exactly how the Zurvanite myth came into being.31 What
we do know, however, is the following.
From the fourth century BCE onwards, there are stray indications that
there were, among the Persians, alongside those who believed that the Two
Spirits, Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu, were eternal, uncreated beings,
others who believed that they were both the children of a god called Zur-
van, “Time.” In itself, this presents us with no more than a variant myth of
the cosmogony, and one that is not very dramatic in its consequences, for
it only concerns the prelude to the narrative—from the moment the two
have come into being, their natures are firmly established and the difficult
matter of their rights and duties has been settled, the story joins with the
better-known cosmogony, with the Two Spirits locked in battle, and the
Evil One lured into a trap.
Most of this has been known for a very long time, and also the com-
parative innocence of the story has been acknowledged by many. Oth-
ers, however, have shown considerably less restraint in speculating about
Meyers & P.V.M. Flesher (eds.), Aramaic in Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity
(Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 3–21, pp. 14–18.
27 K. Rezania, Die zoroastrische Zeitvorstellung. Eine Untersuchung über Zeit- und Ewig-
keitskonzepte und die Frage des Zurvanismus (Wiesbaden: Harassowitz Verlag, 2010).
28 Before the publication of Rezania’s study, the main work of reference was the hugely
problematic study of R.C. Zaehner, Zurvan. A Zoroastrian Dilemma (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1955).
29 The controversies over the interpretation of this verse are, however, considerable;
see J. Kellens & E. Pirart, “La strophe des jumeaux: stagnation, extravagance et autres
méthodes d’approche,” Journal Asiatique 285 (1997): 31–72.
30 M. Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism II. Under the Achaemenians (Leiden: Brill,
1982), 232.
31 S. Shaked, “The Myth of Zurvan. Cosmogony and Eschatology,” in: I. Gruenwald,
S. Shaked & G.G. Stroumsa (eds.), Messiah and Christos. Studies in the Jewish Origins of
Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 219–240.
150 albert de jong
the subject. In the first decades of the twentieth century, Zurvanism was
believed to have exerted an almost immeasurable influence on the Hel-
lenistic world, and particularly on its concept of aiōn.32 No one who has
ever read Robert Eisler’s Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt can possibly for-
get the caption “Zurvan als Fruchtknoten in der Mondblüte,” where this
venerable god, whom Eisler literally spotted everywhere, was transformed
even to the budding moon blossom.33 After this era of excess, scholars
naturally shied away, but the subject proved resilient and the next per-
son to almost ruin his reputation on it was Robert Charles Zaehner,
whose long study Zurvan. A Zoroastrian Dilemma is still regularly quoted,
even though it contains much, indeed, that is unsound. This was quickly
pointed out by Mary Boyce,34 who continued, however, Zaehner’s char-
acterization of Zurvanism—still as a system—as a Zoroastrian “heresy.”35
Both, furthermore, used it as virtually the only non-standard variety of
Zoroastrianism, which led them both, though in markedly different ways,
to attribute everything that was non-standard in whatever source to Zur-
vanism, which thus acquired a rich dossier of characteristics, all of them
somehow troublesome for the better-known variety of Zoroastrianism.
The result was, of course, that that variety of Zoroastrianism constantly
became “better-known” indeed and fewer and fewer scholars hesitated to
accept it as “orthodox” and to accept, furthermore, that it was the version
of the religion as the founder of the religion, Zarathushtra, had intended
it some 1500 years earlier.
When matters had reached this stage, one could predict that even in
the poorly staffed world of Iranian studies, someone was bound to protest.
Fortunately, that person was one of the great scholars of Iranian stud-
ies, Shaul Shaked, who made a valiant attempt to deflate the concept of
Zurvanism.36 So valiant, indeed, that he almost gave the impression of
wanting to get rid of it altogether. This clashes, in turn, with one strange
fact he chose to overlook, for it must have been well-known to him. This is
32 The most moderate voice in this period of extravagant scholarship is F. Junker, “Über
iranische Quellen der hellenistischen Aion-Vorstellung,” Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg
1 (1923): 125–178.
33 R. Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt: Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur
Urgeschichte des antiken Weltbildes (München: C.H. Beck, 1910), vol. 2, pp. 520–521.
34 M. Boyce, “Some Reflections on Zurvanism,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies 19 (1957): 304–316.
35 A defence of this usage can be found in M. Boyce, “On the Orthodoxy of Sasanian
Zoroastrianism,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 59 (1996): 11–28.
36 Shaked, “The Myth of Zurvan,” see also S. Shaked, Dualism in Transformation. Variet-
ies of Religion in Sasanian Iran (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1994).
the fact that when the Sasanians attempted to re-convert the Armenians
to Zoroastrianism, they brought to Armenia a version of their religion the
Armenians had never known: that characterized by the Zurvanite myth.
There were other differences between Armenian and Sasanian Zoroastri-
anism, but this is the most important, at least in the eyes of the Armenian
authors reporting on it, Eznik of Kołb and Ełiše Vardapet.37 This actually
fits rather well with the impression that the Zurvanite myth was a Persian
development, that is to say, belonged to Persia proper, south-western Iran.
This impression is not only based on the fact that there simply is no evi-
dence for knowledge of Zurvan in other parts of the Iranian world—in
Parthia, Bactria, Sogdiana, Khwarezmia, etc.—but also on a startling dif-
ference in the identification of the figures of the Manichaean pantheon by
the Persian and the Parthian Manichaeans.38 Although in both systems,
the figures of the Manichaean pantheon were identified with local, that
is, Zoroastrian, gods, these identifications—made by different authori-
ties, it is thought, the Persian ones by Mani himself, the Parthian ones
by Mar Ammo—show remarkable differences.39 The most notable—and
most discussed—of these is the presence of Zurvan in the Persian texts to
identify the Father of Greatness and his absence from the Parthian texts,
who use a real translation of that title.40
37 M.J. Blanchard & R.D. Young, A Treatise on God written in Armenian by Eznik of Kołb
(Leuven: Peeters, 1998); R.W. Thomson, Ełiše. History of Vardan and the Armenian War
(Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).
38 Fundamental for the subject is W. Sundermann, “Namen von Göttern, Dämonen und
Menschen in iranischen Versionen des manichäischen Mythos,” Altorientalische Forschun-
gen 6 (1979): 95–133. Sundermann is, however, extremely reluctant to draw any conclu-
sions from the materials he conveniently brought together there.
39 This has been explained in different ways by different authors. See, for example,
W.B. Henning, “Zum zentralasiatischen Manichäismus,” Orientalistische Literaturzeitung
37 (1934): 1–11, coll. 4–8; M. Boyce, “On Mithra in the Manichaean Pantheon,” in: W.B.
Henning & E. Yarshater (eds.), A Locust’s Leg. Studies in Honour of S.H. Taqizadeh (London:
Lund Humphries Publishers, 1962), 44–54; I. Gershevitch, “Die Sonne das Beste,” in: J.R.
Hinnells (ed.), Mithraic Studies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975), 69–89;
Sundermann, “Namen von Göttern.” A substantial review of the evidence is to be found
in the seventh chapter of M. Boyce & A. de Jong, A History of Zoroastrianism IV: Parthian
Zoroastrianism. Volume I: Parthia and the Parthians (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).
40 The best illustration of this comes from the Middle Iranian versions of Mani’s Psalms,
which have recently been published (D. Durkin-Meisterernst & E. Morano, Mani’s Psalms.
Middle Persian, Parthian and Sogdian Texts in the Turfan Collections, Turnhout, 2010). The
Middle Persian version opens with the following introductory formula: “This is the worship
that Mar Mani, the Apostle of Jesus Aryaman offered by the will of God Zurvan, when he
uncovered and taught the greatness and the concealed secrets.” In the Parthian and Sog-
dian versions one finds a reference to “the father of the gods” where the Middle Persian
version has the name Zurvan.
152 albert de jong
In order to come to grips with the possibility of “Zurvanite” elements in

the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion, two things should be clear by now. The
first is that the discussion of Zurvanism in general must be reopened and
that as long as the subject has not really found a balanced treatment, it
will be difficult to use it for the interpretation of Mara’s Letter. I see some
problems there, I must admit, because I do not see how either the sugges-
tions of Merz and Tieleman or that of Rensberger can be made to work in
an Iranian context. There is, on the one hand, no evidence for a continued
veneration of Zurvan—he is not a high god who still governs the earth; in
fact, the myth was there partly to establish Ahura Mazda as the legitimate
deity in this role, so that I would know of no Iranian counterpart to a God
who brings blessing but also pain and destitution. And although the notion
of laying up treasures in heaven is very well attested in Iran, it is by no means
unique to it, and it is only rarely combined with the pessimism of other
passages. On the other hand, the suggestion of Rensberger would oppose
a just God to an evil Fate, for which there are no Iranian parallels either.
The second thing is this: within the dossier on Zurvanism, of which
certain aspects of the Letter may become an important part, is the ques-
tion of the inscriptions from Commagene and their handling of terms for
“unbounded time” or “unbounded period.” Commagene is, very much like
Gandhara, a land where specialists from various academic backgrounds
have seen their own discipline dominant, but a good case has been made,
I think, for the possibility that some kind of Iranian notion of unbounded
time played a role in the constitution of the text, together with those
Iranian aspects that are obvious: the gods, the priests and their vest-
ments, the barsom-bundles etc.41 If there is a satisfactory interpretation
of this—and this would also apply to the presence of such elements in
Mara’s letter—it can most satisfactorily be explained as a “Persian” tradi-
tion guarded in Commagene much longer than previously realized, not
as a “Parthian” tradition introduced locally. While this is possible—there
are many similar examples in the case of neighbouring Armenia—as a
conclusion it is evidently much too fragile to use in the interpretation of
Mara’s Letter.
41 Boyce & Grenet, A History of Zoroastrianism III, 332–333.

Many scholars will say that we do not need Iran to explain Mara bar
Sarapion. I agree, but I have always felt very uncomfortable with that type
of argument. Iranian notions of time and fate may very well have played
a role in Mara’s ideas—we just don’t know yet, but even playing the pos-
sibility will force us to reconsider the evidence for the history of Zoroas-
trianism in this extremely poorly documented period. And unfortunately
for us, the one thing we do not possess is unbounded time.
WHERE IS WISDOM TO BE FOUND?
A PLEA IN FAVOR OF SEMITIC INFLUENCES IN THE LETTER OF
MARA BAR SARAPION
I. Preamble
It leaps to the eye that the publications devoted to the Letter of Mara bar
Sarapion so far have paid much attention to influence(s) from Hellenistic
philosophy,1 but have given hardly attention to the possibility that Semitic
wisdom tradition(s) might be a serious background as well. David Rens-
berger is one of the very few scholars who advocate such a broader scope.2
He propounds “that Mara has not by any means abandoned the literary
and intellectual traditions of Western Asia in his enthusiastic embrace
of Hellenism.”3 Undoubtedly, Mara bar Sarapion “apparently wanted to
create a fusion that combines the best of both cultures; and he does so in
Aramaic.”4 Rensberger suspects “that Mara was intentionally combining
two rhetorical traditions and intellectual cultures, giving pride of place to
Hellenism but allowing each to enrich the other, precisely because he saw
common values, such as modesty, self-restraint, and acceptance of fate, in
both of them.”5
1 Especially Stoic influence or Stoic colouring has been advocated or discussed. See, e.g.,
F. Schulthess, “Der Brief des Mara bar Sarapion: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der syrischen
Literatur,” ZDMG 51 (1897): 381–391; K.E. McVey, “A Fresh Look at the Letter of Mara Bar
Sarapion to his Son,” in V Symposium Syriacum 1988 (ed. R. Lavenant; Orientalia Christiana
Analecta 236; Rome 1990), 261–270; M.A. Speidel, “Early Roman Rule in Commagene,” SCI
24 (2005): 95; A. Merz and T. Tieleman, “The Letter of Mara Bar Sarapion: Some Comments
on its Philosophical and Historical Context,” Empsychoi Logoi—Religious Innovations in
Antiquity: Studies in Honour of Pieter Willem van der Horst (ed. A. Houtman, A. de Jong
and M. Misset-van de Weg; Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 73; Leiden: Brill 2008),
107–122.
2 D. Rensberger, “Reconsidering the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion,” Aramaic in Postbib-
lical Judaism and Early Christianity: Papers from the 2004 NEH Summer Seminar at Duke
University (ed. Eric M. Meyers and Paul V.M. Flesher; Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns
2010), 3–21.
3 Rensberger, “Reconsidering,” 7.
156 pancratius c. beentjes
Therefore, I think it is time to make a try to support Rensberger’s view

and adduce further evidence for it by pointing to some themes in Mara’s
Letter that certainly have or at least might have a Semitic background too.
For apart from Rensberger’s reference to the Book of Lamentations and
Proverbs, quite a few more late Biblical and deuterocanonical documents
might be mentioned relating to themes occurring in the Letter of Mara
bar Sarapion.
Since Mara’s letter has presumably been written after 72 CE, the pos-
sibility that Mara could have had knowledge of Israel’s wisdom literature
should not immediately be brushed aside. Far from offering an exhaustive
enumeration, in any case documents such as the Book of Qohelet (250–
200 BCE) and the Book of Ben Sira (190–175 BCE) are serious options.6
One should not exclude the possibility that even the Book of Wisdom
(first half of the first Century CE) was known in Commagene / Samosata.7
And moreover, we may not exclude the possibility that Mara’s Letter to
some extent even reflects Egyptian wisdom traditions, such as found in
the Instruction of Ankhsheshonqy and in the so-called Papyrus Insinger /
Phibis.8 In my view, Mara bar Sarapion’s Letter in fact is teeming with
themes and topoi that certainly are not confined to Stoic or Hellenistic
provenance only.
6 Th. Krüger, Kohelet (Prediger) (BK XIX Sonderband; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag
2000), 39; G. Sauer, Jesus Sirach/Ben Sira (ATD Apokryphen, Band 1; Göttingen: Vanden-
hoeck & Ruprecht 2000), 22; P.W. Skehan – A.A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira (AB 39;
New York: Doubleday 1987), 9. The Greek translation by Ben Sira’s grandson is usually
dated between 132 and 117 BCE.
7 The Book of Wisdom most probably has been written “to offer hope and consola-
tion to the Alexandrian Jewish community, which experienced a severe persecution in
the riot during the reign of Gaius Caligula (37–41 CE)”: S. Cheon, The Exodus Story in the
Wisdom of Solomon: A Study in Biblical Interpretation (JSPSup 23; Sheffield: Sheffield Aca-
demic Press 1997), 13. “. . . the date of Wisd. cannot be earlier than the Augustan age, and
that very likely (though by no means decisively) it was written in the first half of the first
century CE . . . There are further considerations, however, which point to the reign of Gaius
‘Caligula’ (37–41 CE) as the likeliest setting for Wisd”: D. Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon
(AB 43; New York: Doubleday 31982), 23.
8 M. Lichtheim, Late Egyptian Wisdom Literature in the International Context: A Study of
Demotic Instructions. OBO 52; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1983; J.T. Sanders, Ben
Sira and Demotic Wisdom (SBL Monograph Series 28; Chico: Scholars Press 1983), 61–106.
where is wisdom to be found? 157
II. Basic Structures
1. Form
(1) The address ‘my son’, which in Mara bar Sarapion’s Letter is found six
times (§§ 1, 4, 6, 13, 14, 28), in the first place of course refers to his next
of kin.9 However, there is at least a double entendre in it, since in wisdom
literature these opening words nearly always function as the standard
form of addressing one’s disciple.10 Mara’s phrase: “Keep my instructions
diligently in mind” (§ 4) is not far from, for example, Ben Sira’s appeal
“Listen, my son, and take my advice; do not refuse my counsel” (Sir. 6:23)
or “Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom for
the future” (Prov. 19:20). Of course, Mara from time to time brings family
ties to the fore. However, the emphasis in his Letter is indisputably put on
his son’s pursuit of and commitment to wisdom, seeking to lead a pure
life; in other words, Mara is emphasizing the ideals with which every wis-
dom teacher instructs his disciples.
(2) An important distinctive feature in Mara’s letter is the use of the
exhortation / admonition, which is found at least twenty times in the doc-
ument.11 The function of this literary feature is “to urge on readers the
proper patterns of behaviour and right thinking.”12 This type of mashal
is typical of and frequently used in wisdom literature, as can easily be
demonstrated.13
9 All English quotations from Mara bar Sarapion’s Letter have been adopted from the
provisional English translation provided by David Rensberger.
10 See, e.g., Prov. 4:1; 5:1; 6:1.20; 7:1; Sir. 2:1; 3:12. 17; 4:1. 20; 6:18; Instruction of Suruppak,
lines 31, 150, 166, 208, 220, 245 (W.H.Ph. Römer, “Rat des Schuruppag,” in: Weisheitstexte I
(TUAT III/1), 48–67); W. von Soden, “Ratschläge und Warnungen für rechtes und falsches
Tun und Reden,” in: Weisheitstexte I (TUAT III/1), 164–166, line 1, line 81; Aḥiqar VI, 8; X, 2
(I. Kottsieper, “Die Geschichte und die Sprüche des weisen Achiqar,” in: Weisheitstexte I
(TUAT III/2), 330.336.
11 “Be diligent” (§ 4); “Make this your plan” (§ 4); “Keep my instructions” (§ 4); “Con-
duct yourself ” (§ 6); “Rather think thus” (§ 10); “Rather derive” (§ 10); “Consider then”
(§ 11); “And see” (§ 11); “Begin . . .” (§ 12); “And see” (§ 12); “Choose yourself ” (§ 14); “Apply
yourself to literature” (§ 15); “Remember this, too . . .” (§ 16); “So then, rid yourself of the
sorrow” (§ 23); “Commit yourself to wisdom” (§ 24); “Be fully conversant” (§ 25); “Be dili-
gent in these things” (§ 25); “First of all subdue desire” (§ 28); “and moderate it” (§ 28); “Be
equal to the circumstances” (§ 28).
12 Skehan – Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 26.
13 See, for instance, Instruction of Ankhsheshonqy 6:1–7; 16:7–11; Prov. 4:20–27; 5:1–2;
7:1–5; Sir. 2:1–4; 3:17–18; 4:7–10.
(3) Another typical literary feature of wisdom literature we come across

in Mara’s letter is the prohibitive / vetitive (“Do not . . .”), which is also
found several times in it: “Do not let possessions weaken you” (§ 6); “Do
not let your mind be turned” (§ 6); “Do not be sad” (§ 10); “Do not lay the
blame on anyone” (§ 14); “Do not be angry at God” (§ 14); “Do not rail
against your fate” (§ 14). This type of negative injunction is already found
in Akkadian literature.14 It is present in the New Kingdom Instructions
of Any and Amenemope (e.g. XIX, 18; XXII, 1–4 and is widespread in later
wisdom literature too.15
(4) Four times in his new and fresh translation Rensberger has used
poetic lines to emphasize the rhythms and parallelisms, which “sound bib-
lical to the Western ear because they sound Semitic. Formally speaking,
they could come from the Book of Lamentations, or from Proverbs; or they
could come from Aḥiqar. This is not the voice of Hellenistic philosophy
but that of Semitic wisdom tradition speaking in its own accents.”16
2. Content
I would like to note that at least at one particular point one could or should
criticize David Rensberger’s contention that “[t]he letter shows acquain-
tance with a number of standard Greco-Roman rhetorical τόποι, including
those on exile, friendship, and wealth and love of money.”17 Especially the
theme of friendship can hardly be confined to the Greco-Roman world,
since it has already, and in a quite abundant way, also been documented
in Egypt, e.g. Instruction of Ptahhotep (section 33–35), Instruction of Any
(5:7–8), Papyrus Insinger (11:23–12:18), in Mesopotamia (Aḥiqar),18 and
Israel (specifically The Book of Ben Sira).19
Right from the start, it goes without saying that Mara’s Letter is charac-
terized by a great deal of topics and themes that are not specifically typical
of Hellenistic philosophy or literature, but are to be considered familiar
to and widespread in Near Eastern wisdom literature. We will now give
14 E.g. in the so-called Councils of Wisdom: “Do not set your mind on evil / hostility”;
W.G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, Oxford: Clarendon 1960, 100–103.
15 See, for instance, Instruction of Ankhsheshonqy 6:10–24; 7:3–24; 9:5–14; Louvre Demotic
Papyrus 2414 colums II–III; Papyrus Insinger 3:1–22; Prov. 3:7.11.27–31; Sir. 4:1–6; 9:1–12.
18 Aḥiqar (Sayings 9–10; 15).
19 J. Corley, Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship (Brown Judaic Studies 316), Providence RI
2002; F.V. Reiterer (ed.), Freundschaft bei Ben Sira (BZAW 244), Berlin: De Gruyter 1996.
a broad outline of some themes and topics to be found in Mara’s Letter,

which are not confined to the Greco-Roman world, neither to Hellenistic
literature, but were already present in Near Eastern wisdom literature.
III. Themes
1. La Condition Humaine
Several times in his letter, Mara bar Sarapion explicitly refers to the state
of human life and the situation of the human race which he himself has
examined:
– “Therefore I have written this record for you of my inquiries in the world.
For I have inquired into human life. . . .” (§ 3)
– “All these things that appear to you in the world as they seem to be
are to pass away in a little while like a dream; for they are simply the
ups and downs of fate, and the empty splendor of which human life is
full.” (§ 6)20
– “[F]or it is to these things that human beings are born, to receive the
disasters of fate.” (§ 10)
– “What then can we say of the delusion that makes its home in the world
and leads it along with heavy labor. . . .” (§ 11)
– “For I have seen myself that as goods increase, so also griefs occur.”
(§ 15)
– “Now I have examined the human race, my son, in what a miserable
ruin they exist, and I am stunned that they have not been overthrown
by the evils that surround them.” (§ 19)
– “For I have tested the human race and here are the results of my testing
them. . . .” (§ 22)
– “So then, rid yourself of the sorrow of which people are so fond, some-
thing that never produces any benefit. . . .” (§ 23)
– “[B]e redeemed without grief from the world’s terrible destruction.”
(§ 29)
20 Since there is a huge literature with respect of the term ‘fate’ in Mara’s Letter, I will
refrain from discussing this specific question.
Both the content and the notably negative tone of these observations
immediately reminds one of the Book of Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) from the
second half of the third century BCE:
– “I, the Teacher, . . . applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom
all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has
given to human beings to be busy with.” (Qoh. 1:13)21
– “And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and
folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind.” (Qoh. 1:17)22
2. The Pursuit of Wisdom
Throughout his Letter, Mara is constantly emphasizing that the pursuit of

wisdom is the most valuable achievement a person can gain: “For we put
ourselves to the test so as to persist in wisdom and joy” (§ 27). In my view,
it is not by chance that this is explicitly brought to the fore in the very first
poetic section of the Letter:
For people who are called to discipline
seek to be redeemed from the struggle of fate,
and those who lay hold of wisdom
adhere to the hope of justice;
those who persevere in the truth
display the banner of their virtue,
and those who make philosophy their occupation
look to escape from the griefs of the world. (§ 5)
Later on in the Letter, it is phrased this way:
Commit yourself to wisdom, the fountain of all good things, the treasure
that never runs out; there you shall lay your head and find rest. For it will be
father and mother to you, the benevolent companion of your life. (§ 24)
The importance of pursuing wisdom is a major topic in Ancient Israel
literature, especially in the Book of Proverbs, and in the Book of Ben Sira.
It hardly can be coincidence that, just as is the case in Mara’s Letter, wis-
dom is personified or is represented as a next of kin (Prov. 1:20–33; 8:1–36;
9:1–12; Sir. 4:11–19).
21 Unless otherwise stated, all Biblical quotations are from The Holy Bible. New Revised
Standard Version with Apocrypha, Oxford 1995.
22 See also Qoh. 7:25.
3. Wealth and Possessions
In Mara’s Letter a number of times we come across statements in which

wisdom is preferred above wealth:
– “For no one has ever been divorced from wisdom as one might be from
possessions.” (§ 14)
– “If you are able to do without possessions, then you will be called for-
tunate, for then no one will be envious of you.” (§ 16)
– “Remember this, too, that nothing will disturb your life very much
except possessions.” (§ 17)
This approach is very similar to some observations and advices in wisdom

literature of Ancient Israel, specifically in the Book of Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth)
and in the Book of Ben Sira:
– “Wisdom is as good as an inheritance, and an advantage to those who see

the sun. For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money,
and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to the one
who possesses it.” (Qoh. 7:11–12)
– “Do not rely on your wealth; do not say: ‘I have the power.’
Do not count on your mind and strength in pursuing your own
desires.
Do not say: ‘Who can prevail against me?’ for YHWH will exact the
punishment.” (Sir. 5:1–3)23
4. Wealth and Death
In Mara’s Letter one encounters a topic that is closely related to the theme
of wealth and possessions, viz. the interrelationship of possessions and
death:
Remember this, too, that nothing will disturb your life very much except
possessions; that after death no one was ever regarded as possessing any-
thing. For frail humans are captivated by desire for them, never realizing
that one lives with one’s possessions like a passerby. (§§ 16–17)
23 Translation by Skehan-Di Lella, 179 with some alterations of my own.

That this was a widespread view in the Ancient Near East indeed can eas-
ily be demonstrated with the help of the following quotations that were
collected from quite different periods and sources:
– “For remember and behold: In Sheol no one can use his goods,
and wealth does not accompany you to the house of death.” (Pseudo-
Menander, no. 66)24
– “Being rich do not skimp, remember that you are mortal.
Wealth and possessions will not follow you into Hades.” (Pseudo-
Phocylides, 109–110)25
– “Do not be afraid when some become rich, when the wealth of their
houses increases.
For when they die they will carry nothing away; their wealth will not go
down after them.” (Ps. 49:16–17)
– “A person may become rich through a miser’s life, and this is his allot-
ted reward:
When he says: ‘I have found rest, now I will feast my own possessions,’
he does not know how long it will be till he leaves them to others and
dies.” (Sir. 11:18–19)26
5. Wealth and Evil
Mara in his Letter warns that wealth might have another negative side
effect:
For as possessions increase, evil likewise increases. For I have seen myself
that
as goods increase, | so also griefs occur;
and where luxuries are conveyed, | there also pains gather;
and where riches abound, | there are many bitter agonies. (§ 15)27
Compare:
Happy the rich found without fault, who turns not aside after wealth!
Who is he, that we may praise him? He, of all his kindred, has done wonders,
For he has been tested by gold and come off safe, and this remains his
glory:
24 Lichtheim, Late Egyptian Wisdom Literature, 157.

26 Translation by Skehan-Di Lella, 236.
27 Observe that this is a poetic section too!
He could have gone wrong but did not, could have done evil but would not,
so that his possessions are secure, and the assembly recounts his praises.
(Sir. 31:8–11)28
6. Virtues and Praise
A couple of times, Mara bar Sarapion brings up the question how people
will be remembered, an important aspect of ancient society:
– “People’s lives, my son, vanish from the world; but their praises and their
virtues endure forever.” (§ 13)
– “Be diligent in these things and you will lead a tranquil life, and you will
be a source of relief to me, because you will be called ‘the ornament of
his ancestors’.”(§ 25)29
– “The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked
will rot.” (Prov. 10:7)
– “Many will praise his understanding; his fame can never be effaced.
Unfading will be his memory, through all generations his name will
live.
The congregation will speak of his wisdom, and the assembly will
declare his praises.
While he lives he is one of a thousand, and when he dies he leaves a
good name.” (Sir. 39:9–11)30
– “At gatherings their wisdom is retold, and the assembly declares his
praises.” (Sir. 44:15)31
7. God’s Help
At least two times in his Letter, Mara is rather explicit as to God’s interfer-
ence in favor of the wise:
– “So if you show understanding and are diligently observant, God will
not cease to help you, nor people to love you.” (§ 16)
28 Translation by Skehan-Di Lella 379.

29 Literally: “the ornament of his fathers.”
– “For God rightly exacted retribution on behalf of the wisdom of these

three.” (§ 18)32
– “Trust God and he will help you.” (Sir. 2:6)
– “Even to death fight for truth, and YHWH will battle for you.”
(Sir. 4:28)
– “The Lord’s gift remains with the just; his favor brings lasting success.”
(Sir. 11:17)33
– “Leave your affairs in the hand of the god.” (Ankhseshonqy 11:23)34
– “All good fortune is from the hand of the god.” (Ankhseshonqy 20:6)35
– “It is into the heart that the god looks.” (Ankhseshonqy 26:11)36
8. Theodicy
In Mara’s Letter we even find traces of what could be referred to as

theodicy:
– “And when something bad happens to you, do not lay the blame on
anyone, do not be angry at God, do not rail against your fate.” (§ 14)
– “So the wicked rejoice and the just suffer abuse.” (§ 20)
– “But if what will be has been determined, we will receive nothing more
than the peaceful death that is reserved for us.” (§ 27)
Since theodicy in the Ancient Near East is a study in its own,37 here we
only refer to a couple of quotations from that area:
– “The fate and the fortune that come, it is the god who sends them.”
(Papyrus Insinger 29:11; 33:6)38
– “Fate and retaliation go around and bring about what he [scil., the god]
has commanded.” (Papyrus Insinger 33:2)39
32 These three, viz. Socrates, Pythagoras, and the wise king of the Jews.
37 See e.g. A. Laato & J.C. de Moor (eds.), Theodicy in the World of the Bible, Leiden:
Brill 2003.
38 Lichtheim, Late Egyptian Wisdom Literature, 227. 231.
– “All this I lead to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise
and their deeds are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hate one
does not know.” (Qoh. 9:1)
9. Time
If in the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion the much disputed noun zebna’ is
rendered ‘time’ instead of ‘fate’, a link to this theme in the Book of Qohelet,
specifically to 3:1–8, should be emphasized.40
In my firm belief there has been adduced enough evidence to advance

the thesis that the content of Mara bar Sarapion’s Letter is not dominated
by Hellenistic philosophical ideas in the first place, but has its basis in a
broader cultural inheritance of the Ancient Near East.
40 For a quick outline of the discussion relating to the rendering of zebna’, see Merz and
Tieleman, “Letter of Mara Bar Sarapion,” 113–116.
MARA BAR SARAPION AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY
David L. Blank
The letter Mara writes to his son Sarapion is at once familiar and surpris-
ing. It is a letter from prison, but clearly also a literary composition. Is its
form that of a letter or a piece of wisdom literature? Is its genre that of
a consolatio or of a protreptic to philosophy? When we think we know,
Mara does the unexpected.
The piece begins correctly enough as a letter, with sender, addressee
and greeting (§ 1). It continues with its occasion for writing, though there
is no closing or farewell, and it is quite possible that much, if not all, of
the “letter” is a later invention. What comes after the greeting, however,
could equally belong to a consolatio, having its captatio benevolentiae in
the excuse for writing and praise of the addressee, then an exhortatio to
his son to keep up with his studies in the tranquility of discipline (§ 2).
What is missing is an acknowledgement of the misfortune for which con-
solation would be wanted. Then, when he speaks of wisdom (§§ 4–5), all
these elements seem to merge in an exhortation to philosophy, except
that the result of acquiring wisdom is not said to be achievement in phi-
losophy or the satisfaction of curiosity, but invulnerability and a good
reputation (§ 5, see also §§ 14, 25). With the mention of invulnerability,
Mara’s letter begins to sound like a consolation again, while the talk of
good reputation sounds like anything other than philosophy, unless it be
Aristotle, who thought that what people called someone was prima facie
evidence for his being such. The easiest explanation for all this is that
what we have is not an original letter, but a rhetorical composition, which
was perhaps based on an original letter, or on the report of one, but might
also have been based on what was traditionally thought about Mara bar
Sarapion, someone who was enough of a figure in the Syrian imagination
to have been the subject of chreiai, such as the one at the close of the
preserved letter.1
1 Thus, Chin, “Rhetorical Practice in the Chreia Elaboration of Mara bar Serapion,”
Hugoye 9.2 (2006), speaks of the letter as a “chreia-elaboration,” a rhetorical exercise
in evoking a particular persona (prosopopoeia) based on a pre-existing apophthegm or
chreia.
168 david l. blank
The same can be said for its philosophy. Mara says that what he has
learnt and what he will relate here is the product of his own Greek edu-
cation and his own investigations of humanity (§ 3). Many of Mara’s sen-
timents can be paralleled from Greek philosophy, particularly from the
Stoa. But often, when we think we know what philosophical point is being
made, Mara does the unexpected.
Mara begins by saying how pleased he is to hear from his son’s teacher
that he is diligent in his studies. Sarapion’s intelligence and sense are unusual
for a youth with no one to guide him, and that is a reason for Mara to write
this memoir of his inquiries in the world. Mara has inquired into human
life—a typical claim of wisdom literature—and also acquired learning, and
it is his Hellenic learning which let him discover what he now writes, since
it is fitting for the free. So Sarapion should study the things which befit free
men: reflection on literature and the pursuit of wisdom. He should resolve
to continue as he has begun: though it may at first be bitter, it will eventu-
ally be pleasant, as Mara himself has learnt (§§ 2–4).
We may assume, then, that Mara’s letter transmits a summary of what
he himself has learnt by his own Hellenic studies and also of what he
promises that Sarapion will learn, if he perseveres in his studies. Mara is
not very specific about these studies, saying that they are Hellenic and
liberal. The initial description sounds very much like the famous Hellenic
paideia, sometimes called enkyklios paideia, everyday or general educa-
tion. In the context of Hellenistic philosophy, a distinction is usually
drawn between the everyday education in liberal arts, those befitting a
“free” man,2 and philosophy itself, to which the arts are often thought of
as preliminaries, like the handmaidens of Penelope.3 The Stoics did allow
for a more advanced understanding of literature, in which one recog-
nises the ancient proto-philosophy in the poets, or of music, in which one
learns the powers of music to educate and moderate the emotions.4 Yet
they would not have considered “learning” itself a proper goal, as is clear
2 The enkyklios paideia is frequently associated in Greek texts with eleutherios (“free”)
or eleutheria (“freedom”). It is from this association that the artes liberales have their name:
the studies which befit a free man; see I. Hadot, Arts libéraux et philosophie dans la pensée
antique, Études Augustiniennes (Paris: Vrin, 1984).
3 See Ps.-Plutarch, De liberis educandis 10.7, where the arts are compared by Bion of
Borysthenes to the handmaidens of Penelope, with whom Penelope’s suitors slept, since
they could not have Penelope herself; see also Aristippus and Aristo of Chios at Diogenes
Laertius (hereafter abbreviated D.L.) 2.79–80. Other images are used by, e.g., Xenocrates
at D.L. 4. 10 (= fr. 2 Isnardi) and Aristotle at D.L. 5.31.
4 See, e.g., A.A. Long, “Stoic Readings of Homer,” in: R. Lamberton and J.J. Keaney, eds.,
Homer’s Ancient Readers (Princeton: Princeton U.P. 1992), 41–66 and D. Blank, “Reading
mara bar sarapion and greek philosophy 169
from various scornful remarks of Epictetus. Further, as Seneca and Philo

make clear, one can not achieve “wisdom” or philosophy by studying the
liberal arts.5 But in Mara’s letter it appears that the result of Sarapion’s
studies will be “wisdom” (§§ 4, 5, 14, 24, 27), conceivably a very broad
term, which in Mara’s letter is chiefly characterised by allowing its pos-
sessor to lead an undisturbed life. The Greek term philosophia is used only
in one of Mara’s isosyllabic verses (§ 5), and can hardly be taken to indi-
cate that he thinks of his studies as ‘philosophical’ in any strong sense.
One might rather be tempted to look to the “wisdom” literature to parallel
the sentiments he expresses.
As Mara apparently makes no claim to have studied philosophy, it is
also not clear that Mara’s letter is meant as a piece of philosophy or a
protreptic to philosophy. Yet it is certainly ‘philosophical’ in the common
sense of that word. In that case, how will we understand the question of
whether Mara is a Stoic? Much in the letter certainly sounds ‘Stoic’, again
in the common sense of the term, calling for acceptance of the vicissitudes
which time brings. Much also begins to sound ‘Stoic’ in a more restricted
sense, saying that wisdom and an elimination of the desire for possessions
will make Sarapion immune to vicissitude. Mara’s theme that wisdom is
the only lasting possession and can not be taken away also sounds quite
Stoic. The other goal Mara puts before Sarapion, that of gaining a good
reputation (§§ 5, 14, 25), on the other hand, does not seem to fit with what
is said by Stoic philosophers. Other statements in the letter too comport
uneasily with Stoic philosophy.
Thus, Mara says that god exacted retribution on behalf of the wisdom of
Socrates and others (§ 18). When evil men suffered misfortunes, the Stoics
interpreted those as being “chastisements,” but as Aristotle says (Rhet. 2.
10, 1369b13), “chastisement” (kolasis) is not the same as “punishment” or
“vengeance” (timôria): chastisement is for the sake of the wrongdoer who
suffers it, while punishment is for the sake of the punisher, to satisfy his
feelings. If the Athenians or Samians were wiped out, that can hardly be
counted a “chastisement” for their improvement, though god might mean
to make of them an example for others.6
between the Lies: Plutarch and Chrysippus on the Uses of Poetry,” Oxford Studies in Ancient
Philosophy 40 (2011): 237–264.
5 Seneca, Ep. mor. 88.1–20, and Philo Alexandrinus, De congressu eruditionis gratia 9–14,
71–80.
6 See Chrysippus’ interpretation of Hesiod, Opera 242, at Plutarch, De Stoicorum repug-
nantiis 15, 1040 C (SVF II 1175), with my discussion, infra.
170 david l. blank
Teun Tieleman and Annette Merz have written that Mara’s letter “is
based on a coherent world view in which specific conceptions of Fate or
God are brought to bear on the condition humaine” and also that Mara
is “sensitive to the technical distinctions of Stoic moral theory.” With-
out being a scholar of Syriac, I cannot judge the extent to which some of
Mara’s terms are calques of Stoic technical terms, for example whether
the word translated “appropriate” represents the Stoics’ technical kath-
êkon or perhaps the not necessarily technical prepon or prosêkon, or even
just plain “fitting” or “suitable.”
Certainly, Tieleman and Merz are right to say that the most repeated
claims of Mara’s letter are more Stoic than Platonist. For my part, in this
brief essay, I shall examine some of the central points of Mara’s letter,
pointing to the role they play in their contexts and comparing both these
points and their role in context, to Stoic views.
When Mara writes (§ 23) [= 190 ff. Schulthess] that Sarapion must put
his precepts into practice, he says that this way of life will become very
pleasant for him and put him beyond the vexation that men endure in
order to acquire wealth. Striving for wealth never produces any benefit,
but only sorrow and worry: in order to extirpate these, Sarapion must
avoid the desire for wealth. It is possible that Mara means by all this some-
thing like the Stoic doctrine that we must extirpate all our passions as
being irrational, and that we should then be able to experience rational
good feelings, such as joy. Indeed, Schulthess translates the concluding
sentence (190 ff.): “Auch ich weiß nämlich, daß, wenn du diese Lebensart
prüfst, sie dir Freude machen wird und du frei sein wirst von schlimmer
Aufregung [Affekten].”7
But is Schulthess’ interpretation plausible? In its context, these lines of
Mara seem to refer to pains and worries, the consequence of greed, not
to passions in general. If greed is taken broadly enough, it could perhaps
refer to all desires, which in turn are the root of all fears and all passions;
and Mara does say (§ 14, 115 f.) that Sarapion will live fearlessly and joy-
fully, since fear and natural self-defence exist for the benefit of the lawless,
not for the wise. Yet it also seems that Mara’s concern is really directed
to avarice, the desire for riches, in particular. That is what he is con-
stantly naming, though few philosophers would find greed itself sufficient
7 E. Schulthess, “Der Brief des Mara bar Sarapion,” Ztschr. d. deutschen Morgenländis-
chen Gesellschaft 51 (1897): 365–391, at 373.
to be the root of all our harmful passions (the sentiment expressed in

1 Timothy 6:10, “radix malorum est cupiditas,” notwithstanding). Is he
allowing the desire for wealth to stand in for all desires, or does he per-
haps have an idea that all desires are permutations of the desire for wealth
and all pains are its result? That could be similar to Lucretius’ thesis that
the fear of death was, in various guises, the root of human misery in gen-
eral. But making the desire for wealth itself the fundamental vice is rather
less plausible than Lucretius’ thesis, which places the fear of death at the
root of the desire for wealth, interpreted as a bastion against vulnerability
and death. For wealth is an instrumental good, desired for what it can
buy, whether that be luxury, power, fame, security or anything else; it is
not an end in itself.
At the end of his letter, Mara instructs his son that, if he wishes to
understand things thoroughly, he must first of all persuade his desire and
moderate it; he must be equal to the circumstances in which he finds
himself, so that he does not become angry, and instead of suffering rage,
he would obey graciously. This sounds partly Stoic, partly un-Stoic. For it
advocates, not extirpation of desire, but its moderation, which is better
suited to Aristotle than to the extremist Stoics. Also, the advice to control
desire first, in order to understand things, is rather dubiously Stoic: it is
understanding which allows one to see how not to suffer emotions. That
he should obey or accept with grace or even thanks—David Rensberger,
in his notes, connects the word with the Greek term charis—circum-
stances which would drive most men to rage, does sound Stoic, however.
That is in the spirit of Epictetus, for example, who says that, if a rational
creature thinks that his own good and advantage is found only in those
things which are unhindered and in his power, it will be free, successful,
happy, safe from harm, great-minded, pious, thankful to god for all things,
never criticizing anything that happens, or accusing anything (Epictetus,
Diss. 4. 7. 9).
In § 18, 139 Mara writes of the wise men who suffered violence at the
hands of tyrants. This topos has a long history as a problem in theodicy:
how can the belief in divine providence be squared with the fact that good
men have been treated unjustly? Is this due to the actions of evil demons?
Is it a test of the wise men’s virtue? Is it exemplary for us, when we see
that divine justice was visited on the evildoers, in the same way that our
societies punish pour encourager les autres (cf. Chrysippus in Plutarch,
Stoic. repugn. 15, 1040C)? It is not clear to me that Mara uses the topos in
the usual way, however, as I think emerges when the passage is viewed
172 david l. blank
in context. Rather, he brings in the wise victims of violence as support-

ing evidence for his advice to Sarapion that we ought to desire wisdom,
although in their blind error, people are in fact driven by greed.
Mara has been describing (since § 11, 83) the “delusion” (or, perhaps,
“error” or “wandering”: Schulthess renders “Verirrung”) which dwells in
the world, shaking it and us along with it. Men do contradictory things,
and Mara is astounded at them: some expose their children, while others
adopt the children of others; some work for riches, while others get the
riches of others. So we walk the path of delusion. At § 20, 165 he brings up
our contradictory behavior again: men hardly reach out for truth and vir-
tue, but are led along in their lives as if deaf and blind, so that the wicked
rejoice while the just are abused; those who have anything deny that they
do, while those with nothing fight to get something; the poor beg while
the rich conceal their wealth; all men ridicule their neighbors—which
means that each mocks things which the other must prize; the drunk are
stupefied while those who have sobered up regret having drunk; some
weep while others sing; some laugh while others worry; people rejoice
in the evil while hating one who tells the truth. It is astounding that the
world mocks, when men do not all have a common way of life, that is,
they do not share their goals or path. At times, Mara’s description of the
errant path is reminiscent of nothing so much as an ethical version of
Parmenides’ “Way of Seeming,” on which wander two-headed mortals,
who know nothing, whose changeable mind is steered by helplessness,
and who are deaf and blind, stupefied, masses without judgement (Par-
menides 28 B 6. 4–7 Diels-Kranz). It can also be paralleled from the Stoic
Epictetus, who speaks in the way a real Stoic philosopher would do, using
stupor as a metaphor to get us to see what it is like not to use our appear-
ances correctly:
Thus, where we think it makes a difference whether we stray or not, there
we pay great attention to the distinction of the things which can lead us
astray, but stupefied and sleeping in the case of our poor commanding fac-
ulty, we accept every impression, since we do not feel the penalty. (Epict.
Diss. 1. 20. 10–11)
Mara is very fond of the image of the path of life on which men are led,
normally in error. In fact, what he says about the exile from Samosata is
not told for its own sake, but it serves as an example of this errant wander-
ing: “and our groaning grew dense as fog, / and our trouble more immense
than a mountain” (§ 9, 62–3). This fog and mountain functioned as twin
obstacles to seeing their way, so that he says: “our troubles drove us on
with no pathway” (§ 9, 65). Mara introduces the exile as an example of the
human tendency to wander, in order to show how the possessions which

bring us most pleasure, such as home and family, can most easily injure
us. The lesson is to accept the disasters of fate and not to desire posses-
sions and riches, none of which endure for long. The more possessions
one has, the greater are one’s evils and griefs and pains (§ 15, 121 ff.): it is
desire for possessions which holds men captive (§ 17, 135), and men are
afraid because their possessions are uncertain, for they have abandoned
what is their own and seek what is alien to them. Our condition during
captivity and exile, then, introduces our true captivity, that we are hos-
tages to the desire for possessions.
Again, Mara’s words here are reminiscent of Epictetus, who says repeat-
edly (e.g. 1. 18. 12, 1. 24. 11) that the only thing that is our own or is in
our own power (to emon, to idion, to eph’ hêmin) is our ability to use our
impressions well or badly, while everything else is alien (allotrion). Simi-
larly, Mara’s earlier insistence that riches soon vanish, like a dream, the
empty splendor of which human life is full (§ 6, 37), is not far from Sen-
eca’s image (De Providentia 1. 6. 4–5):
Those whom you think fortunate, if you could see them, not as they appear,
but as they are inside, are wretched, filthy, wicked—like the walls of their
own houses, they are adorned only on the outside; theirs is no firm and
genuine good fortune, but a veneer and a thin one at that. So long, there-
fore, as they can stand firm and make the show that they desire, they gleam
and deceive; but when something happens to overthrow and uncover them,
then it is clear how deep and genuine is the ugliness their borrowed splen-
dour hid. I have given you sure goods, lasting ones, which grow better and
greater, the more one turns them over and examines them.
That men’s fear and misery come from desiring uncertain things, which
are not our own to keep, this is what we learn from the fact that the wise
suffer violence at the hands of tyrants, their wisdom is taken captive by
denunciations, and they are dispossessed with no opportunity to defend
themselves, despite their understanding (§ 18, 139 ff.). Mara goes on to
ask: what benefit did the Athenians get from killing Socrates, the Samians
from the burning of Pythagoras, the Jews from the killing of their wise
king? None, since god rightly exacted retribution for their wisdom and the
Athenians perished of famine and plague, Samos was buried by sea and
sand, the Jews massacred and scattered from their country. The context
shows that the emphasis here is not on god’s just punishment, but on
a contrast: the populations which killed got no benefit from their acts,
which presumably arose from greed and fear, while the wise men whom
they killed had only their wisdom, something which was truly their own.
174 david l. blank
Mara speaks in an unusual way here of the wise men, saying that they
were killed by “tyrants,” that “their wisdom was taken captive” and that
they had no opportunity to defend themselves when they were ill-used.
The examples he gives do not, of course, fit all these descriptions, as none
of the three were killed by tyrants (although others were, as Zeno was
killed by Demylus and Antiphon by Dionysius: Plutarch, Stoic. repugn. 37,
1051 C), and Socrates certainly had a chance to make a defence speech,
even if he predicted that he would not be able to mount an effective
defence.8 But, assuming that Mara is giving general topoi in speaking of
“tyrants” and defencelessness, it is still odd that the wise men’s “wisdom
was taken captive.” Only the wise man can destroy his own wisdom, and
Mara himself has said that “no one has ever been divorced from wisdom
as one might be from possessions” (§ 14, 121). Of course, he also goes on
to say that “god has rightly exacted retribution on behalf of the wisdom
of these three men” (§ 18, 149). It seems, then, that the people of Athens,
Samos and Jerusalem killed the wise men out of their error and the greed
in which it involved them, but also that these men were killed because of
their very wisdom. Perhaps the people feared such wisdom, which would
have spoken the truth and warned them against greed. So the sages’ wis-
dom was taken captive, perhaps in the sense that the men themselves
were no longer alive to live in or practice wisdom, but that wisdom was
then released back into the world, that is, made publicly known again, by
the very public punishment of those who had dared to try to oppress it
(though the interpretation may turn on whether Mara means that their
wisdom was taken captive or taken hostage). And it was precisely their
wisdom which was the cause of god’s just retribution.
We then expect to hear what Socrates said in Plato’s Apology, as did
Seneca (De Providentia 1. 2. 1, De Constantia 2. 7. 3): that the wise men
were not really harmed by these actions, since their wisdom remained
intact. But that is not exactly what Mara says. He has already said, rather
unexpectedly, that the wise men’s wisdom was captured, although wisdom
is not something which can be taken away. Now he says that the wise men
did not die: Socrates because of Plato, Pythagoras because of the image
of Hera, the wise king because of the new laws he gave (§ 18, 154)—this
8 Thus, the contrast drawn by Callicles between the orator and the philosopher, the
latter being unable to defend himself in court; Socrates agrees, but notes that the result
would be the worse man trying to harm the better (Plato, Gorgias 511 A–B, 521 B–522 E). At
Theaetetus 172 C 4–6 Socrates says that “it is reasonable that those who have spent much
time in philosophy show themselves ridiculous orators when they go into the courts.”
despite Mara’s use of “laws” as one example of a possession which is tem-

porary and passes away! Apparently, the murdered wise men’s wisdom
did not die, because its products lived on.
The existence of evils and their punishment, especially divine punish-
ment, are often explained as having an exemplary function. Since the
unjust suffering of the good is usually raised in philosophical literature as
a challenge to divine providence or to divine justice, it will not have been
to the point simply to say that the evil-doers are punished. In Stoic writ-
ings, the occurrence of bad things or the existence of vice, as well as the
visitations of divine justice, have various explanations.
To begin on the most general level with the reasons why vice exists
and bad things happen, Chrysippus said in his fourth book On Providence
(Gellius, Noctes Atticae 7. 1. 2 = SVF II fr. 1169) that goods cannot exist with-
out the concomitant existence of evils, and in his second book On Nature
he says that, unlike dreadful accidents (ta deina sumptômata),
[. . .] vice does, even in itself, come about in accordance with nature’s rea-
son, and, if I may put it thus, it comes into being in a way which is not use-
less in regard to the universe as a whole, since otherwise the good would
also not exist.9
Then, in a line of reasoning which goes back to Plato’s Laws (10, 903 B–D),
we are sometimes told that bad things happen because they are good for
the whole cosmos, and since we are part of that cosmos, they are therefore
good for each of us too, even if we do not understand why. Sometimes
we hear that, since god’s main purpose is the good of the whole cosmos,
nature institutes various processes to ensure the good of the whole, and
evils arise as the unavoidable by-product of some such systematic process.
Thus, in Gellius’ Attic Nights (7. 1. 7 = SVF II fr. 1170) Chrysippus is shown
using this reasoning to prove that it is not a result of nature and provi-
dence that human beings are subject to diseases; and Plutarch quotes
Chrysippus’ second book On Gods to this effect:
First, one must understand evils in a similar way to what was said before;
then, one must understand that these things are distributed in accordance
with Zeus’ reason, either for chastisement or in correspondence with another
scheme which is related to the whole universe.10
9 Plutarch, Stoic. repugn. 35, 1050 F (= SVF II fr. 1181).

10 Stoic. repugn. 35, 1050 E (= SVF II fr. 1176).
176 david l. blank
To the complaint that many sorrows, dreadful and hard to bear, fall upon
us, Seneca has God say: “Because I could not remove you from their path,
I have fortified your minds to withstand them all; endure with fortitude”
(Prov. 1. 6. 6).
Sometimes, on the other hand, Stoics argued that god, like a king, can-
not take care of absolutely everything, so that some things simply slip
through the cracks (Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3. 90). In his third book
On Substance, Chrysippus offered more than one possible answer to the
conundrum of why such bad things happen to excellent men:
Is it because some things are neglected, as in larger houses some husks and
a certain number of grains of wheat fall by the wayside, though the whole
is well managed, or because of the fact that bad daemons are set over such
things, in which negligence really does happen and must be censured?11
The very fact that Plutarch preserves the questioning, uncertain character
of Chrysippus’ language here is very suggestive of the open-endedness of
his response.
But, even if god can not take care of everything, he should at least take
care of virtuous men: “between good men and the gods there is a friend-
ship brought about by virtue,” as Seneca says (Prov. 1. 1. 4); and Balbus’
exposition of the extent of divine providence even to the individual citi-
zens of nations actually amounts to an argument that god cares for the
great individuals in each nation:
Gods care for great things, neglecting small ones; great men’s affairs always
prosper, insofar as the leaders of our school and the first man of philosophy,
Socrates, have spoken well about the bounties and riches of virtue. (ND 2. 167)
Yet, nonetheless, misfortunes do happen to such men, and they slip
through the cracks, like fallen husks. Plutarch finds the comparison of
good men’s suffering to stray husks of wheat rather insensitive, and he also
finds that there is inequality among wrong actions, if God only punishes
some of them. When Chrysippus speaks of this, however, he apparently
speaks, not of evils, but of “inconveniences” (duschrêsta, Plutarch, Stoic.
repugn. 1050 E), that is, of the good man’s finding some of the “unpre-
ferred” things on his plate, presumably because no actual evil can happen
to a virtuous man.
Seneca opens his work On Providence with the question “why, if a provi-
dence rules the world, does it still happen that many evils befall good
11 Plutarch, Stoic. repugn. 1051 C (= SVF II fr. 1178).

men?” He responds, among other things, that it may be that the gods
enjoy watching a good man win a good fight, just as we do (Prov. 1. 2. 8).
But it may also be that the gods intend the good man’s fortitude in the
face of injustice to serve as an example of bravery to others, as Seneca
says elsewhere:
It is inevitable that we feel distress at Fortune paying her rewards so unjustly;
and what hope would each of us then have for himself when he sees the best
men suffering the worst of ends? . . . Observe the manner in which each of
those men bore his fate, and, if they were brave, pray with your heart to have
hearts like theirs, and, if they perished like women and as cowards, then
nothing perished: either they deserve to have you admire their courage, or
they do not deserve to have you desire their cowardice. For what greater
shame could there be, if the greatest men by dying bravely make others cow-
ards? Let us repeatedly praise the man who deserves renown, saying, “The
braver a man is, the happier his fortune! You have escaped from all mishaps,
from jealousy, from illness; you have left the bonds of imprisonment; it is
not that the gods have judged you worthy of bad fortune, but rather unwor-
thy of being any longer at the mercy of Fortune’s power.”12
But this is not the lesson Mara wants to teach here. Rather, the unjust suf-
fering of wise men is invoked as an illustration of what is temporary and
what is permanent. On the other hand, Seneca does speak of the man who
“deserves renown,” who has a good reputation deservedly and is praised
by others, something which, as we shall soon see, has parallels in Mara’s
letter.
The lesson is now underscored when Mara reiterates that his investi-
gation has found that men exist in miserable ruin. Indeed, their circum-
stances are not bad enough for them, but they add to their evils by their
malicious, bestial attacks on one another, their disregard for truth and
their lawlessness, all due to following their desires (§ 19, 156 ff.). This is the
second part of the catalogue of men’s contradictory behavior as they are
blindly led on their path (§ 20, 165). Again we are reminded of the false
and the true victory and the true captivity: men seize the opportunity
to become famed as conquerors, but the brave do not see all the empty
desires which may capture them: some remorse should touch those who
conquer by force but are defeated by greed (§ 21, 176–183).
Mara’s investigation or testing of the human race has shown that all
men look for is the multiplication of their riches and so their minds are
changeable and liable to depression and distress: for all their wealth they
12 De tranquillitate animi 9. 16.

178 david l. blank
are still slaves to their bellies. Of course, the reference to the domina-
tion of the belly is a commonplace, ordinary men being “mere bellies,”
as Hesiod’s Muses called them in Theogony 26, a phrase picked up by the
philosopher Timon, the pupil of Pyrrho (fr. 784 Lloyd-Jones and Parsons);
Diogenes of Sinope referred to the belly as the “Charybdis of living” (DL 6.
57), where all that one had was devoured by the whirlpool.
Now, Mara says that the evil nations were punished by God for their
violence against the famous philosophers, a retribution exacted on behalf
of the philosophers’ wisdom. What did the philosophers themselves get
out of it? For Seneca, when good men are unjustly punished, it may be a
test or a kind of spiritual exercise devised for them by the gods: it makes
them better:
• Without an opponent, virtue decays (Prov. 1. 2. 4);

• Do you wonder if that God, who most dearly loves the good, who wishes
them to become supremely good and virtuous, allots to them a fortune
that will make them struggle? (Prov. 1. 2. 7);
• calamitas virtutis occasio est, disaster is virtue’s opportunity (Prov. 1. 4. 6).
For Mara, though, this is not the case. Rather, we are told that the three
wise men did not die, because of something which survived them. Socrates
did not die because of Plato. Was that because Socrates’ wisdom lived
on as Plato carried on his philosophical work, or was it because Plato
made Socrates’ fame, his reputation for wisdom live on? Mara’s point that
Pythagoras did not die because of the image of Hera is too obscure to yield
much sense. The wise king of the Jews did not die because of the new laws
he gave, but this is another ambiguous point: are these laws considered as
still valid and having good effect, or is it that they have spread the king’s
fame? There are good reasons to think that, for Mara, it is their reputation
which keeps these wise men alive. Again, Mara has done something unex-
pected, changing what we thought was a well-worn philosophical topos.
For one thing, at the conclusion of his letter (§ 29), Mara says that “he
will leave himself a book,” that is, he will have the present letter as a liter-
ary monument. He introduces this announcement as a consequence of his
thinking about just such things as he relates in the letter, so that we may
surmise that one consequence of what he has said so far is that one ought
to leave behind such a monument.
Next, as David Rensberger has pointed out in his notes to the new
translation, Mara places great emphasis on the reputation people gain by
their qualities and their actions (n. 117). Indeed, he often speaks of what
people are called:
§ 5 this is that select human being who may be called the blessing of
God;
§ 14 those who pursue what is not impermanent are called temperate
(sôphrones), beloved and lovers of a good reputation (philodoxoi);
§ 16 if you are able to do without possessions, then you will be called
fortunate;
§ 25 Be diligent in these things and you will lead a tranquil life, and you
will be a source of relief to me, because you will be called “the orna-
ment of his ancestors”;
§ 27 if the Romans permit us to go into our own country, they will be act-
ing rightly and justly, like civilized people, and they will be called good
and just and the country they are now in will be called peaceful.
We might think that this was just a manner of speaking, a periphrasis for
“be worthy to be called.” But these instances where being “called” something
good is a goal are not the only evidence to adduce. In addition, Mara thinks
that what one shows about oneself determines one’s reputation, and having
that reputation is an important reason for acting in a certain way:
§ 5 those who persevere in the truth / display the banner of their virtue
§ 26 if anyone uses violence against us, he will display against himself
the evidence that he is far removed from everything good, and he will
receive dishonor and shame from this foul and shameful banner; for we
have demonstrated our constancy, that no fault attaches to us in any
kingdom. So if the Romans permit us to go into our own country, they
will be acting rightly and justly, like civilized people, and they will be
called good and just . . .; for they will display their majesty in letting us
go free.
Further, when Mara derides possessions as unreliable and unenduring

(§ 12, 91 ff.), he contrasts them with things which do endure:
§ 13 So let a man rejoice in his kingdom—like Darius; or in his good for-

tune—like Polycrates; or in his valor—like Achilles; or in his wife—like
Agamemnon; or in his offspring—like Priam; or in his craftsmanship—
like Archimedes; or in his wisdom—like Socrates; or in his learning—
180 david l. blank
like Pythagoras; or in his brilliance—like Palamedes. People’s lives, my

son, vanish from the world; but their praises and their virtues13 endure
forever.
As Tieleman and Merz have pointed out, all the possessions here led to
the deaths of their owners, some more obviously and more famously than
others: Darius III, the last Achaemenid king, was murdered by two of his
generals while fleeing after his defeat at the hands of Alexander (330 BCE);
Polycrates tyrant of Samos, trusting in his fortune, was lured into a Persian
ambush and crucified; Achilles chose courage and fame over a long life;
Agamemnon said he preferred his war-bride to his wife, who killed him;
Priam’s son Paris provided the cause for the Trojan War, in which Priam
was killed; Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier as he drew diagrams
in the sand; Socrates, we will learn in § 18, was killed by the Athenians
because of his wisdom; Pythagoras, here praised for his learning, we will
also hear of in § 18 as having been killed because of his wisdom; the “bril-
liant” Palamedes’ clever trick against Odysseus caused him to be stoned to
death as a traitor to the Greeks, another man killed by an unjust verdict,
according to Socrates.14
But Mara does not make clear exactly what the point of these examples
is. All nine of these men died because of what they valued. But, while all
are still famed, the prized possessions of the first five all perished with
them. The last four, on the other hand, still have praise, due to the accom-
plishments of their minds: Archimedes for the devices he made by his art;
Socrates for his wisdom, promulgated by Plato; Pythagoras for his learn-
ing and perhaps for a votive offering to Hera on behalf of his discourses;
Palamedes for his brilliant inventions, such as the alphabet, dice games,
weights and measures, and fire-signals. Their gifts survive because they
are still praised: it is their reputation which counts. Therefore, Sarapion is
exhorted to choose something which endures, namely, wisdom, for then
he will be called well-behaved, beloved and a lover of good reputation
(§ 14, 108).
The mention of Palamedes also turns out to be very apt for Mara’s lit-
erary education and for his philosophical point. Reputed the wisest man
of his time,15 the Athenian tragedians built a plot around him in which
13 Schulthess translates: “ihre Gaben.”

14 Plato, Apology 41 B (also quoted by Cicero, TD 1.98); Xenophon, Apology 26.
15 Xenophon, Cynegeticus 1.11; Aelius Aristides, Contra Platonem, pro quat. 260.
Odysseus, jealous of his wisdom,16 buried gold in his tent and forged a
letter from Priam to Palamedes offering him gold to betray the Greeks,
thus using the product of Palamedes’ own wisdom against him (cf. Dio
Chrysostom, 13. 21). Euripides’ play about him, to judge from its fragments,
stressed his invention of the alphabet (fr. 578 Kannicht) and included an
argument by Odysseus that the fortunes of men show that everyone labors
for money and whoever has most is the wisest (fr. 580); but its hero stated
that, while there might be thousands of generals, there would be only one
or two wise men in a long period of time. Another fragment runs: “One
just man defeats unjust thousands by combining the divine and the just,
for it is only the just man whose fame (doxa) will always dwell among
both men and gods” (fr. 584). Finally, the most famous fragment (fr. 588)
complains: “You killed, you killed, O Danaans, the all-wise nightingale of
the muses, who harmed no one.” Xenophon’s Socrates says explicitly that
Palamedes “still to this day occasions finer hymns than Odysseus, who put
him to death unjustly,” and that: “I know that future and past time will
testify for me too that I have never wronged anyone” (Ap. 26); this state-
ment follows Socrates’ profession that he has not even been accused of
any of the crimes usually punished by death, and I should not be surprised
if Mara is echoing him near the end of his letter, in the obscure phrase “no
fault attaches to us in any kingdom” (§ 27).
But all Mara’s emphasis on reputation is rather un-Stoic. In fact, it goes
against what most philosophers say. The Epicureans, famous for their
advice to retreat from public life, argued vociferously against the love of
reputation, philodoxia. But the Stoa too frowned on any desire for repu-
tation or fame. Thus, Chrysippus wrote in his On Rhetoric that the wise
man should orate and engage in politics in the same way as he would if
wealth were a good thing, along with fame and health (SVF III fr. 698 =
Stoic. repugn. 5, 1034 B). Cleanthes says, “Everyone is unfree (aneleutheros)
who looks for fame (doxa), / thinking he will get something fine from it”
(Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 5. 4. 110= SVF I fr. 560). And Cleanthes
also applied this to those seeking to be wise, writing:
Do not look for fame (doxa), desiring to become suddenly wise, / nor fear
the opinion (doxa) of the many, shameless and lacking judgement, / for the
crowd has no judgement which is intelligent or just / or fine, but you will
find this in few men.17
16 Lucian, Calumniae non temere credendum 28; Scholium in Euripides, Orestes 432.
17 Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5. 3. 17 = SVF I fr. 559.
182 david l. blank
Epictetus says that the philosopher must be unconventional and devoted

to philosophy, despised by a slave and ridiculed by those he meets (3. 15. 11).
This theme of Epictetus’ also shows another un-Stoic aspect of Mara’s let-
ter: the only person who can make you a slave is you yourself; slave and
free are moral, not social categories.
To conclude, then, a reader versed in Stoic philosophy may find Mara’s
letter rather a dog’s dinner, that is, a confused jumble. But this is only the
case when the letter is examined as a piece of philosophy. Looked at in
another way, the letter has a more coherent appearance. It is a piece of
rational persuasion which Mara tries to apply to his son. Rational persua-
sion is the mode appropriate to be used on a free person, while to use vio-
lence, as the Romans may be going to do with Mara, is to treat someone as
a slave. Mara wants to persuade Sarapion to study Greek literature while
measuring it against the vision of life which Mara suggests to him and
urges that he put into practice. That vision holds that it is our desire for
possessions which causes us grief, while it is the moderation of that desire
which allows us to face the fact that life is likely to bring us troubles even
more than joys. It also claims that becoming worthy of a good reputation
is an important goal, since being that kind of person is a good thing and
because such a reputation lives after you.
This is a vision based on a fundamentally Socratic world-view, and it
was given its clearest form and its most comprehensive conceptualisa-
tion by the Stoics. But what Mara tells his son does not include any of
this conceptualisation, nor is it restricted to Stoic doctrines. His advice
is based rather on his experience and general culture, filtered through a
good general understanding of philosophy, some of which is Stoic. The
composition purporting to be Mara’s letter, his monument, contains what
Mara has learnt while living in difficult times. It shows that he has tried
to live in accordance with these lessons and urges Sarapion to aspire to
do the same.18
18 I should like to thank Teun Tieleman for introducing me to Mara during the pleasant
term in which we taught together in Los Angeles. He and Annette Merz then invited me
to Utrecht to participate in the delightful and enlightening workshop for which this paper
was written. Finally, thanks are due to Catherine Atherton for reading a draft of this paper
and giving me the benefit of her wit and her deep understanding of Stoicism.
THE DEATH(S) OF PLATO
Anna Ntinti
In his letter to his son, Mara refers to the death of wise men and men-
tions Socrates and Pythagoras as exemplary cases of people who suffered
an undeserved death but whose wisdom and learning survived through
the centuries (§ 18). Mara seems to identify himself with the persecuted
philosophers and argues that posthumous fame achieved through wisdom
is a way to immortality. Plato’s name also appears in this context as the
writer who immortalized Socrates in his works. These references—among
others—indicate that Mara is certainly familiar with Greek philosophical
tradition and especially with the theme of the death of the philosophers,
which was a standard topos in biographical literature. Mara’s philosophi-
cal education could in fact have started, as it was often the case in antiq-
uity, with the reading of a philosopher’s Life as an introduction to the
study of his works. The manner and the specific circumstances of the phi-
losopher’s death was one of the significant elements of the philosophical
Lives. In what follows I shall discuss the importance and the role accorded
to the death of the philosophers in the biographical tradition, taking as a
case study the reports on Plato’s death. In doing so I hope to provide some
background to the references to the death of the wise in Mara’s letter and
to adduce some material for possible comparisons.
Death has an important place in ancient biography: For every biogra-
phy, a particular death scene is usually reported. The circumstances of
death are often pictured in short narratives, that is in biographical anec-
dotes, a sub-genre of ancient biography, which highlight the impressive or
unusual elements of the story. The death of the philosophers in particular
was taken to reflect in certain ways their beliefs, choices and doctrines
and thus functioned as a symbol of their lives.
The theme of the dying philosopher originated in the Socratic circle
whose members idealized the way Socrates met his death as the crown-
ing moment of a philosophical life lived out until the very end.1 Under
1 See A. Dihle, Studien zur griechischen Biographie (Abh. Akad. Wiss. Göttingen, Phil.-
Hist Kl. 3. Reihe Nr. 57, 2. durchges. Auflage. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970),
184 anna ntinti
the influence of the Platonic Phaedo, which dramatizes Socrates’ last day
and presents philosophy as a “study of death,”2 the death scene acquired
a special role and symbolism in the ancient Lives of philosophers.3 The
reception of the Platonic Phaedo in the later tradition resulted in the for-
mulation of the motif of the dying philosopher, who overcomes the fear
of death, offers consolation to his friends and family and exhorts them to
a philosophical or virtuous life, a picture that Mara also presents in his
letter. The stories that describe the death of the philosophers serve on
the one hand as a reflection of the êthos of the biographee and on the
other hand they allude to his philosophical doctrines, creating an inter-
relation between the life, the work and the death of the philosopher. The
Peripatetic biographers cultivate this interrelation further, by developing
the technique of extracting biographical material from the works of the
philosophers and transforming philosophical discourse into biographical
anecdotes.4 The Peripatetics also introduced the practice of treating a phi-
losopher in a favorable or hostile manner, depending on the biographer’s
own preferences and commitments, which also coloured their description
of the philosophers’ death.
These tendencies and techniques of the Greek biographers created a
variety of stories, which are often contradictory and unhistorical, producing
32–56. P. Cox, Biography in Late Antiquity. A Quest for the Holy Man (Berkeley: Univ. of Cal-
ifornia Press, 1983), 7–10. A. Momigliano, The Development of Greek Biography (expanded
edition, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 46–60; S. Grau, “How to Kill a
Philosopher: The Narrating of Ancient Greek Philosophers’ Deaths in Relation to their Way
of Living,” Ancient Philosophy XXX.2 (2010): 347–382.
2 See e.g. Phaedo 80e–81a.
3 On the influence of Phaedo on the death scenes of philosophers see F. Wehrli, Her-
mippos der Kallimacheer. Die Schule des Aristoteles—Texte und Kommentar Supplement-
band I. (Basel, 1973), 194–208; K. Döring, Exemplum Socratis (Wiesbaden, 1979), 37–38.
P. Kotzia, Περί του Μήλου ή Περί της Αριστοτέλους Τελευτής (Liber de pomo). (Thessaloniki:
Thyrathen, 2007), 103–5, 113–5. M. Erler, Die griechische Biographie in hellenistischer Zeit:
Akten des internationalen Kongresses vom 26.-29. Juli 2006 in Würzburg, hrsg. Von Michael
Erler und Stefan Schorn (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007), 11–24.
4 For the techniques of the Peripatetic biographers see F. Leo, Die griechisch-römische
Biographie nach ihrer literarischen Form (Leipzig: Teubner, 1901), 85–117; D.R. Stuart,
Epochs in Greek and Roman Biography (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1928), 119–154;
J. Fairweather, “Fiction in the Biographies of Ancient Writers,” Ancient Society 5 (1974):
232–242; L. Jerphagnon, “Les mille et une morts des philosophes antiques. Essai de typolo-
gie”, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 59 (1981): 22–26; M.G. Sollenberger, “The Lives
of the Peripatetics: An Analysis of the Contents and Structure of Diogenes Laertius’ Vitae
philosophorum Book 5”, ANRW II 36.6 (1992): 3793–3879. W.W. Fortenbaugh, “Biography
and the Aristotelian Peripatos”, in: Erler & Schorn, Die griechische Biographie, 45–78. For
the practice of transforming doctrinal into biographical material see also the references
infra, n. 18.
the death(s) of plato 185
different versions for the death of the same philosopher or parallel anec-
dotes, which are transferred from one philosopher to another. I shall try
to give an impression of the mechanisms at work in the shaping of various
traditions concerning Plato’s death. These have little to do with historic-
ity in a present-day sense but do tell us a lot about the nature of ancient
philosophy and its ideals and may help us to understand the background
of Mara’s references to the death of wise men as well as his own distor-
tion of historical events which he relates to the death of Socrates and
Pythagoras.
In the case of Plato’s death, the biographical tradition delivered alterna-
tive stories: some of them attribute to Plato an ideal philosophical death,
others depict him at the end of his life as a kind of philosophical anti-hero,
who suffers an invidious death, while in certain cases a biographical anec-
dote is simply transferred5 from one to another philosophical Life without
there being any apparent slant involved.
In these stories even the most ‘innocent’ detail reflects certain motives
or tendencies of the biographers. The precise age of Plato at the time of
his death, for example, is uncertain and varies according to different biog-
raphers. The information, however, that his death occurred in the first
year of the hundred and eighth Olympiad, i.e. in 347 BCE, is supported
by the additional information that at the same time Philip II was in the
thirteenth year of his reign (359–336) and paid honors to the philosopher
at his death.6 The problem is that we cannot be certain of Plato’s date
of birth,7 since the biographical accounts are contradictory and thus the
estimation of Plato’s age at the time of death varies between eighty and
eighty-four years.8 The difference may seem insignificant but the ancient
5 For the transfer of the same anecdote from one philosophical Life to another see
Fairweather, Fiction in the Biographies, 266–7; A. Chitwood, Death by Philosophy: The Bio-
graphical Tradition in the Life and Death of the Archaic Philosophers Empedocles, Heraclitus,
and Democritus (Ann Arbor MI: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2004), 6–7.
6 Theopompus apud Diog. Laert. III.40 (FGrHist 115 F294); Diog.Laert. III. 2; Anon. Pro-
leg. II.5–8; Aelian VH IV.19; Theopompus’ report that Philip II was present at Plato’s funeral
has been doubted, but Aelian’s testimony cannot be dismissed.
7 Conventionally we had been accepting 427 as the date of Plato’s birth, but see
D. Nails, The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 2002), 245–247, who reconsiders the existing material and defends a later date of
birth for Plato by four to three years (424/3).
8 Hermippus (fr. 41 [Wehrli]), Seneca (Ep. 58.13), Cicero (Cato V.13), Lucian (Macrob. 21),
Censorinus (De die nat. 15.1) and the Anonymous writer of the Prolegomena (VI.1–7) give
eighty-one as Plato’s age at the time he died; Philochorus (FGrHist 328 F223), Philodemus
(Index Hercul. Col. II.35–6 [Mekler]), Valerius Maximus (VIII.7), Athenaeus V 57.2–10 Kai-
bel and Suda (s.v. Πλ.) give eighty-two; Dionysius of Halicarnassus (De comp. verb. 25.211)
186 anna ntinti
writers and especially those who were favorably disposed towards Plato,
exploited the chronological confusion and pushed the date back in order
for Plato to die at the age of eighty-one. This is not an accidental number,
for eighty-one is the square of nine, an almost sacred number in antiquity
with rich religious and philosophical symbolism and especially connected
with the Pythagoreans and Plato, as well as with the cult of Apollo.9 Biog-
raphers wanted to give Plato an Apollonian date of death that would cor-
respond properly to the philosopher’s alleged relation to Apollo, which
they emphasized by narrating anecdotes that illustrated Plato’s Apollo-
nian nature.10 This tradition seems to go back to the first generation of
Plato’s pupils and especially Speusippus, who appears11 to be the source
of a story that Apollo was Plato’s divine father. The story is strengthened
by the information that Plato was born on the same day as Apollo, on
the seventh day of the month Thargelion.12 The Anonymous author of
the Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy begins and concludes his Life of
Plato with his characterization of the philosopher as an “Apollonian” man,
while Diogenes Laertius (III.45) adds two epigrams in which Plato and
Asclepius are considered as the sons of Apollo, the former being a healer
of the soul, the latter a healer of the body. Pythagoras was also believed
to be Apollo’s son13 but we cannot determine which tradition is earlier.14
There are several more stories in Plato’s Lives that connect him to Apollo,
but two of them are also related to Plato’s death. The first describes Plato’s
last dream before he dies, in which he is transformed into a swan, Apollo’s
is the only source that argues for the age of eighty and Neanthes (FGrHist 84 F20) the only
one supporting eighty-four, although it is possible that the latter information can be due to
a corruption of the text, which Diels emends (H. Diels, “Chronologische Untersuchungen
über Apollodors Chronika,” Rhein. Mus. XXXI (1876): 42); cf. Schorn, S. “ ‘Peripatetische
Biographie’—‘Historische Biographie’: Neanthes von Kyzikos (FgrHist 84) als Biograph,” in:
Erler & Schorn, Die griechische Biographie in hellenistischer Zeit, 115–156.
9 W.H. Roscher, “Die enneadischen und hebdomadischen Fristen und Wochen,”
Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen Klasse der Kgl. Sächsischen Gesellschaft der
Wissenschaften 21.4 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1903); “Die Sieben- und Neunzahl im Kultus und
Mythus der Griechen,” ibid. 24.1 (1904); “Enneadischen Studien,” ibid. 26.1 (1907).
10 A. Riginos, Platonica: The Anecdotes Concerning the Life and Writing of Plato (Leiden:
Brill, 1976), 9–32.
11 Diog. Laert. III.2, see com. in L. Tarán, Speusippus of Athens: A Critical Study with a
Collection of the Related Texts and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 227–235.
12 Apollod. FGrHist 244; Plut. Quaest. Conv. 717b–d; Apul. De Plat. I.1; Diog. Laert. III.2;
Anon. Proleg. I. 42–44.
13 Iambl. Vit. Pyth. II.7.
14 W. Burkert, Weisheit und Wissenschaft: Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolas, und Platon
(Nürnberg: Carl, 1962), 101ff.; cf. Riginos, Platonica, 1976, 14.
sacred bird;15 the second is the report16 that Plato died while listening to
music, the art of Apollo, which the god encourages Socrates to practice in
Plato’s Phaedo.17
None of these stories should of course be taken to hold any truth, but
it is not difficult to understand how they were generated if we consider,
first the constant references to Apollo in Plato’s dialogues and, second,
one of the standard methods that ancient biographers use, namely the
technique of extracting material from the works of the biographee and
rendering it into biographical information.18 In the Apology Apollo is the
god who declares Socrates the wisest man,19 while the latter defends him-
self by repeating that he is only serving Apollo, who ordered him to prac-
tise philosophy.20 In the Phaedo (84e–85b) Socrates calls himself a fellow
servant of the swans (ὁμόδουλον), an expression that Olympiodorus21 will
later put in the mouth of Plato himself as a sign of his connection to the
god. These and similar references in the Platonic corpus22 had been more
than enough for the biographers to produce stories that illustrate Apollo’s
influence on Plato’s life. In this context, Plato should have died in a truly
Apollonian way, i.e. after completing the magic number of eighty-one
years of mortal life, even if the dates didn’t always fit the biographical
purposes.
As for the cause and the particular circumstances of Plato’s death,
ancient biography produced other variations as well, besides the Apol-
lonian scene in which Plato dies while listening to music. The earliest23
account comes from the 3rd cent. BCE Peripatetic Hermippus, whose now
lost Lives included several unusual death scenes, preserved in Diogenes
15 Olympiod. In Alc. 2.156–162; Anon. Proleg. I.29–32. Cf. Socrates’ dream of Plato as a
swan: Apul. De Plat. I.1; Diog. Laert. III.5; Paus. I.30; Tertullian De an. 46.9; Olymp. In Alc.
2.83; Anon. Proleg. I.22–28; Suda s.v. Πλ.
16 Index Hercul. Col. V.1–19 (Mekler).
17 60e.
18 See Stuart, Epochs, 1967, 245; M.R. Lefkowitz, The Lives of the Greek Poets (Baltimore:
J. Hopkins Press, 1981), 162; Chitwood, Death by Philosophy, 58.
19 20e–21a.
20 Apol. 23a–c, 28d–29a, 30a, 37e–38a.
21 In Alc. 2.30–31.
22 See also Ch. Schefer, Platon und Apollon. Vom Logos zurück zum Mythos. Interna-
tional Plato Studies 7 (Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag 1996).
23 Although it has been suggested that the music scene was transmitted by Philip of
Opus: S. Mekler Academicorum Philosophorum Index Herculanensis (1902, 2nd ed. Berlin:
Weidmann, 1958), XXVII, 13; L. Tarán, Academica: Plato, Philip of Opus, and the Pseudo-
Platonic Epinomis (Philadelphia: American Philological Society, 1975), 125, 133.
188 anna ntinti
Laertius.24 Hermippus argues that Plato died while attending a wedding

banquet,25 but we have no further details as to whose wedding Plato was
attending or the cause of his death. Some scholars have detected in this
story an allusion to Plato’s Thirteenth Letter (361c), where he mentions
that one of his nieces was about to get married, and assumed/inferred that
it was on her wedding that Plato actually died.26 Plato himself not only
remained a bachelor throughout his whole life, but he was also depicted
as being against marriage.27 On that ground it has been suggested28 that
this death scene may imply a change of attitude on the part of Plato or, on
the contrary, that the story ironically underlines the ‘anti-platonic’ death
of Plato.29 Hermippus certainly did not favour Plato, although we cannot
say how polemical his Life of Plato was, judging from the remaining frag-
ments.30 In that respect, it is perhaps safer to interpret the death scene
as indeed an ironic comment on Plato’s life and death. Another suggested
interpretation31 is to include this anecdote in the group of hostile stories
that depict Plato as a glutton,32 in which case it would imply that Plato
died by drinking or/and eating excessively. To be sure, other philosophers
as well had a similar biographical death by excessive drinking,33 and we
know of at least one case, that of Theophrastus, who is also said to have
died at a wedding.34 Although it is difficult to determine the exact mean-
ing of this short report of Hermippus out of its context, it seems more
probable that it transmits a biographical topos rather than a historically
reliable account of Plato’s last moments.35
24 See in Diog. Laert. I.72, II.120, IV.44, V.78, V.91, VI.99, VII.184, IX.43, X.15. Whether
it was Hermippus who had a tendency to collect death stories (as Leo 1901, 126 argues,
followed by Momigliano, Development, 79) or Diogenes Laertius (J. Mejer, Diogenes Laer-
tius and his Hellenistic Background (Hermes Einzelschriften 40, Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1978),
32–34) is not possible to say.
25 Diog.Laert. III.2 = Fr. 41 (Wehrli).
26 C. Ritter “Platonica,” Philologus 68 (1909): 332; E. Mensching, Favorinus von Arelate:
Der erste Teil der Fragmente (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1963), 82.
27 Suda s.v. Πλ.; Philostr. Vita Ap. I.13; Damasc. Vita Is. 274; Stobaeus IV.22b.33.
28 Mensching, Favorinus, 81–83.
29 Riginos, Platonica, 195.
30 Apart from the death scene, there is only one passage from Hermippus that gives us
a negative description of Plato, fr. 72 (Wehrli).
31 Riginos, Platonica, 195.
32 J. Geffcken, “Antiplatonica,” Hermes 64 (1929), 89.
33 Stilpon, Arcesilaus, Chrysippus (fr. 35, 43, 59 Wehrli).
34 Suda s.v. Θεόφραστος.
35 As suggested by Ritter and Mensching, see supra n. 26.
In another version, Plato dies in his sleep. Tertullian,36 who is our only
source for this story, must have wished a peaceful death for the philoso-
pher, worthy of his philosophical life. The Suda gives us a good example of
how biographical information can be fabricated or adjusted to the writer’s
intentions, for it combines the two previous stories and concludes that
Plato did die in his sleep after attending a wedding. In this way, the avail-
able versions are reconciled.
It is not possible in all cases to determine the origins of a tradition or
its historiographical value. Historians tend to search for the earlier sources
of a story as more reliable, but even so the motives and the strategies
that condition a bios are sometimes more important than chronological
priority. A striking example is the 4th century BCE writer Aristoxenus of
Tarentum: he appears to be the first to write biography proper, but his
Lives of Socrates and Plato were so hostile that he was considered unreli-
able even in antiquity.37 A similarly anti-platonic source must be respon-
sible for the story that Plato was literally consumed by lice. According to
that story Plato dies a horrible death, being consumed by lice (φθεῖρες) as
a result of a disease called phthiriasis.38 This is a disease39 well known in
antiquity, for we have catalogues of famous men who died of it and it was
often associated with physical and/or moral decay.40 The earliest cata-
logue of φθειριάσαντες is that of Aristotle41 who explains the disease—as
Galen also does42—as a result of too much warm moisture in the human
body and names Pherecydes and Alcman as two famous victims of phthi-
riasis. Plutarch later not only expands the catalogue,43 but also gives a
36 De an. 52.3.

37 Fr. 51–60, 61–68 (Wehrli); Leo, Griechisch-Römische Biographie, 102; I. Düring, Herodi-
cus the Cratetean. Studies in the anti-Platonic Tradition (Göteborg: Wahlström & Widstrand,
1941), 136.
38 Found only in Diog. Laert. III.40.
39 In fact, it has been doubted through the centuries that phthiriasis really existed and
actually caused death, partly because it seemed suspicious that it only seemed to afflict
famous men, see T. Africa, “Worms and the Death of Kings: A Cautionary Note on Disease
and History,” Classical Antiquity 1 (1982): 1–17; J. Bondeson, “Phthiriasis: The Riddle of the
Lousy Disease,” JRSoc.Med. 91 (1998): 3228–334; A. Keaveney & J.A. Madden, “Phthiriasis
and its victims,” Symbolae Osloenses 57 (1982): 87–99.
40 This is clear in the case of Sulla and maybe Speusippus also (see below, n. 46). Phthi-
riasis was even more appealing to Jewish and Christian writers, who attribute the disease
to people they believe that they deserved such painful and disgusting death; the most
striking case is probably Herod the Great (Josephus BJ 1,33,5); see Africa, Worms, for more
examples.
41 Hist. An. 556b–557a.
42 Gal. De comp. med. 12.462.
43 Sulla 36.3–4.
190 anna ntinti
description of the horrible death scene of Sulla,44 who also died of the
same disease. Diogenes Laertius who refers to Plutarch’s list45 adds the
names of Plato and Speusippus,46 who are not mentioned by Aristotle or
Plutarch. One would expect that had the story been true, Aristotle who
knew both Plato and the disease very well, would not have omitted it. Dio-
genes Laertius copies the information from Myronianus, a 2nd cent. CE
writer,47 who wrote a book called Historical Parallels. The title indicates
that the writer somehow treated similar cases; so the passage that refers
to Plato’s phthiriasis must have been part of a longer section that included
people who suffered from the same disease, similar to the catalogues of
Aristotle and Plutarch. Myronianus, in turn, cites Philo of Athens, the 3rd
cent. BCE Megarian philosopher, who circulated some proverb regard-
ing “Plato’s lice.” This proverb could have been some figure of speech,
meant to slander Plato probably for his bad standards of hygiene, a typical
charge against ancient philosophers; for the same reasons comic poets
mocked the Pythagoreans.48 But how exactly this proverb came to imply
a cause for Plato’s death, it is impossible to say. After all, in most cases
lice did not cause death. We can reasonably assume that Philo, being a
member of another philosophical school, would have had a competitive
if not polemical attitude towards Plato, expressed in this derisive proverb.
If Myronianus knew of this proverb while working on the list of people
who died of phthiriasis, then it is possible that in this context he misun-
derstood the proverb and associated it with the disease and consequently
with Plato’s death.
Biographers may not agree on the cause and the circumstances of
Plato’s death but there is no conflict as to what his last words were. Of
course Plato couldn’t have died while saying something trivial; his last
words must have been an expression of his personality and philosophical
depth, a kind of a final stamp of genius. It is Plutarch who informs49 us
that on the verge of death Plato expressed his gratitude for being born
44 Ibid. 36.2–3. See T.F. Carney, “The Death of Sulla,” Acta Classica 4 (1961): 64–79.
45 IV.4. Cf. I.118, V.5, VIII.38.
46 Although the name of Speusippus could be a mistake made by Diogenes, who
remarks that Plutarch includes him in the list, where in fact there is no mention of him.
Tarán, Speusippus, 186–7, suggests that Diogenes is only mistaken about his source (Plu-
tarch), and maintains that Speusippus’ name was part of the list that Myronianus (and not
Plutarch) transmitted.
47 Leo, Griechisch-Römische Biographie, 58.
48 Apud Diog. Laert. VIII.36–38.
49 Mar. 46.1. Cf. Sen. De benef. V.7.5; Lact. Div. inst. 3.19.17; Dion Chrys. Or. 64.17.
a man and not an irrational animal, a Greek and not a barbarian and,
thirdly, because he lived while Socrates was alive. This saying is not only
an encomium to Plato and a strong statement of cultural identity,50 but
above all I believe it is praise for philosophy itself, because it refers to the
three factors that enabled Plato to practise philosophy: rationality, Greek
culture and Socrates. Plato then is depicted as being grateful for living his
life as a philosopher and being at the end of it he declares his appreciation
for his immediate predecessor, placing himself in the popular scheme of
philosophical succession from teacher to student.
Plutarch may be our source for the last words of Plato, but the saying
itself is earlier and not that original. A slightly different variation was also
attributed to Thales51 by Hermippus in the third century BCE. In this case,
of course, Thales could not have been grateful to Socrates as Plato was, so
this last sentence is replaced by the blessing of being born a man and not
a woman. Even with this adjustment, though, this statement about Thales
remains obviously anachronistic. Diogenes Laertius, who cites Hermippus
for the saying attributed to Thales, adds a third version for he knows that
some people ascribe it to Socrates. Diogenes does not mention who these
people are, but we have a fragment52 from Favorinus of Arelate (1st–2nd
cent. CE), in which Socrates considers himself fortunate for being born a
rational being and an Athenian. So, once more we are confronted with a
transfer of the same anecdote from one philosopher to another and while
it is clear that we can reject Thales as the inventor of the saying, there is
no safe way to determine whether this tradition originated with Plato or
Socrates. In either case Plutarch (or his source) saw in that saying a very
convenient last statement for Plato and adjusted it properly.
Plato also left a short will,53 which may not be the most fascinating text
the philosopher ever wrote, but at least we can safely accept it as genuine.
Plato did not die a wealthy man, but he possessed enough to live a decent
life. He left his estate to a young boy called Adeimantus, probably the
grandson of Plato’s brother, Adeimantus I.54 Plato details all his properties
including his servants, one of whom, a girl called Artemis, he enfranchises
in this will. Special attention is given to the fact that he owes no one
anything, while a lapidary named Euclides is said to owe Plato a certain
50 See Wehrli 1974, 51–52.

51 Diog. Laert. I.33.
52 De fortuna 17.
53 Diog. Laert. III.41–43. Cf. the will of Aristotle and Theophrastus in V.11–16 and V.51–57.
54 Nails, People of Plato, 249–250.
192 anna ntinti
amount of money. Strangely enough, there is no mention of the Academy

in his will, which could be an indication that his personal finances were
distinct from that of the institution.
We are also told that he was buried in the Academy or somewhere
close55 and received, like other ancient philosophers, a public burial,56
which all of his students and many other Athenians attended.57 As already
mentioned, Philip II paid honours to the philosopher that day as well.
Additionally, it is said that two epigrams58 were inscribed on the philoso-
pher’s tomb praising his wisdom and character, one of which has been
attributed to Speusippus.59 The tomb and the inscriptions were of course
meant to perpetuate the philosopher’s fame. Thus, Plato’s funeral also
contained all the elements that are common in the biographical topos of
philosophers who receive magnificent funerals and honourable burials.60
The ancient biographers, then, construct the image of Plato at his last
moments by exploiting the standard biographical techniques: they read
the Platonic dialogues as a biographical source and they project their
understanding of them in their presentation of the philosopher’s life and
personality. Further, they create stories that correspond to their own pref-
erences or they inscribe the historical and philosophical background of
their sources in the death scene and transfer stories from other philosoph-
ical Lives. In doing so they produce rich and multi-layered stories making
the character of Greek biography a highly complex one. This is the kind
of stories that Mara must have had in mind when he refers to the deaths
of Socrates and Pythagoras as exempla of wise men who achieved ever-
lasting fame in spite of their unjust death; for in the biographical world
as well as in Mara’s letter the philosophical life exceeds the time limits of
the physical life and offers consolation and a guide for the lives of those
left behind (§ 18).
55 Diog. Laert. III.41; Cic. De fin. V.1.2; Paus. I.30.3; Ps-Gal. Hist. phil. 3; Porph. De abst.
I.36.
56 Chitwood, Death by Philosophy, 88.
57 Diog. Laert. III.41; Olymp. In Alc. 2.165.
58 Diog. Laert. III.43–44; Anth. Pal. VII.60–61.
59 See J. Notopoulos, “Plato’s Epitaph,” American Journal of Philology 63 (1942): 272–293;
for the opposite view see L. Tarán, “Plato’s Alleged Epitaph,” Greek Roman & Byzantine
Studies 25 (1984): 63–82.
60 R. Hope, The Book of Diogenes Laertius: Its Spirit and its Method (New York: Colum-
bia U.P., 1930), 163–167; Stuart, Epochs, 245; J.-P. Dumont, “Les modèles de conversion a la
philosophie chez Diogène Laerce” Augustinus 23 (1987): 79–97.
CONSOLATION FROM PRISON: MARA BAR SARAPION AND BOETHIUS
There are some who think, with Cleanthes, that the only duty of a comforter is
to prove that the evil one is lamenting is not an evil at all. Others, as the Peripa-
tetics, prefer urging that the evil is not great. Others again, with Epicurus, seek
to divert your attention from the evil to good: some think it sufficient to show
that nothing evil has happened that you had no reason to expect; this is the
practice of the Cyrenaics. But Chrysippus thinks that the main thing in com-
forting is to remove from the person who is grieving the opinion that to grieve is
the right thing to do and his duty. There are others who bring together all these
various kinds of consolations, for people are differently affected, as I have done
myself in my book on consolation; for as my own mind was much disordered,
I have attempted in that book to discover every method of cure.1
In this short but illuminating doxographic account, the Roman philoso-
pher Cicero makes abundantly clear that in antiquity the art of consola-
tion was part and parcel of philosophy.2 As he says, Cicero himself wrote
a Consolatio (which is now lost) but he was certainly not the first to do
so for he had several Greek predecessors. “The consolatio as a genre of
literature had a long history going back to the fifth century BCE, in the
course of which it developed its own repertoire of standard arguments
and topoi to soothe the sufferer.”3 In the classical and Hellenistic period,
under the influence of both philosophy and rhetoric, “a specialized con-
solatory literature began to develop, initiating a tradition which persisted
throughout Graeco-Roman antiquity and into the Middle Ages.”4 What
little has been preserved of this literature takes a variety of forms. “Phi-
losophers wrote treatises on death and the alleviation of grief. Letters of
consolation were written to comfort those who had suffered bereave-
ment or some other loss-experience such as exile or illness; these might
1 Cicero, Tusc. Disp. 3.76.

2 See on this topic P. Courcelle, La consolation de la philosophie dans la tradition lit-
téraire (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1967). Unfortunately I have not been able to consult
R.C. Gregg, Consolation Philosophy: Greek and Christian Paideia, Patristic Monograph Series
3 (Cambridge MA: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1975).
3 C.D.N. Costa, Seneca: Four Dialogues (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1994), 4–5.
4 J.H.D. Scourfield, “Consolatio,” OCD (3rd ed., Oxford: OUP, 1996), 378.
194 pieter w. van der horst
be highly personal, or possess the more detached character of an essay.”5

Funeral speeches frequently contained a substantial consolatory element
as well. Poets sometimes wrote verse consolations, etc. As far as the con-
tribution of philosophers is concerned, the first figure of importance is
Crantor (ca. 335–275 BCE), the earliest Platonic commentator, whose lost
On Grief (Peri penthous) became very influential in antiquity. It opposed
the Cynic ideal of eradicating this emotion and it was the model for
Cicero’s lost Consolatio.
But instead of listing only lost works, let me also mention the most
important works of consolation that have been preserved. These are Sulp-
icius Rufus’ letter to Cicero on the occasion of the death of the latter’s
daughter, Tullia (Ep. ad Fam. 4.5); Seneca’s Ad Marciam and Ad Helviam
matrem (Dial. 6 and 12) and also his Epistles 63, 93, and 99; Pseudo-Plutarch’s
Consolatio ad Apollonium; and of course Boethius’ Consolatio philosophiae.6
These works range from the 4th/3rd cent. BCE to the 6th cent. CE
(I leave out of account here the continuation of this type of literature in the
Middle Ages).
The main topic in consolation literature is of a parenetic nature: how to
behave in a situation of bereavement, whether it be the death of a relative
or friend, the loss of freedom by imprisonment or exile, the loss of health
or wealth, et cetera. The one(s) addressed is (are) admonished to mod-
erate7 or overcome his (their) grief and is (are) given advice on how to
achieve that. This is generally done by stressing that what is lost (life, free-
dom, health, wealth) is by far not as valuable as it is generally deemed to
be, with the implication that the great “loss” is not really a great loss at all.
For instance, in the case of exile or imprisonment it is often argued that a
change of dwelling place is not a bad thing at all and that the ensuing loss
of comfort, status, or fame is to be regarded as totally irrelevant to human
life and happiness; the value of all earthly things is strongly relativized or
denied. More often one finds the (Platonic) idea that death is not an evil
to be feared, on the contrary, death liberates the immortal soul from the
fetters of the body and the misery of an earthly existence so as to enable
it to lead a better life. Quite often series of exempla illustrate and support
the argument, esp. exempla of such persons as have undergone their fate
in an exemplary manner, e.g., Socrates.
5 Scourfield, ibid. 378. See also R. Kassel, Untersuchungen zur griechischen und römis-
chen Konsolationsliteratur, Zetemata 18 (München: Beck, 1958).
6 See W. Kierdorf, “Konsolationsliteratur,” DNP 6 (1999), 710–711.
7 This is the Peripatetic concept of metriopatheia.
consolation from prison 195
The reason I present this quick overview of consolation literature is

that, even though the letter of Mara bar Sarapion to his son is not a letter
of consolation stricto sensu, it nevertheless evinces many elements of the
traditional consolation literature. It cannot be regarded as a letter of con-
solation in the sense that the addressee (Sarapion) is consoled about the
dire situation his father is in (waiting in prison for his [death?] sentence).
Rather, he is instructed in how to live a life of wisdom and virtue. The
letter is a semi-philosophical treatise on the virtuous life lived in modera-
tion in contrast to a life dominated by desires and greed. The only time
Sarapion is told not to grieve is in § 10 where his father exhorts him “not
to be sad about having been driven from place to place all alone.” But the
fact that Sarapion is hardly consoled in the letter should not close our eyes
to the fact that there is an addressee for the consolatory motives and ele-
ments in it: it is Mara himself. The writer of this epistle clearly composed
it mainly to console himself in a terrible situation that he fears will lead to
his death. The arguments about the lack of value of all earthly possessions
are directed at Mara himself and serve to facilitate the acceptance of his
painful fate by himself. So one might call it a letter of self-consolation.
But perhaps it is better to call Mara’s letter a letter from prison, a better
attested and more well-known genre, especially in the modern world. For
if one googles “Letters from prison” one gets more than 28 million hits!8
One finds there alongside one another such famous names as Dietrich
Bonhöffer, Antonio Gramsci, Solzhenitsyn, and Marquis de Sade, and
many other less famous persons who wrote letters in prison (or captiv-
ity epistles, if you wish) or composed other writings there.9 Now when
we restrict ourselves to antiquity, we find that the harvest is much less
rich than from later times, as was to be expected. We have of course the
relevant Pauline epistles from prison10 as well as the captivity letters of
Ignatius of Antioch.11 The seventh Socratic epistle (spurious, of course,
8 See also http://celltexts.org/index.

9 See I. Davies, Writers in Prison (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990). On the development of
ancient Greek epistolography in general see M.L. Stirewalt, Studies in Ancient Greek Epis-
tolography (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), 1–26.
10 See W.G. Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament (London: SCM Press), 1975,
210–387; R.E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1997),
407–680. It is interesting to notice that one of Paul’s captivity letters can also be regarded
as a letter of consolation; see P.A. Holloway, Consolation in Philippians: Philosophical
Sources and Rhetorical Strategy, SNTSMS 112 (Cambridge: CUP, 2001).
11 See W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985).
and dating from the Imperial period)12 also seems to have been meant
as a letter from prison, the only one in which this obviously tempting
possibility is taken up for Socrates, but it is very short and rather trite.13
When we compare these letters with the one by Mara, we see that they
have very little in common. In the prison letters of Paul and Ignatius, the
focus is not at all on the captivity of the authors and on how to cope with
it and they do not try to consolate their addressees about their dire fate
in prison, let alone that they use philosophical argumentation to achieve
that purpose. And in the case of the pseudo-Socratic letter, supposedly
written from prison, we have to do with an unhistorical situation—it is
fictional and the philosophical argument is negligible; moreover, it is an
isolated and uncertain case. So we have to conclude that a clear-cut genre
of “epistles from prison” simply did not exist in antiquity, even though we
have a handful of instances of letters written in captivity by historical fig-
ures (Paul and Ignatius), but in these their captivity and how to deal with
it is not the focus; we have one insignificant fictional letter from prison,
if it is one at all (Pseudo-Socrates), which shows little or no similarity to
Mara’s letter. This meager evidence does definitely not suffice to assert
that there was a genre of “letters from prison” in antiquity.
If the letter of Mara bar Sarapion does not belong to a genre “letters
from prison” and if it also cannot simply be regarded as a traditional piece
of consolation literature even if it displays features of it, where then does
it belong, if anywhere? Or is it a document sui generis? As far as I can
see, the only really comparable writing from antiquity is the Consolatio
philosophiae by Boethius.
Who was Boethius and what is his Consolatio about? Boethius lived from
ca. 480 CE to 524 CE.14 He was a leading Christian nobleman whom the
Ostrogothic king of Italy, Theodoric I, appointed consul in 510 and mag-
ister officiorum in ca. 522, and as such he was one of the highest officials
of the Empire. He was implicated, however, in a senatorial conspiracy,
imprisoned in Pavia, and executed in 524. He had an extraordinarily great
knowledge of Greek philosophy and translated several Greek philosophical
12 See L. Köhler, Die Briefe des Sokrates und der Sokratiker, Philologus Supplementband
XX/2 (Leipzig: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1928), 20–21; also in J. Sykutris, Die
Briefe des Sokrates und der Sokratiker (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1933) [non vidi].
13 I owe the latter reference to Prof. Michael Trapp (private communication). See also
his useful Greek and Latin Letters (Cambridge: CUP, 2003).
14 For good short introductions see F. Wotke, “Boethius,” RAC 2 (1954), 482–488;
H. von Campenhausen, Lateinische Kirchenväter (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1960; 2. Aufl.
1965), 223–251; the best recent introduction is J. Marenbon, Boethius (Oxford: OUP, 2003).
works into Latin and wrote commentaries on them; he even planned a

complete Latin translation of all the works of Plato and Aristotle but never
completed that project. He had a special preference for the logical works of
Greek philosophers. He is also the author of five minor theological treatises
(on the Trinity, the Catholic faith, etc.). Boethius was the last of the Roman
philosophers and the first of the scholastic theologians, and as such he had
a great influence on thinkers in the Middle Ages.15
During his final months in prison, not long before his execution, he
composed his famous Consolatio philosophiae, a work in which he himself
conducts a series of long dialogues with a heavenly being that turns out
to be Lady Philosophy.16 After he has lamented his unjust and cruel fate
to her, she begins to appeal to his philosophical knowledge and gradually
tries to bring him to the insight that what looks like a catastrophe is not
catastrophic at all. By a series of logical arguments she shows him that his
loss of wealth, influence, freedom, and eventually his life is not relevant
in view of what is the only important thing, wisdom and virtue. Internal
good qualities are far more important than the external gifts of Fortune.
Also the problem of the reconciliation of divine prescience and human
free will is discussed at length. At several turns in the conversation, the
author inserts poems that encapsulate the topics just discussed. At the
end Lady Philosophy urges Boethius to offer up humble prayers to heaven
and trust in God (Cons. 5.6.46–47).
The idea of a comparison between Boethius’ Consolatio and Mara’s let-
ter may sound a bit far-fetched at first sight, and I immediately admit that
the differences between the two writings are as great and many as are the
similarities. Let me first list some of the main differences. To begin with,
there is the large chronological gap. If Mara’s letter is from the 70s of the
first century CE (a matter that I will come back to) whereas Boethius’
book was written in the ’20s of the sixth century CE, there is a time gap
of some 450 years between the two documents. Moreover, they lived in
completely different worlds, Mara in the Syrian East, Boethius in the Latin
West; Mara in a predominantly pagan society, Boethius in a by and large
Christian one; Mara wrote in Syriac, Boethius in Latin. Boethius has a very
thorough and intimate knowledge of Greek philosophy, and he is even
15 See, e.g., N.H. Kaylor, The Medieval Consolation of Philosophy: An Annotated Bibliog-
raphy (New York: Garland, 1992).
16 The most convenient edition of the Latin text with an English translation is the LCL
edition by S.J. Tester (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1918; new edition 1973;
latest reprint 2003).
acquainted with its most technical details (the debates about logic, for
instance), whereas Mara’s knowledge seems to be restricted to philosophi-
cal commonplaces in the sphere of ethics.17 Boethius certainly did not
know Mara’s letter—there were no Latin or Greek translations of Syriac
literature in the Latin West in his time. Yet, the similarities are at least as
striking as are these differences.
To begin with, both are historical figures, writing from prison in the face
of a possible or almost certain death sentence. Both were high-ranking offi-
cials in the administration of their respective countries or empires. Both
have lost their influence, their status, and their wealth, and will possibly
loose even their life. Both try to fight the depressing feelings evoked by this
situation by an appeal to philosophical arguments. Although Mara does so
by means of a letter to his son and Boethius by means of a dialogue with
Lady Philosophy, it is clear that both of them mainly try to comfort them-
selves. Both are fond of using lists of exempla in their exhortations (and
both mention Socrates and Pythagoras among their exempla).18 Both regu-
larly intersperse their prose texts with poetic interludes, a relatively rare
phenomenon known as prosimetrum. Both emphasize time and again the
worthlessness and insignificance of wealth, fame, status, power, etc. Both
speak of consolation in medical metaphors—the soul has to be “cured”
from its grief and philosophy is either the doctor or the medicine.19 Both
speak of the interrelations between time, providence, fate, predestination,
and free will.20 Other topics they have in common are the uncertainty and
capriciousness of fate; the sudden reversal of fortune; the vanity of desire
for ephemeral matters; the undesirability of bad emotions such as grief,
sorrow, anger, fear; the transitory nature of possessions; the emptiness of
splendour and riches; the fact that wealth does not make happy but only
creates worries; the delusory nature of power and high offices, of honour
17 For a more positive evaluation of Mara’s philosophical standing see A. Merz and
T. Tieleman, “The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion: Some Comments on its Philosophical and
Historical Context,” in A. Houtman, A. de Jong & M. Misset-van de Weg (eds.), Empsychoi
Logoi. Religious Innovations in Antiquity. Studies in Honour of Pieter Willem van der Horst,
Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 73 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 107–134; also I. Ramelli,
Stoici Romani Minori (Milano: Bompiani, 2008), 2557–2597.
18 See A. Lumpe, “Exemplum,” RAC 6 (1966), 1229–1257. On Mara’s exempla see F. Mil-
lar, The Roman Near East 31 bc–ad 337 (Cambridge MA-London: Harvard University Press,
1993), 462.
19 For this “medical” metaphor cf. esp. Cicero, Tusc.3.1–13, e.g., 3.6 est profecto animi
medicina philosophia.
20 Note especially that in Cons. 4.6 tempus and fatum are correlated (just as providentia
en aeternitas), which is reminiscent of Mara’s use of the word “time” for fate.
and wealth; only wisdom and virtue count, the rest is irrelevant. And so
one could go on. In spite of the many great differences between the two
writings one can clearly see that not only their circumstances are perfectly
comparable but also that their approach to the problem under consider-
ation is very similar. Now many of these common elements undoubtedly
derive from the tradition of consolation literature we spoke of above. But
others do not fit into that pattern at all. Let us have a closer look at some
of these.
To begin with the prosimetrum, I will first briefly explain what is meant
by this term and then explain what its use implies. One could define pro-
simetrum as a designation of a variety of texts that combine prose with
verse.21 It is a mixtum of prose and poetry that is not often found in antiq-
uity. The most significant manifestation of prosimetrum in antiquity is
the Menippean satire (Satura Menippea).22 This genre, named after its
supposed inventor, Menippus of Gadara (who probably was active in the
first half of the 3rd cent. BCE),23 consisted of parodies or satires com-
posed in prose but interspersed with poetic quotes or poems written by
the author himself. Usually, philosophical or religious doctrines, practices,
or authorities are the object of the satirical parody. It is a genre whose
primary function is to uncover the limits of theoretical knowledge. Some-
times, the poetic passages are used to undermine what had been said in
the preceding prose part or to weaken the position of the protagonist (see,
e.g., Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, a political satire that is our only complete
example of Latin prosimetrum before Martianus Capella). Fine instances
can be found in the works of the second-century satirist Lucian, e.g., his
Nekyomanteia, Icaromenippus, Piscator, and others. And it is also relevant
to notice that the only other ancient works in which Philosophy appears
as a character in debate are some of Lucian’s satirical works in the tradi-
tion of Menippean satire. Why, then, did Mara and Boethius choose a lit-
erary form that, in antiquity, was so closely linked to parody and satire?
It has recently been argued24 that the failure of reason, or of rational
philosophy, in really critical situations is exactly the point Boethius wanted
21 See S. Braund, “Prosimetrum,” DNP 10 (2001) 440–442, here 440 (with good bibliogra-
phy). The term prosimetrum itself is not ancient but medieval.
22 See J.C. Relihan, Ancient Menippean Satire (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1993), for an excellent introduction.
23 Very little of his works has been preserved except titles. It is also a great loss that the
Saturae Menippeae of Varro, the pioneer of Latin satire, are lost, except for fragments.
24 See J.C. Relihan, The Prisoner’s Philosophy: Life and Death in Boethius’s Consolation
(Notre dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007).
to make. The failure of theory borne out by the genre considerations of

Menippean satire, points, for Boethius, to the alternative of prayer, spe-
cifically Christian prayer, which notion closes the Consolation, as we saw.
This interpretation rests on four unfulfilled promises in the Consolation:
(1) it’s a consolation, but there’s no consoling; (2) self-realization is prom-
ised but never achieved; (3) Lady Philosophy promises to lead the narrator
to a true homeland, but never does; (4) harsher medicines are promised,
but never given.25 Or to put it another way, after many hours (or pages) of
reasoning and logical argumentation (in which she sometimes contradicts
herself), Lady Philosophy simply does not accomplish what she set out to
do; at the end of the day she does not succeed in presenting her case in
any compelling way so that at the very end of the book, in a surprising
and unexpected turn, she seems to abandon her philosophical enterprise
and spurs Boethius to pray humbly to God. (In this unexpected end we
may see a striking parallel in the equally unexpected chreia in § 30 at the
end of Mara’s letter.) Prayer is not the logical result of all the preceding
arguments, on the contrary, it is their abandonment, as if the Christian
that Boethius was, wants to say that in the face of death it is only faithful
prayer that can give consolation, not philosophy.
The author has not allowed [Lady] Philosophy to provide the consolation
that she had hoped to give; and the prisoner has taken from her a conso-
lation that she had not expected to offer. . . . Certainly, the word ‘consola-
tion’ does not by itself a consolation make, yet there remains the interesting
question: Why label a work with what seems to be a false promise? This is
an authorial question; there is no reason to doubt that this is the title that
Boethius gave his dialogue. One avenue is to say that we have here the play-
ful title of a Menippean satire, with an oxymoron in the tradition of Varro’s
Cynic Satires or Petronius’ Satyricon: Philosophy’s consolation is a paradoxi-
cal consolation. But this is not enough. The title is a tease: it invokes generic
expectations that the work will not fulfill. Rather than deny the connection
between Consolation and consolatory literature, we should look at Consola-
tion as not-a-consolation; in short, as a paradox.26
What is at stake here is what path to God is to be chosen. This message
is more implicit than explicit (as is more often the case in Menippean
satire), but it is there.
25 This summary is partly based on John Casey’s review of Relihan, The Prisoner’s Phi-
losophy, in BMCR of 1 May 2009 (on Internet).
26 Relihan, The Prisoner’s Philosophy 44 and 49.
Why would a text that tries so hard to present the author’s mature philo-
sophical thought on crucial issues do so in a context in which these truths
are shown to be of lesser value than the path of humble prayer? These ques-
tions admit of coherent answers when Consolation of Philosophy takes its
place in the history and tradition of Menippean satire.27
As is to be expected from a Menippean satire, the Consolatio reveals the
limits of philosophy and for that very reason in the end recommends
prayer. And there is no doubt that Boethius wants us to understand this
as Christian prayer. At the end of his life (and of his final book), the phi-
losopher Boethius sends us a non-philosophical Christian message, even
though the Consolatio is nowhere overtly Christian. That seemingly non-
Christian character of the Consolatio should not surprise us. We know
several other instances of “non-Christian” writings by Christian authors,
that is to say, writings which do not show any trace of Christian ideas
but nevertheless were written by authors who were definitely Christian.
Names such as Synesius of Cyrene, Nonnus of Panopolis, and Cyrus of
the same city immediately spring to mind. When one reads some of the
treatises and letters of Synesius, one certainly does not get the impression
one is reading writings by a Christian bishop, and that applies a fortiori
to Nonnus’ Dionysiaca or the “non-Christian” poems by Cyrus. But one
could also point to works such the De monarchia of Pseudo-Justin, the
anonymous Martyrium Maccabaeorum, or even some sermons by John
Chrysostom and Augustine on Old Testament texts in which one does
not find specifically Christian elements.28 In the fourth through sixth
centuries CE there were several Christian humanists who did not regard
their deep involvement with Graeco-Roman culture as being at odds with
their Christian beliefs. Quite often one has the impression that the words
of Plato carried more weight with these authors than the words of Jesus
Christ. And one would not be surprised if one of them would have spoken
about Jesus Christ as “the wise king of the Jews,” as Mara did (§ 18).
Now we have come back to Mara. Does what I have said about Boethius
shed any light on Mara’s letter? I am not at all sure about that but I will
tentatively try to argue that it does. Is Mara a Syrian Boethius? Is he, too, a
Christian? Does his quasi-philosophical letter have features of the Menip-
pean satire? As to the first question, I can be brief because I have already
27 Relihan, The Prisoner’s Philosophy 33. At p. 67 Relihan rightly remarks that the
Consolatio is at the same time a recreation of Plato’s Crito.
28 See J.R. Davila, The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha: Jewish, Christian, or Other? JSJS
105 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), esp. 74–119.
argued that nothing is more comparable (in various ways) to Mara’s letter
than Boethius’ Consolatio. In spite of the great difference in sophistication
(Boethius is a towering scholar, Mara is not), Mara deserves to be called
the Syrian Boethius.
The second question is a more tricky one. It has often been argued in
the past that Mara must have been a Christian.29 More recently the sup-
port for that position has strongly declined. This is not the place to go
into the details of this debate. Let me only briefly indicate where I stand.
I for one find it hard to accept that quite unexpectedly we have to redate
the beginnings of Syriac literature to a period some 125 or 150 years before
Bardesanes (Bardaitsan, ca. 155–222 CE). That is not a sign of conservatism
but rather of the fact the chronological gap between the first Syriac author
known to us (Mara) and the second one (Bardesanes) is too great. If
Mara’s letter is to be dated to about 73 CE, we would expect to find traces
of other Syriac writings in the long period before Bardesanes, but there
are none.30 For that reason I am inclined to date Mara much later than
the first century, perhaps in the third or fourth century, as others have
already proposed. But then the possibility that he is a Christian increases.
And the main reason to think that he is a Christian is not so much that he
mentions Jesus (“the wise king of the Jews”) in a positive way but rather
the striking fact that he regards the massacre of the Jews by the Romans
and their being expelled from their own country and scattered all over the
world as God’s punishment for their killing of Jesus (§ 18). I am not aware
of any other pagan author who speaks about God’s punishment of the
Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus. This anti-Jewish polemic is such a distinc-
tively Christian idea that it makes it hard to escape the conclusion that
Mara was a Christian, that is to say, a Christian of the mode of Boethius,
a hellenized Christian humanist who wrote a letter that does purposefully
not preach an overtly Christian message but a (semi-)philosophical one.
The fact that Mara remarks that the wise king of the Jews is not dead
“because of the new laws that he gave” (§ 18), can be read as a confession
both of Jesus’ resurrection and of the lasting validity of his teachings. Cor-
roborative evidence of Mara’s Christianity can be found in the fact that
when Mara himself speaks about the divine he always uses the word God
in the singular but when he has others do so he uses the plural “gods”
29 For references see Merz & Tieleman, “The Letter.”

30 Unless Tatian’s Diatessaron was composed in Syriac, but even then the chronological
gap remains wide.
(see §§ 5, 14, 16, 18 in contrast to § 8).31 This he certainly does on pur-

pose, thereby indicating that he is a monotheist. In view of the fact that
in Boethius’ Consolatio we find in many respects the closest parallel to
Mara’s letter, it stands to reason that it should be seriously considered
whether also their veiled Christianity is part of this parallelism. Apart
from that, if Mara is a Christian, the early dating to ca. 73 CE may have
to be abandoned.32 A dating in the third or fourth century seems much
more probable.
The final question is whether Mara’s letter shows features of the Meni-
ppean satire. This is very hard to substantiate but some elements might
point in that direction. First, after much philosophical consolatory talk,
Mara says at the very end of his letter: “If someone is saddened or wor-
ried, I have no advice for him” (§ 29). That does not sound as if his philo-
sophical arguments have been able to really console him or anyone else.
I suggest that here we have a parallel to the ending of Boethius’ treatise
where philosophy is abandoned and humble prayer to God takes its place.
And also the short appended chreia in § 30, in which Mara laughs at fate
because fate has repaid him evil though it owed him none, does not give
the impression that it is philosophy that has enabled him to be recon-
ciled to his miserable fate. Rather, he ridicules his situation, which he
apparently experiences as bizarre and paradoxical. Admittedly, these two
elements do not make the letter a full-blown Menippean satire, but they
do seem to relativize or even undermine the idea that philosophy can
adequately console people in the face of death. We all know how true
this is.
All the above-said is speculative and is in need of further investigation.
My thesis may turn out to be untenable, but even so I think it is useful to
draw attention to possible avenues of interpretation that should not be
dismissed too quickly.
31 G. Theissen & A. Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (London: SCM
Press, 1998), 78 wrongly assert that Mara speaks openly of “our gods”: he puts these words
only into the mouths of others.
32 Knowledge of the Gospel of Matthew (or even his sources) in the early seventies in
Syria seems to me rather improbable; pace Merz and Tieleman, “The Letter,” 130.
MARA BAR SARAPION:
COMMENTS ON THE SYRIAC EDITION, TRANSLATION,
AND NOTES BY DAVID RENSBERGER*
Ilaria L.E. Ramelli
First of all let me express my warm congratulations to David Rensberger

and to Annette Merz and Teun Tieleman on this fine achievement. In
particular, as for the edition of the Syriac and the translation and notes by
Rensberger, which I am called to comment on, I deeply enjoyed reading
and studying them. The translation is surely much better than Cureton’s
old English version, and the edition does have some interesting improve-
ments vis-à-vis Cureton and Schulthess. This is a careful work that deserves
close attention. I am—perhaps apparently a bit paradoxically—glad that
the SAPERE book, contrary to the initial plan, has not yet appeared at the
time of the conference, because in this way my own comments will not
sound in the least like judgments, but they will constitute, I hope, helpful
suggestions for the improvement and completion of the book itself. I shall
begin with more general remarks concerning structure and methodologi-
cal issues, then I shall move on to more detailed observations, for which I
shall follow the order of the text of the letter.
David Rensberger’s division of Mara’s text into 30 paragraphs or short sec-

tions is generally well conceived and clearly helpful to modern readers. A
major partition into (maybe three to five/six) macro-sections, with head-
ings, could be provided as well, according to the general development of
Mara’s paraenetic discourse. This is not at all a complaint, but, as I have
mentioned, it is simply meant as a constructive contribution to the study
of the letter, exactly like the rest of my observations.
* I wish to express warm gratitude to Annette Merz and Teun Tieleman for their wel-
come invitation. Please note that the present comments were made on the basis of the
provisional edition, translation, and notes supplied by David Rensberger at the Utrecht
Symposium, 10–12 December 2009, long before the publication of their SAPERE volume;
all references to notes, paragraph divisions, textual and translation choices, etc. are refer-
ences to that draft. I am also grateful to him, and happy, for his very positive reaction.
206 ilaria l.e. ramelli
I very much like the idea of disposing sapiential passages, rhetorically

structured and witnesses to Semitic wisdom lore,1 in verses, in §§ 5 (with
four bicola, painstakingly analysed in their structure in note 16), 6, 8, 9, 15.
Elements of parallelism in cola are especially emphasised by this struc-
ture; for instance, in § 8, in which Mara is describing to his son the sorrow
of his companions while they were leaving Samosata and “seemed to be
complaining against Fate”:
For they remembered their fathers with tears,
and their mothers with groans;
they sorrowed for their brothers,
and were pained for the brides they left behind.
Especially for this reason, I would have structured § 12 in this way as well,
and also § 13. Indeed, in § 12, after the initial questions, “Begin, O wisest
among the human race, and tell us, on which possession shall a person rely?
Or of what things shall one say that they seem enduring?” a sequence of
questions and answers (what I would call a ‘binomial sequence’) begins:
Of great riches? They can be grabbed away.
Of fortified towns? They can be plundered.
Of cities? They can be laid waste.
Of majesty? It can be brought low.
Of magnificence? It can be thrown down.
Of beauty? It fades.
Of laws, then? They pass away.
Or of poverty? It is despised.
Or of children? They die.
Or of friends? They prove false.
Or of honours? Envy goes before them.
The same structure, but in the reverse order, can be found in § 13: a bino-
mial sequence, like the one quoted above, is here not preceded, but fol-
lowed, by a plain remark. So, first we have the binomial sequence:
So let a man rejoice in his kingdom—like Darius;
or in his good fortune—like Polycrates;
or in his valour—like Achilles;
or in his wife—like Agamemnon;
or in his offspring—like Priam;
or in his craftsmanship—like Archimedes;
1 On Semitic parallel structures and wisdom pieces, which have clear examples in the
Hebrew Bible, see, e.g., Matthew Gordley, “The Johannine Prologue and Jewish Didactic
Hymn Traditions: A New Case for Reading the Prologue as a Hymn,” JBL 128 (2009): 781–802.
comments on the syriac edition 207
or in his wisdom—like Socrates;

or in his learning—like Pythagoras;
or in his brilliance—like Palamedes.
Then, the concluding remark follows: “People’s lives, my son, vanish from
the world; but their praises and virtues endure forever.”
In both binomial sequences, in § 12 and in § 13, there is an opposi-
tion between the first and the second term of the binomial line. First, in
the questions and answers in § 12, the answer puts down the expectation
implicit in the question: “Of beauty?—It fades; Of children?—They die,”
and so on. Then, in § 13, the example that follows the general statement
in each binomial line shows how the virtue or capacity exalted in the
first binomial term has proved dangerous and even fatal for the person
who constitutes the relevant example: one should rejoice and boast “in his
wife—like Agamemnon,” who was killed by his wife; “or in his wisdom—
like Socrates,” who was put to death because of his philosophical wisdom,
etc.
I would suggest following the same visual structure also in the key pas-
sage in § 18, that in which Mara offers examples of wise men who were
persecuted and killed unjustly, and whose persecutors, in this case whole
peoples, were punished by the divinity in its justice, in accord with the
philosophical argument of collective punishments and deaths.2 After the
long initial question, “What else can we say, when the wise suffer violence
at the hands of tyrants, their wisdom is taken captive by denunciation,
and for all their enlightenment they are dispossessed with no opportunity
for defence?” there comes a threefold binomial sequence, again charac-
terized by an opposition between the first and the second term of the
binomial line:
What benefit did the Athenians derive from the slaying of Socrates?
– For they received the retribution for it in the form of famine and plague. /
Or the people of Samos from the burning of Pythagoras?
– For in one hour their entire country was covered with sand. /
Or the Jews [from the killing] of their wise king?
– For from that very time their sovereignty was taken away.
2 This was a widespread argument against astrological determinism. See Beatrice

Motta, Il Contra Fatum di Gregorio di Nissa nel dibattito tardo-antico sul fatalismo e sul
determinismo (Pisa-Rome: Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2008), with my review in TMR (Nov.
2009): https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/6611.
A connective sentence is inserted at this point, on the divinity’s justice in

its punishments: “For God rightly exacted retribution on behalf of the wis-
dom of these three.” Then comes the second double sequence, with three
and three cola, six in all; both groups of three are ordered in an ascending
climax, from the shortest to the longest:
I. For the Athenians starved to death,
and the people of Samos were covered by the sea without remedy,
and the Jews, massacred and chased from their kingdom, are scattered
through every land.
II. Socrates did not die, because of Plato;
nor did Pythagoras, because of the statue of Hera;
nor did the wise king, because of the new laws that he gave.
Another structural remark, of a different nature, bears on quite an impor-
tant issue involving the genre and the dating of Mara’s letter itself. David
Rensberger has done very well to separate the last paragraph (§ 30) from
the rest of the letter. Indeed, by marking the separation with three aster-
isks, he makes it clear that this bit does not belong to the body of the
letter. This is a remarkable point, since this very paragraph has been used
by scholars to argue for a late dating of the letter and its inclusion in the
χρεία tradition, most notably by Chin. Her paper includes lots of interest-
ing material, but her main thesis fails to convince especially because of
this inclusion, in addition to running athwart linguistic and palaeographic
hints to which I shall return.3 She deems this letter late, a rhetorical exer-
cise of the χρεία kind, described in the handbooks of rhetoric of Theon
and Libanius; Mara’s letter, in this perspective, has no historical value, nor
does it document even a popular form of Stoicism. It is rather evidence of
the diffusion of Greek rhetoric in late antique Syriac literature. Chin is led
to this conclusion by the short section that, in the manuscript, comes after
the letter and is indeed a χρεία, a witty sentence of Mara in his answer
to a question (in conformity with a question-and-answer typology that is
well attested for this literary genre). According to Chin, the whole letter
of Mara is but a development of the brief final χρεία; it is itself a rhetorical
exercise, belonging to the prosopopoeia. This hypothesis has momentous
consequences upon the dating of the letter, which should on this account
date to a period in which Greek paideia had entered the curriculum of
studies in Syriac culture, therefore the fifth or sixth centuries.
3 Catherine Chin, “Rhetorical Practice in the Chreia Elaboration of Mara bar Sarapion,”
Hugoye 9.2 (2006): §§ 1–24.
However, apart from the aforementioned linguistic and palaeographi-

cal contrary arguments, it is I believe not at all certain, and indeed rather
improbable, that the χρεία appended to Mara’s letter was written by the
same author as the letter itself, let alone that the letter and the χρεία
should be regarded as together constituting a single document, or even
that the χρεία inspired the letter, rather than the reverse. For the letter
may rather be earlier and the χρεία may have arisen from it as a rhetori-
cal exercise. In this respect, I would like to adduce an example that seems
to me particularly relevant and illuminating: that of the pseudepigraphic
correspondence between the Roman Stoic Musonius Rufus and Apollo-
nius of Tyana. This seems indeed to be a rhetorical exercise and can by
no means be considered to have been part of Musonius’ philosophical
diatribes, which are surely authentic although they were written down
by his disciple Lucius, and reflect his teaching of Stoicism.4 Even less
can those pseudepigraphic letters purportedly exchanged with Apollo-
nius be regarded as the piece from which Musonius’ diatribes originated
subsequently. In the same way, the χρεία that has Mara as a protagonist
should be considered separately from the letter. It was probably written
later than the letter, whose linguistic features point to an early date and
perfectly correspond to the historical framework in which it is set, as I
have argued in the past.5 Moreover, the philosophical elements in Mara’s
letter are not so generic as to be impossible to relate to a philosophical
school. On the contrary, I repeatedly endeavoured to point out close simi-
larities between Mara’s letter and Stoicism, especially themes of Roman
Stoicism;6 the same emerges from Tieleman’s observations on the letter.7
I found the notes, as well, really commendable, rich, and helpful. At

the beginning some Syriac lexica are listed, which are then referred to
throughout the notes—indeed, these were practically all the Syriac lexica
available until some weeks ago: Robert Payne Smith’s Thesaurus Syriacus,
4 See my Musonio Rufo, Diatribe, frammenti e testimonianze (Milan: Bompiani, 2001)

and Stoici romani minori (Milan: Bompiani, 2008), 689–943.
5 “Stoicismo e Cristianesimo in area siriaca nella seconda metà del I secolo d.C.,” Sileno
25 (1999): 197–212; eadem, “Gesù tra i sapienti greci perseguitati ingiustamente in un antico
documento filosofico pagano di lingua siriaca,” Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica 97 (2005):
545–570; eadem, Stoici Romani, 2555–2598. Contrast Chin, “Rhetorical Practice,” § 6: “[. . .]
several completely unverifiable—and quite possibly entirely false—historical details.”
6 See my “Gesù tra i sapienti greci,” 545–70; eadem, Stoici Romani, 2555–98.
7 Annette Merz and Teun Tieleman, “The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion: Some Comments
on Its Philosophical and Historical Context,” in Empsychoi logoi. Festschrift Van der Horst,
eds. Albert de Jong et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 107–33.
Carl Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum, and Jessie Payne Smith’s Compendi-

ous Syriac Dictionary. Now it would be worthwhile to check, and refer to,
the new edition of Brockelmann’s lexicon prepared by Michael Sokoloff,8
which has finally appeared and contains some improvements.
Another general suggestion before tackling the more analytical issues:
in the notes, references are often made9 to the Peshitta of the Old and
of the New Testament for lexical parallels and the use of words that are
found in Mara’s letter, which is surely interesting and illuminating. Now,
at least for the New Testament, I think it would be very helpful to check
the Old Syriac translation as well, the so-called Vetus Syra,10 and refer
to it, which is much closer to Mara’s time than the Peshitta. Significant
parallels might emerge.
In note 1 (on § 2), “guardian” is well-chosen, and the study of parallels in

Hatra and the Acts of Thomas is quite relevant. In my own translation,11
I rendered “precettore” (cf. Schulthess’s Erzieher), highlighting that these
persons were in charge of the education of children of ruling classes,
also for the wordplay with the Syriac noun meaning “education,” which
appears in the immediate context in the letter.
Similarly, in note 3 (also on § 2), I would like to point out Rensberger’s
inference that, given the insistence of Mara on his son’s young age, and
given that it is his preceptor or guardian who writes to Sarapion’s father,
Sarapion probably was a child at the beginning of his education. In this
case, I think, it would be all the more remarkable that Mara seems to pre-
suppose that even a child such as Sarapion already knows who the “wise
king of the Jews” was (§ 18), and what happened to him, and what conse-
quences his killing had, and how he survives in his “new laws,” and why
he is a good match for the Greek philosophers Socrates and Pythagoras. In
this case, this would have been, not something known only to specialists
and learned people, but something well known, even to children. Or at
least Mara could expect that Sarapion had learnt, or would learn, every-
thing from his preceptor.
8 Michael Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon. A Translation from the Latin, Correction, Expan-
sion, and Update of C. Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum (Piscataway: Gorgias – Winona
Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009).
9 E.g., in notes 1, 24, 72, 109, 130.
10 On the Vetus Syra or Old Syriac version, more recent than Tatian’s Diatessaron, but
more ancient than the Peshitta, I refer at least to Sebastian Brock, The Bible in the Syriac
Tradition (second edition Piscataway: Gorgias, 2006), 33–4.
11 In “Gesù tra i sapienti greci,” 545–70 and Stoici Romani, 2555–98.
In note 4, the problem is rightly raised of Mara’s calling his letter a

“record” of his inquiries in the world (§ 3), i.e. into human life, involv-
ing the question whether this record is what the Greeks referred to as
ὑπομνήματα (suggested by Schulthess). Indeed, the case is also not unlike
that of Latin commentarii, for instance those of Julius Caesar on Gaul, or,
some decades before Mara, the ὑπομνήματα of Lucius Vitellius, Tiberius’
plenipotentiary in the Near East, which may have been the source of a
section of Josephus’ Antiquitates Judaicae.12 These records arose from
direct experience and might, or might not, acquire literary status. Mara’s
own record, analogously arising from personal experience, was made, not
with a historical purpose in mind, but with a hortatory, ‘philosophical’
purpose.
In note 8 (on § 3), I agree that the Syriac text is corrupt and that the
manuscript, the only testimonium of our letter, reads “joined” more prob-
ably than “shipwrecked.” Further, I agree that it is slightly more probable
to read “the birth of the free” (as was suggested by Schulthess, followed—I
add—by Aufhauser) instead of “the birth of life,” in part because the con-
cept of freedom is taken up by Mara in the immediately following sentence:
“Be diligent, then, my son, in those things that are right for free people,
reflection on literature and the pursuit of wisdom,” which are exactly the
contents of Greek paideia: literature and philosophy, which, Mara says,
are also those disciplines which Sarapion “has begun” to learn.
Now, maybe in the translation, if not in the edition, it would be use-
ful to indicate this probable corruption in the Syriac text by means of
a graphic sign, such as a crux. Now, as it stands (“It has been through
Hellenistic learning that I have discovered all these things, joined as they
are to the birth of the free”), it looks as though there were no textual and
interpretive problems. I agree, however, that the general meaning can be
guessed with a fair degree of probability. Greek culture and “philosophy”
suit free people like Mara and his son.
I agree (in reference to Renberger’s notes 10–11) that at the beginning
of § 5 the initial ‫ ܠ‬should be kept; it is unnecessary to athetize it, as
12 See A. Galimberti, “I commentarii di Lucio Vitellio e la fonte romana del XVIII libro
delle Antichità Giudaiche di Flavio Giuseppe,” Historia 48 (1999): 224–234; for Vitellius’
mission as a plenipotentiary of Tiberius see my “Edessa e i Romani tra Augusto e i Severi:
aspetti del regno di Abgar V e di Abgar IX,” Aevum 73 (1999): 107–43; eadem, Possible His-
torical Traces in the Doctrina Addai? (Analecta Gorgiana Series 399; Piscataway: Gorgias
Press, 2009); eadem, Atti di Mar Mari (Brescia: Paideia, 2008), introductory essay. Further
arguments in “The Possible Origin of the Addai Legend,” lecture at the International Syriac
Symposium, Duke University, 25–30. VI.2011, forthcoming.
Schulthess did. It can indeed be a marker of a change of subject: “As for

the one who is separated,” etc. Likewise, the subsequent emendation is
unnecessary and Rensberger is probably right to reject it; neither did I fol-
low it in my own translation, which read as follows: “E un uomo, quando
sarà separato dai suoi e sarà in grado di conservare il suo habitus e con
giustizia farà quello che gli si addice, non è forse egli quell’uomo eletto
che si chiama ‘Grazia di Dio’, e con questa sua libertà non può essere
paragonato null’altro?”
In note 13 (§ 5), it is true that the emendation proposed by Nöldeke–
which Rensberger calls “acute” even if he does not follow it—is not abso-
lutely necessary. However, from the philosophical point of view, I suspect
that the notion of “following discipline” is more typical of Stoicism than
that of “being called to discipline.” The Stoic is the one who actively fol-
lows Fate, and discipline, voluntarily following what is necessary. This
is well illustrated, for instance, by Cleanthes, as translated by Seneca in
Ep. 107.11; I highlight the terms that especially convey the notion of follow-
ing (thus, obeying) the divine discipline:
Duc o parens celsique dominator poli
quocumque placuit; nulla parendi mora est.
Adsum impiger: fac nolle, comitabor gemens,
malusque patiar quod pati licuit bono.
Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.
The idea is precisely that of following the divinity’s law, Fate, and to do
so voluntarily.
This consideration seems to be relevant to this letter, which indeed is
replete with Stoic themes, although, of course, it is not a philosophical
treatise, nor does it come from a professor of philosophy.13 Moreover, I
think that the influence of Stoicism on Mara is not at all at odds with
his reception of Eastern sapiential tradition.14 Indeed, Stoicism did value
and absorb sapiential traditions, both Greek and of other peoples, often
through the powerful instrument of allegory; for Imperial Stoicism, suffice
it to think of Chaeremon, who allegorised Egyptian religious traditions,
and of references in Cornutus,15 both of them probably very close to Mara
also from the chronological point of view (they were active in the time of
13 See especially David Blank’s contribution here. Warm thanks to him for letting me
read his paper prior to publication, and for reading mine.
14 See Pancratius C. Beentjes’ contribution in this volume.
15 See the thesis I put forward in the general conclusions of my Allegoria, chapter 9.
Nero). Thus, I suspect that Mara intended to convey the notion of follow-
ing discipline, which is a Stoic concept; in this case, Nöldeke’s suggestion
would be worth keeping.
Notes 18–19 offer a careful examination, which I much enjoyed and appre-
ciated, of a philologically difficult passage, at the end of § 6, which was
erased in the ms. and then rewritten in a smaller handwriting. The general
meaning, however, is rather clear. My own translation, indeed, was simi-
lar to that of Rensberger: “E tutte queste cose che da te sono vedute nel
mondo, come è proprio di quanto dura poco tempo, come un sogno hanno
da dissolversi: sono infatti gli alti e i bassi dei destini.” Mara is reminding
his readers that material goods, representing “the ups and downs of fates,”
do not last. They are more apparent than real and should be viewed with
detachment. What is important, in the Stoic perspective, is virtue, how
one behaves, one’s moral choices, the adherence to the good, not what
may happen to a person. The basic distinction between τὰ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν and
τὰ οὐκ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν, which plays an important role in Stoicism, underlies this
train of thought.
With reference to note 19.1, I would suggest taking into consideration an

alternative, which might be either adopted or indicated in a note. What
about reading ‫ ܕܡ‬not as a verb but maybe as a particle, which would intro-
duce a negative rhetorical question16 together with ‫ ?ܝ��ܟ‬If one follows this
hypothesis, the rendering would be: “All these things that appear to you in
the world, how are they not to pass away in a little while like a dream?”
Rensberger is certainly right to translate “fate” at the end of § 6: “All these

things that appear to you in the world as they seem to be are to pass away
in a little while like a dream [or the alternative interpretation I have just
proposed]. For they are simply the ups and downs of fate.” Rensberger,
by rendering “fate,” rightly distances himself from Cureton’s translation
(“times”) and Schulthess’ version (“Zeiten”), just as I did myself in my
translation: “gli alti e i bassi dei destini.” The Syriac word, literally meaning
“times,” is a plural; I maintained the plural because I understand it to refer
16 For this function of this particle see Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon, 307 (cf. Robert Payne
Smith, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, founded upon the Thesaurus Syriacus by R. Payne
Smith, ed. by Jessie Payne Smith Ms. Margoliouth (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1998; first
edition Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1903). For ‫ ܕܡ‬as a verb, it might be useful to refer
now to Sokoloff, ibidem, 310–311.
to individual fates or destinies, each one for a single person, and moreover
each one with varieties in itself (“ups and downs”). Indeed, as Rensberger
himself acknowledges in note 21, it is probably unnecessary to emend the
plural into a singular.
The notion of Fate, which Mara could easily interpret as the Stoic Εἱμαρμένη,
was widespread at that time, between the end of the first and the second
century CE, as is proved by Bardaisan’s work Against Fate,17 in which he
used against the Chaldaean notion of Fate the arguments employed by
the Academic Carneades against the Stoic Εἱμαρμένη. Bardaisan added
at least one argument of his own against the determinism of climatic/
geographical zones, which later on was taken up by several Christian
authors, plus another argument taken from the diffusion of the Christians
in all geographic areas. At the same time Bardaisan attests that many
people around Osrhoene, which was very close to Mara’s Commagene,
believed in fatalistic determinism. As for the presence of Stoicism in the
Syriac world at the time of Mara, I would like to point out that in the late
sixties of the first century, very shortly before the setting—and probably
the composition—of Mara’s letter, a Syriac king attended the preaching
of the Stoic Musonius Rufus.18
Note 26 concerns § 7, in which Mara says, in reference to one’s children:

“We suffer injury from both things working together: when they are upright
their love torments us and we are afflicted [my italics, IR] by their behaviour,
but when they are corrupt we grow weary of their rebelliousness and are
agonized by their depravity.” In the note, Rensberger observes that Cureton
and Schulthess read the verb “afflicted” as an ethpeel, thus rendering “we
are attracted by” (Cureton) or “lassen wir uns hinreissen” (Schulthess),
whereas it should be interpreted as an ethpaal, “we are afflicted,” parallel
17 Κατὰ Εἱμαρμένης is the title transmitted by Theodoret, Περὶ Εἱμαρμένης by Eusebius.

On this work and its relation to the Liber Legum Regionum see Han J.W. Drijvers, Bardai-
san of Edessa (Assen: van Gorcum, 1966), 60–76; Ilaria Ramelli, “Linee generali per una
presentazione e per un commento del Liber legum regionum, con traduzione italiana del
testo siriaco e dei frammenti greci,” Rendiconti dell’Istituto Lombardo, Accademia di Scienze
e Lettere 133 (1999): 311–55; eadem, “Bardesane e la sua scuola tra la cultura occidentale e
quella orientale: il lessico della libertà nel Liber legum regionum (testo siriaco e versione
greca),” in Pensiero e istituzioni del mondo classico nelle culture del Vicino Oriente, eds. Rosa
Bianca Finazzi and Alfredo Valvo (Alessandria: Dell’Orso, 2001), 237–55; eadem, Bardesane
Kata Heimarmenēs (Bologna: ESD, 2009); eadem, “Bardesane e la sua scuola, l’Apologia
siriaca ‘di Melitone’ e la Doctrina Addai,” Aevum 83 (2009): 141–68.
18 See my “Stoicismo e Cristianesimo in area siriaca.”
to the immediately preceding “[their love] torments [us].” I rendered “siamo

conquistati dai loro costumi,” i.e., “we are conquered by their behaviour.”
This interpretation, which is closer to Cureton’s and Schulthess’s, makes
sense in that, if our children are upright, we are conquered, rather than
afflicted, by their behaviour.
Why, then, does Mara say that “we suffer injury” even from this, that is,
by being conquered by their upright behaviour? Because being conquered
by someone’s behaviour, just as being tormented by love, is a passion for
the Stoics. And in the Stoic perspective all πάθη, unlike εὐπάθειαι and
προπάθειαι,19 are evaluated in a negative way. Good emotions, εὐπάθειαι
(SVF 3.431 = Diogenes Laertius 7.116),20 are those experienced by sages, and
only by them, as opposed to ordinary emotions or πάθη, which are irratio-
nal and excessive in nature and are experienced by those who fall short
of wisdom. Chrysippus in his Περὶ παθῶν described εὐπάθειαι as εὔλογοι
ὁρμαί, or rational impulses, whereas πάθη are ἄλογοι or irrational ὁρμαί
(SVF 3.389).21 Among the impulses experienced by human beings, some
are practical, in that they concern a future object and involve an action
that is still to be accomplished, while others are non-practical and con-
cern a present object. Practical impulses of the irrational kind constitute
the πάθη of ἐπιθυμία and φόβος, desire and fear: the former derives from
an inclination toward something, whereas the latter derives from an aver-
sion. The corresponding rational impulses or εὐπάθειαι are, respectively,
βούλησις and εὐλάβεια, or will and circumspection. Non-practical impulses
of the irrational kind (πάθη) are ἡδονή and λύπη, the former again the con-
sequence of an inclination toward something, the latter of a repulsion or
movement away. Χαρά is the rational counterpart of ἡδονή, while λύπη has
no rational counterpart. Thus, the εὐπάθειαι fall under just three heads,
rather than four as in the case of πάθη (cf. Diog. Laert. 7.115–16; SVF 3.391 =
Ps. Andronicus Περὶ παθῶν 1).
19 On Stoic προπάθειαι see Margaret Graver, Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago: University
of Chicago, 2007), 85–100, who rightly distinguishes feelings and affective responses to
them, as a result of judgment (i.e., emotions proper).
20 See Ilaria Ramelli’s notes to this paragraph in Diogene Laerzio, Vite e dottrine dei più
celebri filosofi, in collaboration with G. Reale and G. Girgenti (Milan: Bompiani, 2005).
21 See Jean-Baptiste Gourinat, Les stoïciens et l’âme (Paris: PUF, 1996), 87–90 on πάθη
and εὐπάθειαι in Stoicism. On εὐπάθειαι Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 35–60. On πάθη in
Stoicism see also Anthony Long – David Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge:
University Press, 1987), chap. 65; Julia Annas, Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (Berkeley –
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), 103–20; Gourinat, Les stoïciens et l’âme,
96–102.
At the end of § 7, Mara is still dealing with the attitude towards one’s
children, in this case with one’s misbehaving children. I certainly go along
with Rensberger’s translation “when they are corrupt we grow weary of
their rebelliousness” rather than Cureton’s “we labour for their correc-
tion.” Of the two possible meanings of the Syriac noun, “rebellion” and
“discipline,” the former is surely a much better parallel to the notion of
corruption and depravity conveyed by the whole sentence. Indeed, in
my own translation, too, I picked up the former meaning: “Nel caso di
figli degeneri ci affanniamo per la loro riottosità e siamo afflitti dalla loro
depravazione.”
I subscribe to Rensberger’s choice at the beginning of § 8: here the form

of the verb “to hear” could be understood both as a first and as a second
person, “I have heard” and “you have heard.” Rensberger favours the latter
alternative, rendering “For you have heard that when our comrades were
leaving Samosata they were sorrowful.” I rendered: “Hai udito infatti circa i
nostri amici, che, mentre partivano da Samosata, erano contristati,” etc. That
the second person is preferable is indicated by the presence of a diacritical
dot but—since diacritical dots are surely not original—more decisively by
the fact that Mara had meanwhile joined his companions.
Rensberger is also right about the necessity of the emendation, in § 8,
of “their nations” into “their mothers” (see n. 34). This must be correct in
view of the parallel phrase referring to “fathers”: “For they remembered
their fathers with tears, and their mothers with groans.” As Renberger
notes, the textual corruption appears to have occurred when ‫ ܗ‬became ‫ܘ‬
by a mistake of a copyist. A square or Palmyrene script may have facili-
tated such a mistake more than a round or estrangela-type script (which
is close to the Palmyrene script), less easily a ṣerto-type script. Indeed, the
Old Syriac (Edessan) script, a Middle Aramaic script, bears close resem-
blance to the Palmyrene script. In the square script, then, such error would
have occurred more easily, and this is one of the important elements (and
there are many, of palaeographical, philological, linguistic, historical, and
philosophical nature) that point to an early date for Mara’s letter (late
first century CE).
Rensberger’s observation in note 36 is particularly important with regard to

the question of dating the letter: from the point of view of the development
of the Syriac language, it is noteworthy that Mara often uses the absolute
state, instead of the emphatic state, which became almost exclusive later.
This is further evidence for the early date of his letter. I think that if we
join this linguistic and philological hints to the historical and philosophical
clues I have pointed out in the past,22 we can conclude, as I had argued in
my works on Mara, that it is really probable that Mara’s letter stems from
the end of the first century.
At the end of § 9 Rensberger renders: “What benefit do prisoners get from

practicing such things?” rather than “from being familiar with such things”
or “from having experience of such things,” in line with Cureton and Pratten.
Indeed, I did translate: “Che giovamento potevano trarre i prigionieri dal
comportarsi in questa maniera?” The issue at stake is indeed the behav-
iour of the prisoners, Mara’s companions, described in the immediately
preceding lines: they abandoned themselves to despair and groaning, in
sum to πάθη, which, as I have already mentioned, is obviously not what
is required of a Stoic.
At the end of § 10, Rensberger takes “small” as an adjective referring to
the affection or love given by little Sarapion to strangers, in exchange for
which he receives love from them in return: “[F]or your small affection,
people have loved you warmly!” This translation is possible, to be sure. On
the other hand, I wonder whether “small” may not refer to Sarapion him-
self, rather than to his love (“[F]or your affection, little one, people have
loved you warmly!”), given that at the very beginning of his letter Mara
strongly emphasises that Sarapion is quite young, and this connotation
returns in his addresses to his son afterwards.
At the beginning of § 11, Rensberger translates: “What then can we say
of the delusion that makes its home in the world and leads it along with
heavy labour, so that as it quakes like a reed in the wind we also vacillate
with it.” It would be tempting to interpret as follows: “What then can we
say of the delusion that makes its home in the world, and progress23 in it
is with heavy labour,” etc. This interpretation would introduce in Mara’s
discourse the crucial Stoic notion of progress. The Stoics did not conceive
of progress as presupposing a condition or stage intermediate between
virtue and vice, or partly virtue and partly vice. Indeed, Diogenes Laertius
attests that the Stoics “believe that there is nothing between virtue and
vice, whereas the Peripatetics say that between virtue and vice there is
22 For the linguistic and philological hints see David Rensberger, “A First-Century CE
Syriac Text? The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion”, paper presented at the SBL Annual Meeting,
New Orleans 23 November 2009, Aramaic Studies section; for the historical and philo-
sophical elements see my Stoici Romani, 2555ff.
23 ‫ܡܪܕܝ < ܡܪܕܝܐ‬, ‫“ = ܡܪܕܢܬܐ‬progress”: see Payne Smith, A Compendious Syriac Diction-
ary, 299.
moral progress [προκοπή]. For the Stoics say that a piece of wood must
be either straight or crooked, and so too a person must be either just or
unjust, and not more just or more unjust; and similarly for the other vir-
tues” (Diog. Laert. 7.127 = SVF 3.536). Yet this should not be construed as
implying that the notion of moral progress was marginal to Stoic moral
thought. On the contrary, the Stoics paid special attention to it, as is
rightly maintained by Fitzgerald.24 It would seem that, among the Stoics,
those who made the most of the notion of moral progress were the Middle
Stoics and the Roman Stoics.25 It has been supposed that the Early Stoics,
in contrast to the Peripatetics, did not recognize it in the light of passages
such as the one just quoted from Diogenes Laertius.26 On the other hand,
SVF 1.234 (= Plut. De prof. in virt. 12, p.82F) suggests that for Zeno there
exists moral progress:
Note also what Zeno’s view was like; he believed that each person can be
aware of his own progress on the basis of his dreams, if he sees that he takes
pleasure in nothing shameful and that he does not approve or do anything
terrible or strange, but rather, as in the clear depths of a calm sea, without
waves, the imaginative and the emotive parts of his soul shine forth, bathed
in reason [λόγος].
This fragment indicates that Zeno regarded moral progress as a move-
ment toward the predominance of the rational faculty in a person’s life,
actions, and choices. This tension seems to reappear also in later authors,
such as Musonius.27
I think that the apparent contradiction between the sources, in par-
ticular this fragment of Zeno and the aforementioned passage of Dio-
genes Laertius, may be partially explained if we take into consideration
all of Chrysippus’s fragments concerning προκοπή. First of all, he considers
nature to manifest a continual progress, understood as a strengthening
and perfecting of the logos: ipsam per se naturam longius progredi, quae
24 John T. Fitzgerald, “The Passions and Moral Progress: An Introduction,” in Passions

and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought, ed. John T. Fitzgerald (London: Routledge,
2008), 15–16.
25 On the importance of moral progress in Middle and Imperial Neo-Stoicism, see
Geert Roskam, On the Path to Virtue: The Stoic Doctrine of Moral Progress and Its Reception
in (Middle-) Platonism (Ancient and Medieval Philosophy 33; Leuven: Leuven University
Press, 2005), 33–144.
26 See Roskam, On the Path to Virtue, 15–33; Otto Luschnat, “Das Problem des ethischen
Fortschritts in der alten Stoa,” Philologus 102 (1958): 178–214.
27 See my “Ierocle Neostoico in Stobeo: I καθήκοντα e l’evoluzione dell’etica stoica,” in
Thinking Through Excerpts: Studies on Stobaeus (ed. Gretchen Reydams-Schils; Turnhout:
Brepols, 2011) pp. 537–575.
etiam nullo docente . . . confirmat ipsa per se rationem et perficit (SVF 3.220).

The source, Cicero, Leg. 1.9.27, is reliable and the verb progredi clearly
denotes progress. It is not entirely clear whether this is physical or moral
progress, given that both seem to be progress toward the logos; one may
even suppose that, from the Stoic holistic and monistic point of view,
these converge into one and the same progress. A similar notion seems
to be expressed in SVF 3.219, deriving from another reliable source, Sen-
eca’s Ep. 49: dociles natura nos edidit et rationem dedit imperfectam, sed
quae perfici posset. Here, too, progress is seen as the natural perfecting
of the logos. Another fragment confirms that this natural progress of rea-
son was regarded as related to progress in virtue: “The Stoics maintained
that since the beginning, by nature, there exists the noteworthy progress
[προκοπήν] toward the virtues, which the Peripatetics, too, called ‘natural
virtue’ ” (SVF 3.217:51).
The last three fragments I have quoted seem to point to the natural
perfecting of the logos and, with this, a natural progress toward virtue.
This kind of progress, linked to the development of reason, seems to be
referred to in the aforementioned fragment of Zeno (SVF 1.234). Natural
progress is important, but perfection in virtue depends for the Stoics, not
only on nature, but also on paideia. For, “even those who have a poor
natural disposition to virtue, if they receive an adequate education, reach
moral perfection, and, on the contrary, those who have an excellent natu-
ral disposition become evil [κακοί] on account of carelessness” (SVF 3.225,
from Clement of Alexandria). Training and paideia are linked to moral
progress. This is confirmed, to my mind, by a letter of Zeno quoted by
Diogenes Laertius (Vit. phil. 7.8) on the basis of a reliable Stoic source,
Apollonius of Tyre. Zeno is replying to Antigonus Gonatas, who asked him
to come to Macedonia to give him a paideia in virtue and thus enable him
to achieve perfect happiness. Zeno praises the true paideia, which is for
him philosophical education, and leads to happiness, evidently through
moral progress. This progress is achieved by means of adequate exercise
(ἄσκησις) and an energetic teacher. The goal of moral progress will be
“the complete/perfect acquisition of virtue” and thus the attainment of
perfect happiness. According to David Hahm,28 this letter of Zeno’s in
fact coheres with Chrysippus’ teaching on education and moral progress
toward perfect virtue and happiness.
28 “Zeno before and after Stoicism,” in The Philosophy of Zeno, eds. ed. Theodore Scaltsas
and Andrew S. Mason; Larnaka, Cyprus: Municipality of Larnaca, 2002), 29–56, esp. 39.
These considerations explain the reason why Diogenes Laertius, on

the one hand, reports that for the Stoics there was no intermediate state
between virtue and vice because an action is either virtuous or vicious,
while on the other hand a fragment of Zeno attests that the founder of
the Stoa admitted of the possibility of progress.
Therefore, in Mara’s passage under consideration (§ 11), according
to the interpretation I have proposed, i.e. “progress in it is with heavy
labour,” Mara would be underlining the difficulties of προκόπτοντες in the
world. Moreover, the reading I suggest would make a pun with ‫( ܡܪܕܝܬܐ‬or
‫“ = )ܡܪܕܘܬܐ‬way” at the end of the same paragraph.
In note 45 (appended to § 11), Rensberger notes, in opposition to McVey,

that Mara does not condemn exposure. Indeed, he says he is amazed at
it. He neither approves of it nor explicitly condemns it. I would suggest
adding a remarkable and very close parallel—close both from the cultural
and from the chronological point of view—coming from the Book of the
Laws of Countries of the school of Bardaisan.29 The context of this passage,
like that of Mara’s passage, is the speaker’s observation of the various and
indeed opposite effects of Fate on human lives:
And many people beget children and do not bring them up, and others do
bring them up, but they do not retain them, and still others do retain them,
but these turn out to be a misfortune and an affliction. And others are rich,
as they wish, and yet are ill, as they do not wish; others are in good health,
as they wish, but are poor, as they do not wish, etc.30
Bardaisan (the speaking character) neither approves of nor rejects expo-
sure. His attitude is very similar to that of Mara. He too, moreover, displays
strong influences from Greek imperial philosophy, especially Stoicism and
Middle-Platonism.31 It is noteworthy that the only manuscript that pre-
serves Mara’s letter, a Syriac manuscript from the VI or VII century, is
also the same and only manuscript that preserves the Book of the Laws of
Countries. This manuscript also includes other philosophical works such
29 Drijvers, Bardaisan; Ramelli, “Linee generali”; eadem, “Il lessico della libertà”; eadem,
Bardesane Kata Heimarmenēs; eadem, “Bardesane e la sua scuola.” A new edition of the
Liber, with supporting critical essays, will appear in Tübingen with the title: “Bardaisan on
Human Nature, Fate, and Free Will: The Book of the Laws of Countries”.
30 Patrologia Syriaca 2.571 (ed. Drijvers 31).
31 See esp. my Bardaisan of Edessa. “A Reassessment of the Evidence and a New Inter-
pretation”. Also in the “Light of Origen and the Original Fragments from De India” (Pis-
cataway: Gorgias, 2009).
as the Apology to Marcus Aurelius ascribed to Melito.32 At a certain stage,

the Letter of Mara in this manuscript, which is unique, may even have
been handed down by Bardaisanites, who existed up to a very late date. Of
course, they wanted to preserve the Book of the Laws of Countries, but also
Mara’s letter, which anticipated Bardaisan in importing Greek philosophy
into Syriac culture.
I surely agree with Rensberger in note 47 where he explains his transla-

tion of a phrase in § 11: “There are people who acquire riches by labour”
rather than “there are people who acquire riches in the world.” The latter
follows an incorrect transcription of Cureton, who accordingly translated
“in the world.” I too followed the manuscript and Schulthess, and rendered:
“C’è gente che con fatica acquista ricchezze.”
Rensberger’s palaeographical observation in note 49 is also worth noting.

Rensberger maintains that the reading ‫ ܡܪܕܘܬܐ‬of the ms. should be cor-
rected into ‫ܡܪܕܝܬܐ‬, since the former only rarely can mean “path” rather
than “discipline,” whereas the latter is much more common in this usage,
and moreover recalls ‫ ܡܪܕܝܬܐ‬at the beginning of the same paragraph. Now,
if the text must indeed be emended in this way, this is very meaningful
from a chronological point of view. For ‫ ܝ‬could have been transformed
into ‫ ܘ‬for an error in the ms. tradition only in a square Aramaic script, in
which waw (‫ )ו‬and yud (‫ )י‬are very similar, whereas they are quite differ-
ent in estrangela, not to speak of ṣerto. Very interestingly, in the letter of
Mara another revealing scribal error could have occurred only in a square
Aramaic script and never in a Syriac script: the confusion between heth
(‫ )ח‬and he (‫)ה‬, two letters that are almost identical in Hebrew or Aramaic
script, but are totally different in any Syriac script. Now, if the letter of
Mara was formerly written in a square Aramaic script, this indicates an
early date for its composition, which confirms the early dating of the letter
I have proposed for many years as the most probable. I am very pleased to
see that this is also the dating advocated in the book of Merz, Rensberger
and Tieleman.
32 On this see my “L’apologia siriaca ‘di Melitone’ ad Antonino Cesare: osservazioni e
traduzione,” VetChr 36 (1999): 259–86; eadem, “Bardesane e la sua scuola, l’Apologia siriaca
‘di Melitone’ e la Doctrina Addai,” Aevum 83 (2009): 141–68.
Note 53 refers to the proposal put forward by Merz and Tieleman that
Mara’s reference to laws that may be changed may be taken to reflect the
cultic reform of Antiochus I of Commagene. I consider this plausible and
would suggest adding another close parallel with the Book of the Laws of
Countries, which also speaks of the passing away of laws, alluding to a
specific historical example from the Near East and from Bardaisan’s own
time and experience:
How many wise men, reflect, have abrogated from their states those laws
which seemed to them not to be well done? . . . And how many kings are
there who, after occupying those territories which were not their own, have
abrogated the laws of their constitutions and have instituted the laws they
wanted? But it is easy for you to observe this, because the Romans have
recently conquered Arabia33 and have abrogated all their ancient laws, and
especially that circumcision that was customary.34
In Syria and in Edessa men used to excise their virility in honour of
Tarata;35 now, when king Abgar became a believer, he ordered that every-
one who had excised his own virility should have his hands excised. And
from that day on, and until this hour, no man has excised his virility in the
land of Edessa.36
In note 54 Rensberger observes that the example of poverty seems awk-
ward, appearing as it does among possessions and things that people
generally deem good, even though for the Stoics they are only apparent
goods and in fact count as indifferent things, ἀδιάφορα, such as riches,
beauty, physical health, magnificence, honours, and so on. Indeed, the
whole sequence offers examples for the question “On which possessions
shall a person rely?” Therefore there would seem to be an inconsistency. I
suggest, however, that poverty may in fact be seen as positive, in particu-
lar in an ascetic context: people like Chaeremon the Stoic actually boasted
about this in the late first century CE,37 but Mara—who very probably
was no ascetic himself, given his social position and insistence on lost
33 The reference undoubtedly is to the Severan age, and very probably to the campaign
of Septimius Severus at the very end of the second century CE.
34 See my “Edessa e i Romani,” esp. § 6.
35 See my “Edessa e i Romani,” § 6.
36 Patrologia Syriaca 2.603 (first paragraph) and 607 (second paragraph), pp. 57–59 in
Drijvers edition. These two passages are far removed from one another because the second
needed to be contiguous to the section on the Christians, since the change of law, accord-
ing to Bardaisan, was given in this case by the conversion of Abgar the Great to Christian-
ity. I refer to my commentary in Bardesane.
37 See my Stoici romani minori, 1297–359; eadem, Allegoria, I: L’età classica (Milan:
Vita e Pensiero 2004), 349–58; eadem, Allegoristi dell’età classica (Milan: Bompiani, 2007),
671–707.
riches—warns that it too has its negative side. It is not poverty that is a
good per se, but detachment from riches and ἀπάθεια. This also seems to
have been Seneca’s position.38
The question of what is really good for a person emerges again in note
58, in connection with Rensberger’s observation that Mara seems to be
contradicting himself in praising, on the one side, people who are “lovers
of a good reputation” in § 14,39 whereas in § 24 he appears to criticise the
very same persons. I would like to offer an alternative explanation: rather
than contradicting himself in that way, Mara may in fact be explaining
here what it means to be truly and positively lovers of a good reputation:
it is to be wise, of course in the Stoic sense, to “choose for oneself some-
thing that does not wear out,” not to cast blame on God, fate, or anyone,
and to lead one’s life fearlessly and joyfully. The negative sense of seeking
glory and reputation from fellow-humans—something that typically is
οὐκ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν—is at issue in the other passages and this is why there Mara
criticises people who behave in that way. Here, however, he is thinking of
the true and positive sense of loving a good reputation and praises those
who pursue it.
In note 62, it seems to me that Rensberger’s question whether there is a

specific sense of “law” (Greek νόμος) in Stoicism should be answered in
the affirmative. For certainly in § 14, in the sentence “those who conduct
themselves outside the law,” who are the fool (φαῦλοι) as opposed to the
wise (σοφοί), “law” is to be understood as the Stoic νόμος, the moral law,
the law of Zeus (rather than as a reference to human laws, which change,
as Mara repeatedly underlines). This is a concept that was well developed
already in Early Stoicism. It was put into verse by Cleanthes in his Hymn
to Zeus, describing Zeus as “first cause and ruler of nature, governing
everything with your law” (Stobaeus I.1.12 = SVF 1.537). It was later given
38 See Ilaria Ramelli, “Seneca in Plinio, Dione, s. Agostino,” in Neronia VI. Rome à
l’époque néronienne. Actes du VIème Colloque International de la Société Internationale des
Études Néroniennes (SIEN), Rome 19–23 mai 1999, édd. J.M. Croisille – Y. Perrin (Collection
Latomus 268; Bruxelles: Latomus 2002), 503–13.
39 The positive evaluation of good reputation in the letter is also pointed out by David
Blank in this volume—with good reason, since it concerns an element that prima facie
may seem incompatible with Stoicism. He himself, however, mentions Seneca’s idea that
some persons, clearly assimilated to the Stoic sage, enjoy a good reputation deservedly,
while its opposite is “shame” (Tranq. 9.16). This is exactly what I am arguing in respect to
Mara: Mara and Seneca seem to me to be on the same (Stoic) line.
allegorical treatment, as exemplified by Cornutus,40 and it was elaborated

upon by Musonius, who insisted on the “law of Zeus,” which one is to
obey not forcedly or passively, but willingly, so as to become σύμψηφος
with the divinity.41
In note 66 (§ 15), I agree with Rensberger’s choice to follow Bently’s con-

jecture, and I myself rendered “l’amarezza di molte pene,” “the bitterness
of many sufferings,” instead of “the bitterness of many teeth” (the sense
yielded by the ms., which in this point is clearly corrupt) or “of many years”
(Cureton’s reading and translation).
As for note 67 (§ 16), relating to the words “and if you are able to do with-
out possessions,” Rensberger is tempted by the emendation of a form of
the verb ‫“( ܥ�ܒ�ܕ‬to do”) into the corresponding form of the verb ‫“( ܥ�ܡ�ܕ‬to
live”), proposed by Schulthess, so that the translation would read, “and if
you are able to live without possessions,” instead of “and if you are able to
do without possessions.” However, this emendation is unnecessary. Indeed,
we can keep the verb ‫ܥ�ܒ�ܕ‬, “to do,” which does have also an intransitive
use in the peal.42 Rensberger calls this use “peculiar,” and this is why he is
inclined to emendation, but it is attested in fact, so that Mara’s use is not
unique. For example, the verb ‫ ܥ�ܒ�ܕ‬is attested in this intransitive usage in
Euphemia and the Goth 68.12: ‫“ ܡ�ܢ ܥ�ܒ�ܕܬ ܒ�ܟܘ ܢ ܐܘܪܚܐ‬How has your jour-
ney been?” literally “How have you done in your journey?”. Likewise, the
passive participle of this verb with an adverb is parallel to the intransitive
use of ἔχω with an adverb: thus, in Mark 5:23 the Greek ἐσχάτως ἔχει, “she
is at the point of death,” is rendered with this very verb in an intransitive
40 On the allegorisation of law in Old Stoicism and Cornutus see my Allegoria, 88–90;
108–111; 293–302; on Cleanthes in particular see Johan Thom, Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus: Text,
Translation and Commentary (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). On Cornutus see eadem,
Anneo Cornuto, Compendio di teologia greca (Milan: Bompiani, 2003), on which are also
expressly based (see Vorwort, vii) the introduction, translation, and notes of the volume
Cornutus: Die Griechischen Götter. Ein Überblick über Namen, Bilder und Deutungen, ed.
Heinz-Günther Nesselrath in collaboration with Fabio Berdozzo, with essays by George
Boy-Stones, Hans-Josef Klauck, Ilaria Ramelli and Alexei Zadorojnyi (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2009).
41 See my “Dio come padre nello Stoicismo Romano al tempo della predicazione cris-
tiana e nell’Epistola Anne,” in Scripta Antiqua in honorem A. Montenegro Duque et J.Mª.
Blázquez Martínez, eds. S. Crespo Ortiz de Zárate – A. Alonso Ávila (Valladolid: Publica-
cioned de la Universidad de Valladolid, 2002), 343–51; eadem, “L’interpretazione allegorica
filosofica di Zeus come Padre nello Stoicismo,” in Visiones mítico-religiosas del padre en la
antigüedad clásica, ed. Marcos Ruiz Sánchez (Monografías y Estudios de Antigüedad Griega
y Romana 12; Madrid: Signifer Libros, 2004), 155–80; eadem, Stoici Romani, 689–943.
42 See Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon, 1055.
construct. Ιn the Vetus Syra Mark 5:23 reads: ‫ ;ܥ�ܒ�ܝܕܐ ܒ�ܝ�ܫ ܒ�ܝ�ܫ‬in the Peshitta
it reads ‫ܒ�ܝ�ܫܐܝ�ܬ‬. Of course, the Vetus Syra is more relevant to Mara, in
that it is chronologically much closer to him than Euphemia and than
the Peshitta itself. Likewise, in a time rather close to both the Vetus Syra
and Mara, at the very beginning of the Book of the Laws of Countries, the
adverbial and intransitive use of ‫ ܥ�ܒ�ܕ‬is again attested: ‫ ܫ�ܦ�ܝ��ܪ ܥ�ܒ�ܝ�ܕ‬means
“he was (feeling) well” (Patrologia Syriaca 2.536, ed. Drijvers 5). Therefore,
a textual emendation could be spared.
In § 18, I perfectly agree with Rensberger that the reference to the wise,
whose wisdom “is taken captive by denunciation,” is a reference to false
denunciations. I myself rendered, “la loro saggezza viene fatta prigioniera
dalla calunnia.” And I too believe that Mara’s words may easily refer to
delations, which were very widespread in first-century Rome (note 71).
Indeed, I observe that Juvenal—a poet who, moreover, contains many
Stoic elements—was a contemporary of Mara and devoted a whole satire,
Satyre 4, to deplore the diffusion of delations under Domitian.43
In note 76, referring to § 18, “and the people of Samos were covered by
the sea without remedy,” which I rendered “il popolo di Samo senza scampo
fu ricoperto dal mare,” Rensberger notes that the word ‫ ܚ�ܠ�ܡ‬is unattested
elsewhere, Payne Smith gives it as a vox incerta and Brockelmann gives
nothing. I agree that Schulthess’s conjectured emendation is unnecessary,
and that the meaning “remedy, way off ” can be reconstructed from the
verb ‫“ = ܚ�ܠ�ܡ‬to heal.”44 This apparent linguistic oddity of Mara is not the
only one in the letter. Another significant example is rightly highlighted
by Rensberger in note 79, in reference to the use of a shaphel of a verb that
is unattested elsewhere. Rensberger correctly observes that this is one of a
number of words that Mara employs in unusual or unique senses or inflec-
tions. Now, this seems to me to reinforce the hypothesis that the letter is
very ancient, far from the time range and standard language that is more
commonly attested in Syriac literature, and that is much later.45
43 See my “La Satira IV di Giovenale e il supplizio di san Giovanni a Roma sotto Domi-
ziano,” Gerión 18 (2000), 343–359.
44 Only, it can be added that Sokoloff, A Syriac lexicon, 457 has three different entries
of the noun ‫ܚܠܡܡ‬-‫ܚܠܡܐ‬: “dream,” “interpreter of dreams,” “dreamer.” Of course. none of
these seems suitable to the context of our passage; however, they exist.
45 It is useful to remember, with Taylor, that at the time of Mara there were many
different dialects and not yet a uniform Syriac language; “care should be taken to distin-
guish between different Aramaic dialects and not to presume that they are identical, or
to label them all as, for example, ‘Syriac’ ” (“Bilingualism and Diglossia in Late Antique
Syria and Mesopotamia,” in Bilingualism in Ancient Society, eds. J.N. Adams, M. Janse,
S. Swain [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002], 298–331, esp. 303). See also John Healey,
In note 77, concerning the key passage on the wise king of the Jews
and the punishment of his killers, I entirely agree that the choice of this
particular example must have been determined by its chronological close-
ness to Mara’s own time. This would further corroborate the hypothesis of
the early dating of the letter of Mara. Rensberger also supposes that Mara
is identifying himself with the sage and is warning that those who exercise
unjust violence against sages will certainly be punished. I only wonder
whom exactly he is warning: his own people, as Rensberger maintains,
or the Romans, who held him captive and were expected to read what
he wrote?
In regard to § 24 “there you shall lay your head and find rest” there is
an interesting parallel in the Gospels, viz. Matt. 8:20 and Luke 9:58: “the
Son of the Human Being has no place where to lay his head,” οὐκ ἔχει ποῦ
τὴν κεφαλὴν κλίνῃ. I do not even touch upon the question of the Aramaic
background of the Gospels, and especially that of Matthew, but at least
this parallel would be worthy of mention. Moreover, this expression, “to
have (or not to have) a place where to lay one’s head,” is unattested else-
where in Greek literature from the beginning up to and including the first
century CE, as can be established through a TLG search,46 making the
close parallel with Mara all the more remarkable. Either Mara and the two
Synoptic Gospels share a common Semitic expression or Mara might even
have read the Gospel of Matthew, or some parts of it, or even have known
oral narratives concerning Jesus.
In reference to note 85 (§ 20), I agree with Rensberger in translat-
ing “mockery” (cf. “derisione” in my own translation). I am only unsure
whether it is really impossible to think of a reflexive meaning with ‫ܠܗ‬,
instead of ‫ܢ�ܦ�ܫ�ܗ‬, for the verb “to consume”—so that the meaning would
be: “consumes itself ”—particularly given the fact that Mara’s Syriac, for
its antiquity, is at times rather unique.
I would answer Rensberger’s question in note 87 (§ 20) quite affir-
matively: yes, one’s way of life is a vital point in Roman Stoicism, with
its emphasis on ethics and on practicing one’s philosophy. Persius, for
“The Edessan Milieu and the Birth of the Syriac,” Hugoye 10 (2007), §§ 1–34, esp. 22–31.
Rensberger, “A First-Century Syriac Text,” is certainly right to declare that Mara’s language
is Syriac rather than Aramaic, because of linguistic features that are distinctively Syriac,
but it is an archaic form of Syriac, because of its differences from classical Syriac.
46 I conducted a systematic investigation in TLG. Of course in Christian authors, from
Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus onward, quotations and echoes of Jesus’ words in
Matthew and Luke are frequent, but they depend on the Gospels and are not relevant to
Mara.
instance, depicted precisely ways of life, different βίοι according to one’s

moral choices; Musonius insisted that it is not necessary to have many
logical demonstrations, but to live one’s philosophy.47
In § 22 I would insert a note after “do not observe by how many inane
desires one may be taken captive in the world” to remark that this concept
finds a very close parallel in Roman Stoicism—especially Persius, who
compared passions with cruel tyrants—in relation to the idea of being
enslaved by passions.48 This reflection obviously resonates with Mara’s
own being a captive, albeit of the Romans. This, indeed, in the eyes of a
Stoic, is an ἀδιάφορον.49 The true freedom that one must possess is not
political or juridical freedom, as opposed to captivity and slavery, or even
the freedom of doing whatever one may like, but moral freedom, freedom
from πάθη and thus from doing evil. Persius devoted a whole satire to the
definition of authentic freedom.
In the same paragraph of Mara’s letter, the translation of the difficult
passage “Amidst the great wealth of the world, they do not observe that
all sorts of distress bring all of us equally to the same fate” is much better
than Cureton’s: “They regard not the vast riches of the world, that what-
ever there be of trouble it brings us all equally to the same time.”50 Espe-
cially for the right translation “fate” instead of “time.”
As for note 95 (§ 23), I agree with David Rensberger that both interpre-
tations are possible, and indeed I accepted the understanding “beloved of
the human race” qua apposition of “sorrow” as an alternative interpreta-
tion, in my commentary.51 It is also possible that “beloved of the human
race” is a vocative referring to Sarapion, given that Mara has insisted on
the love that little Sarapion attracts from everyone, even among strangers
and abroad. This was in fact the solution I opted for in my translation.
In § 26, as for the sentence “We, however, acknowledged even then that
we received all due and proper love from His Majesty,” I think that Rens-
berger is right in taking the last words as a reference to the king of Com-
magene, as he explains in note 109. Indeed, I had translated as follows: “E
noi riconoscemmo tuttavia da tempo che pienamente appropriato amore
e lode ricevemmo dalla sua maestà.” Rensberger concludes, with a fair
47 See wide-ranging documentation in my Stoici Romani.

48 See my Stoici Romani, 1361–515.
49 Slavery itself is an “indifferent thing” for Stoicism; see Will Deming, “Paul and Indif-
ferent Things,” in Paul in the Greco-Roman World, ed. J.P. Sampley (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity,
2003), 384–403.
50 William Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum (London: Rivingtons 1855), 75.2–3.
51 In note 41 to my own translation.
degree of probability, that this would mean that “Mara or his family were
well regarded and appropriately treated by the king.” This, I note, will find
a close parallel in the situation of Bardaisan with King Abgar the Great.52
I think that Rensberger’s translation in § 28, “no fault attaches to us
in any kingdom,” is probably right, because Mara uses an absolute case
(‫)ܡ�ܠ�ܢ�ܐ‬, not an emphatic case. I suspect that he is thinking of the Roman
empire in particular, but at the same time he is making a general state-
ment, including the kingdom of Commagene and all other possible king-
doms. This resonates very well with the profession of cosmopolitanism
that Mara himself has made beforehand. Moreover, the frequent use of
the absolute case in Mara’s letter is one of the linguistic details that, as I
have highlighted, suggest an early dating for this document.
At the end of § 28, Rensberger translates: “instead of rage, obey gra-
ciously.” Now, I find that he is right to criticise the interpretation “instead
of obeying rage, obey virtue,” since, if “virtue” is the direct object of “obey,”
it should be introduced by a ‫ܠ‬, or even by no preposition—as is com-
mon in Mara: another feature that distinguishes his archaic language from
classical Syriac—and not by a ‫ ܒ‬like here. With ‫ܒ‬, the meaning of the
syntagm unequivocally becomes, “in virtue,” or “with virtue.” This is why
Rensberger translates adverbially: “obey in kindness/virtue,” hence “obey
graciously.” This is correct. I think, however, that Mara is in fact exhorting
his son to “obey in virtue rather than obeying in rage/anger,” that is, “obey
with virtue rather than obeying with anger.” What he means is the fol-
lowing: “Instead of obeying angrily, obey virtuously.” The first two words
of the sentence, literally meaning “instead of anger,” ought to be resolved
as follows: “instead of (obeying with) anger.” I would prefer this trans-
lation, which is perfectly plausible from the grammatical point of view,
because it expresses an important tenet of Stoicism, one of the several to
which Mara in his letter shows to adhere: the wise must accept, and thus
obey, fate, with a voluntary adhesion, in virtue, not against his will, and
therefore with anger. Fac nollem, comitabor gemens, Cleanthes says in the
above-mentioned passage translated by Seneca in Ep. 107.11, which it will
be useful to report again with these key concepts highlighted:
Duc, o parens celsique dominator poli,
quocumque placuit; nulla parendi mora est.
52 I just refer to Ute Possekel, “Bardaisan of Edessa: Philosopher or Theologian?,” ZAC
10 (2007): 442–61; eadem, “Expectations of the End in Early Syriac Christianity,” Hugoye 11.1
(2008): §§ 1–26, and my Bardaisan of Edessa.
Adsum impiger: fac nolle, comitabor gemens,

malusque patiar quod pati licuit bono.
Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.
One who obeys voluntarily is virtuous, bonus; one who obeys against his
will, with anger and sadness, gemens, is in vice: malus. This is exactly the
Stoic conception that underlies Mara’s exhortation, on the interpretation
I propose: “Instead of obeying angrily, obey virtuously.”
For the statement in § 29, “I shall complete the course I must,” I would
indicate at least a parallel with a pseudo-Pauline epistle, one of the so-
called Pastoral Epistles: 2 Tim 4:7. Of course it was a widespread motif,
and I am not in the least suggesting any dependence (moreover, if the
early dating we defend is correct, Mara’s letter is probably earlier that
2 Timothy).53 But some parallels, and at least this one, may be worth indi-
cating in a note.
I would like to conclude with a more general remark concerning Mara’s

acquaintance with the figure of Jesus and the connection he draws between
his death and the fall of Jerusalem (§ 18), which, as Rensberger has observed,
must have been chosen because of its chronological closeness to Mara’s
own time. Mara probably received such a connection from a Christian
source54—no wonder, since, after all, Christians were the first and main
agents of the circulation of Jesus’ story—but he reflected on this historical
exemplum as a Stoic.
The information on Jesus that Mara learnt perfectly fit the argument of
collective deaths as divine punishments as well as his scheme of the wise
man unjustly persecuted by a whole people but avenged by the divinity.
This scheme is well attested in Stoicism from Chrysippus to Dio Chrysos-
tom onwards. Even the set of examples is identical, with the difference that
53 For the dating of the Pastoral Epistles and their interpretation see Annette Merz,
Die fiktive Selbstauslegung des Paulus: Intertextuelle Studien zur Intention und Rezeption der
Pastoralbriefe (Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus/Studien zur Umwelt des Neuen
Testament, 52; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Fribourg: Academic Press, 2004). See
also her “The Fictitious Self-Exposition of Paul: How Might Intertextual Theory Suggest
a Reformulation of the Hermeneutics of Pseudepigraphy?,” in The Intertextuality of the
Epistles. Explorations of Theory and Practice, eds. Thomas L. Brodie, Dennis R. MacDonald,
and Stanley E. Porter (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006), 113–32. For the strong presence of
Stoicism in the Pastoral Epistles see my “The Pastoral Epistles and Hellenistic Philosophy:
1 Tim 5:1–2, Hierocles, and the ‘Contraction of Circles,’ ” CBQ 73 (2011): 562–581, also with
further documentation.
54 I agree with Pieter van der Horst that this connection is Christian. See his contribu-
tion in this volume.
Mara adds Jesus. Plutarch, Stoic. Rep. 1051BD, quotes the exempla adduced
by Chrysippus of unjustly persecuted sages: Socrates and Pythagoras. Dio
of Prusa, a Stoicising contemporary of Mara, and a disciple of the Stoic
Musonius Rufus, shortly after Mara’s letter, at the very beginning of the
second century, returns to the theme of the wise who have been unjustly
persecuted and adds, like Mara, the detail of the subsequent punishment
of the persecutors. The examples are the same as Mara’s, apart from Jesus:
Socrates and Pythagoras (Or. 47.2–7; cfr. 43.8–9; 51.7–8). Socrates was
killed—Dio remarks—by his fellow-citizens, who were punished with
many misfortunes that happened to them afterwards and with blame still
at the time of Dio (Or. 47.7). This was also the time of Mara. Maximus
of Tyre, who was influenced both by Stoicism and by Middle Platonism,
devoted a whole diatribe (3) to Socrates’ condemnation to death,55 and at
the end (§ 8), he remarks, like Mara, that the Athenians were punished
with the plague, their defeat in the Peloponnesian war and the loss of
their power: “Socrates died, but the Athenians were condemned, and their
judge was God and the Truth . . . This is how God judges, this is how God
condemns.” The very attribution of the punishment of the Athenians to
God’s justice and the truth is parallel to that of Mara to God and justice.
Even the chronological inversion between the cause and the effect is the
same as in Mara (the Peloponnesian war and the plague of Athens were
anterior to the condemnation of Socrates). The topos is the very same,
even in this historical mistake; the novelty is that Mara adds to the phi-
losophers the figure of “the wise king of the Jews.”
Even the Christian claim that Jesus was still alive, if Mara heard it,
was interpreted by him in line with the Stoic doctrine that denied the
immortality of the soul and even more resurrection—except at the gen-
eral παλιγγενεσία at the end of each aeon—as the survival of the “wise
king” in the new laws he gave. Mara’s designation of Jesus as “king of the
Jews” exactly corresponds to the titulus crucis placed by the Romans on
Jesus’s cross to indicate the reason for his condemnation to death (Mark
15:26; Matth 27:37; Luke 23:38; John 19:19–21).
Mara’s use of Stoic interpretation of narratives that could have come
to him from Christian sources would seem to be not far from that which
Stan Stowers has ascribed to the author of the Gospel of Matthew, who
was close in time to Mara: he received the story of Jesus and attributed
55 See Michael Trapp, Maximus of Tyre: The Philosophical Orations (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1997), 24–25.
his own, Stoically inflected, doctrines to Jesus the Judean sage—whom

Mara described as “the wise king of the Jews,” i.e. a Jewish sage. For Stow-
ers has pointed out a variety of Stoic themes in the Gospel of Matthew.56
I suspect that Mara may even have known something of the tradition of
that gospel—whose first redaction, now lost, is reported to have been in
Aramaic; Mara certainly knew Greek as well.
Another Jewish Hellenistic writing of the first century CE in which Stoic
lore is remarkably present, indeed more than in the Gospel of Matthew, is
4 Maccabees, all revolving around the theme of the sovereignty of λογισμός
over πάθη (so that Gregory Nazianzen in Or. 15.2 refers to 4 Maccabees as
Περὶ τοῦ αὐτοκράτορα εἶναι τῶν παθῶν τὸν λογισμόν).57 And to this picture
one should of course add Philo, who drew on Stoic doctrine no less than
on Platonism. These texts show how deeply Stoicism had entered Jew-
ish Hellenism. But only Matthew, the “Stoicising” Gospel, and the earliest
Christian narratives included a narrative on Jesus. Mara probably received
such a narrative from Christians but elaborated it in a Stoicising way.
56 Stanley Stowers, “Jesus as Teacher of Stoic Ethics in Matthew,” in Stoicism in Early

Christianity, eds. Tuomas Rasimus, Ismo Dunderberg, and Troels Engberg-Pedersen (Pea-
body: Hendrickson, 2010) pp. 59–76. I am very grateful to Stan Stowers for letting me read
his essay prior to publication.
57 I limit myself to referring to Robert Renehan, “The Greek Philosophical Background
of Fourth Maccabees,” Rheinisches Museum 115 (1972): 223–238, Reinhard Weber, “Eusebeia
und Logismos. Zum philosophischen Hintergrund von 4. Makkabäer,” JSJ 22 (1991): 212–34,
and Jan Willem van Henten, The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People. A
Study of 2 and 4 Maccabees (Leiden: Brill, 1997); Herwig Görgemanns, “Philosophie, Gesetz
und Vorbild. Zu einigen Abschnitten des 4. Makkabäerbuches,” in Quaerite faciem eius
semper, Festschrift Albrecht Dihle, eds. Andrea Jördens et al. (Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovac,
2008), 78–90.
INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS
Abgar “the Great” 35, 36, 40, 228; see also Arsameia on the Nymphaios 96
Jesus-Abgar legend Artagnes-Heracles-Ares 68
Abgar Severus 35, 38n112 Atargatis 85
Abgarid dynasty 35, 38n112, 41 Athens 54, 57, 174, 230
absolute state (in Syriac) 216, 228 Augustus, Emperor 18, 51
Achaemenid dynasty, empire 63n73, 68,
70, 119, 180 Babyloniaca, by Jamblichus 143
Achilles 92, 179, 180 Bacchios 75
Adiabene 144 Bardaisan (Bardesanes) of Edessa 4, 5,
adiaphora (ἀδιάφορα) (Stoic term) 36, 37, 38, 202, 214, 220, 221, 228
222, 227 Bardaisanites 220; cf. 4n12 (Bardaisanite
admonition 157; see also exhortation, tradition)
parenetic genre of letters Bardesanes, see Bardaisan
Agamemnon 179, 180, 206, 207 Batavians 61, 62, 63
Agapius of Hierapolis 135 Bellum Commagenicum, see Commagene,
Ahura Mazda 149 annexation
Ain Dara 115 Ben Sira, Book of 156, 157, 160
Aleppo 115 binomial sequences 206, 207
Alexander the Great 44, 68, 72, 127, 180 biography (philosophical) 183–193 passim
Ancoz, sanctuary of 105 Birecik/Birtha 71
anger 198, 228; see also emotion Boethius 193–203 passim
Angra Mainyu 149 Book of the Laws of the Countries
Annaeus Cornutus, see Cornutus 5, 15n6, 37, 220, 221; see also Bardaisan
Antas 75 Boudicca 60, 62n66
Antiochos I of Commagene 44, 45, 48, Boybeypınarı 108
49, 50, 51, 63, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 75, Boyce, Mary 150
79, 80, 96 Brockelmann, Carl 210
Antiochos III of Commagene 17, 20, 52
Antiochos IV of Commagene 18, 19, 20, Caesennius Paetus 21
21, 22, 28, 35, 47, 54, 58, 80, 108, 132 Caligula 53
Apollas 72 Cappadocia 21, 25, 26
Apollo 186, 187 Çaputlu Ağaç 109
Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes 68 Caracalla 38
Apollonius of Tyana 209 Carneades 214
Apollonius of Tyre 219 Chaeremon (the Stoic) 212, 222
Apsebis 75 Chin, Catherine 208, 213
Arabia, Arabians 142, 222; cf. 37n109 chreia (χρεία) 7, 66, 208, 209
Aramaic 1, 31, 32, 33n79, 51, 68, 69, 70, 72, Chrēstos – Christos (the “Anointed One”)
82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 129 134
Aramaic (script) 221 Christianity 1, 4, 5, 7, 36, 38, 39, 138
Archelaus of Cappadocia 18 Christians 129, 134, 139
Archimedes 92, 179, 180 Chrysippus 169n4, 169n6, 171, 175, 176, 181
Argandene 104 Cilicia 18, 22, 59
Ariaramnes 110, 113 civil strife, civil war 14, 17, 35
Aristoxenus of Tarentum 189 Cleanthes 181, 193, 212, 223, 228
Armenia 38, 25n50, 141, 142, 151 coins, coinage 21, 24, 25, 56–59, 79, 80,
Arsameia on the Euphrates 104 81, 101–102
234 index of names and subjects
cola, bicola 206, 208 Epicureans 181

Commagene, culture, history 11–42 Epicurus 130, 193
passim, 43–65 passim, 67–94 passim Epiphanes of Commagene 21
annexation by Rome 20, 29, 41, 46, 47, epistolography 2n2, 7, 130, 138, 195
48, 131 error 172, 174
Commagenean elite, see under elite estrangela (script) 2n6, 31, 216, 221
Condition humaine 159, see also human eupatheiai (εὐπάθειαι) “good feelings”
race (Stoic term) 215
consolatio, consolation 7, 8, 156n7, 167, Euphrates 21, 68, 71, 72
193–203 passim evil, evils 162, 171, 173, 175, 176
Cornutus 212, 224 happening to good men 169, 171, 176
corruption, textual 211, 216 Ewald, Heinrich 3
Crantor 194 exempla 92, 171, 183, 192, 194, 198, 229
Cureton, William 1, 129, 205, 221, 227 exhortation 157, 167; see also admonition,
Cyprian of Carthage 31 parenetic genre
Cyrus (of Panopolis) 201 exile, exiles 17, 35, 38, 53, 148, 158, 172, 173
Eznik of Kołb 151
Damlıca 109
Darius 92, 179, 180 fate 1, 5, 16, 17, 20, 33, 35, 37, 131, 155, 165,
Dāyag 147 177, 194, 195, 197, 198, 203, 206
death, theme of following or obeying fate 173, 212, 213,
death of philosophers 183–193 passim 214, 220, 223, 228, 229
of Jesus 135, 137, 138, 230 fear 38, 170, 171, 173, 174, 181, 184, 194, 198,
in Mara’s Letter and other literature 215, 223
92, 130, 132, 133, 161, 162, 164, 171, 180, Flavius Josephus, see Josephus
181, 193, 194, 195, 198, 200, 203, 207, Fortune 178, 179, 180, 181
208, 224, 229 fosterage, noble 147
delusion 172 freedom 16, 17, 92, 131, 194, 197, 211, 227
dexiōsis reliefs 44, 58 friendship 158, 176
Diogenes of Sinope 178
Doliche 19n20, 24, 58, 116 Germanikeia 24
Dülük Baba Tepesi 116 God 147, 148, 163, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174,
175, 176, 178, 179
Edessa 7, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 70, gods (plural) 176, 177, 178, 181
71, 138 good (moral, Stoic) 213, 215, 222–223
Eisler, Robert 150 Gosāns 146
Elaioussa / Sebaste 22, 27n56 governor (Roman) 15, 16, 21, 23, 24,
Ełiše Vardapet 151 25n46, 26
elite greed 170, 172, 173, 174, 177
Commagenian 14, 18, 21, 26, 28, 32, 33, Greek
40, 52, 54, 55, 65, 67, 69, 75, 79, 92, 94, Greek language 7, 27, 32, 36, 55, 68,
101, 102, 128 69, 72, 75, 79–82, 84, 87, 106, 109, 110,
cosmopolitan 59 124, 143, 231
Edessan 7, 40, 41 Greek learning 4, 6, 12, 14, 36, 67,
Icenian 60 88–94; see also paideia
Oshroenian 34, 35, 36 Greek literature 4, 5, 67, 134, 182, 226
Roman 15, 16 Greek rhetoric 66, 208
urban 22, 23, 26 See also philosophy
of Greek cities 26 Gregory, St. Gregory the Illuminator 142
embassies 20, 22, 52 grief 159, 160, 173, 182, 193, 194, 198; see
emendations, textual 211, 212, 216, 224, 225 also emotions
emotions (πάθη) (Stoic) 215
extirpation of, moderation of 170, 171 Hahm, David 219
see also anger, fear, grief, pleasure Harmonius 36
eparcheia 24, 25, 26, 35 Heracles 68, 89
index of names and subjects 235
Hermippus 187, 188, 191 literature, Syriac see under Syriac

Herod “the Great,” king of Judea “Lord” (kyrios) 130, 137
22, 29, 108 Loukianos, see Lucian
Hierapolis 84, 85 loyalty 14, 16, 34n86, 35, 38n112
Hierothesion 104 Lucian of Samosata 6, 7, 28, 30n68, 57,
Hittite 70 83–93 passim, 134
honour 14, 15, 18, 23; see also status, Lucretius 171
reputation, renown Luwian 70
human race, mankind 12, 131, 159, 177,
206, 227 Macedonia 68, 89
Hymn of the Pearl 144 Mani 151
hypomnēmata (ὑπομνήματα) – Mankind, see human race
commentarii 211 Mar Ammo 151
Markellos 75, 76
identity 12 mathematics 134; see also Archimedes
ethnic 14, 15, 23, 27, 28, 38, 50, 59 Matthew, Gospel of 137–138, 203n33,
Commagenean 46, 56, 57, 58 230–231
political and cultural 13, 14, 15 maxims 130
Ignatius of Antioch 31, 195–196 Maximus of Tyre 230
immortality, eternal life 134, 138, 139, 183, McVey, Kathleen 138, 220
194, 230 Melitene 21
Imperator Caesar, see Augustus Meliton, bishop of Sardes 5, 129
imperial cult 23 Menippus 7, 199; see also satire,
imperialism, Roman 1, 49, 50 Menippean
Iulius Africanus 27n55 Mesopotamia 34, 35, 37, 38n112
Iulius Antiochus Philopappos, C. 54 Millar, Fergus 3, 66, 114
Iulius Civilis 60, 61 Mithra 144
Mithradates Kallinikos of Commagene
Jacob of Edessa 35 68
Jerusalem 27n55, 174 Mithras 96, 98
Jesus 29n67, 30n68, 40n119, 92, 93, Mithridates II, king of Commagene
129–139 passim, 226, 229, 230, 231 47, 51, 110
Jesus-Abgar legend 40 moral progress (Stoic notion) 217, 218,
Jews 29, 30n68, 40, 92 219, 220
Jewish Revolt 29, 30 Musonius Rufus 209, 214, 218
wise king of the Jews 1, 5, 29, 30, 92,
133–135, 173, 174, 178, 201, 202, 210, Nabataea 37n110
225, 230 Near Eastern sapiential traditions:
Josephus, Flavius 3, 20–22, 29, 52, 132, see wisdom, wisdom traditions
144, 211 negative injunction 158
Jupiter Dolichenus 115 Nemrud Dağ 44, 45, 58
Justin Martyr 5, 92, 93 Nöldeke 212
Nonnus 20
Kılafık Höyük 72, 73, 74
koinon 23, 25, 26 opus reticulatum 53, 107, 108
Kubaba 105 Osrhoene 32, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 71, 72
Kummuh 63, 70, 99, 106, 109
paideia 6, 12, 16, 17, 33, 39, 86, 89, 90, 168,
Laodike of Commagene 68 208, 211, 219
law enkyklios paideia 168
laws 174, 175, 178, 210, 223 see also Greek learning
law-giving, law-givers 134, 136 Palamedes 180–181
law of Zeus (Stoic notion) 212, 223, 224 Palestine 93
letter(s), letter-writing: see epistolography Palmyra 12, 27
literature, Greek see under Greek parallelism (stylistic feature) 158, 206
236 index of names and subjects
parenetic genre of letters 130, 131, 194; see Pythagoras of Samos (sculptor)

also exhortation 133, 134
Parrhesiades 91
Parthia, Parthians 22, 34n86, 37, 132, 141, Qohelet, Book of 156, 160
142, 144, 146 Qumran 134
Parthian empire 143
Partian “Commonwealth” 143, 145, 147 renown 177
passions, see emotions Rensberger, David 2, 5, 205–231
path, of life 172, 176, 177 passim
Paul of Tarsos 31, 130, 132, 195–196 reputation, good 167, 169, 177, 178, 180,
Payne Smith, Jessie 210 179, 182, 223
Payne Smith, Robert 209 rhetoric 7, 193
peace 15, 20, 21, 27 rhythm (verbal) 15
Peregrinus of Parion 93 riches, see wealth
Perrhe 24n39 ridicule 172, 182
persecution 38n110, 38n112 Rome (city) 15, 17, 19, 22, 28, 47, 52, 54,
Persia 68, 69 132
Persius 226, 227 Romans, Rome, Roman Empire 16, 20, 21,
philhellēn 50 26, 27, 29, 35, 37, 39, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50,
Philo of Alexandria 134 53, 57, 59, 60, 78, 108, 128, 131, 147, 182,
Philopappos monument 54 216, 226, 227
philodoxia 181; cf. 179 Roman identity 15, 50
philorhōmaios 50, 52 Roman rule 12, 34, 37n108, 39, 40, 41
philosophy 1, 5, 131, 134, 138, 155, 158, 193, Romanization 27, 43, 61, 62, 65; see
203, 211, 212, 220, 226–227 also philorhōmaios
Phoenice 25n46 royalty
phthiriasis 189, 190 general 17
Plato 5, 37, 133, 174, 178, 208 Commagenean 48–59 passim
Plato in the biographical tradition see also elite, Commagenean
184–193 passim
Platonism 170, 220, 230 Sam’al 70
pleasure 131, 173, 218 Samos (island) 133, 173, 174, 180
polis 88, 91; cf. 23 (quattuor civitates Samos I of Armenia 99
Commagenes) Samos II (of Commagene ?) 104
metropolis 22, 24, 57 Samosata 1, 6, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 21, 23,
political ideals 15, 16, 27 24, 25, 32, 40, 41, 53, 54, 55, 67, 80, 83,
Polycrates 92 84n40, 89, 90, 95, 131
poverty 131, 206, 222–223 Sampsigeramos 108
praise 163, 180; see also honour Šapur I of Persia 126
Pratten, Benjamin 2 Sarapion (name) 6, 227
prisoners of war 20n21 satire, Mennippean 7, 201
Prodicus’ myth 89 Schulthess, Friedrich 2, 138, 205, 210–225
propatheiai (προπάθειαι) (Stoic technical passim
term) 215 Seleuceia (in Babylonia) 22
prosimetrum 198, 199 Seleuceia on the Calycadnos (in Cilicia)
Proverbs, Book of 160 22
providence 163, 171, 175, 176 Seleuceia on the Euphrates or
provincialisation 12, 20, 21, 25, 26, 28, 34, Zeugma 17, 19, 22, 47, 50, 71
35, 37, 38n112, 64 Seneca, L. Annaeus (Minor) 130, 169, 174,
provincial status 20, 22, 23, 25, 127n71 199, 223
punishment 169, 173, 174, 175 Septimius Severus 23, 37
Pythagoras of Samos (philosopher) 5, 92, Serapion (name) 6
93, 133, 134, 137, 178, 180, 183, 185, 186, Serapion, bishop of Antioch 6
192, 207, 208, 210, 230 Sergius of Resh‘ Aina 4
index of names and subjects 237
Shaked, Shaul 150 Trajan 37n110

Socrates 92, 93, 133, 137, 169, 173, 174, 176, treason 18, 21
178–181, 183, 185, 187, 189, 191, 192, 207, tyrants 171, 173, 174
208, 210, 230 Tyros 25n46
Sofraz Köy 27, 75
Sokoloff, Michael 210 Valerianus 132
soldiers 28, Van der Horst, Pieter Willem 145
Solon 136 Vespasian 53, 62, 131, 132
Speusippus 186, 190, 192 Vetus Syra 210, 225
Spirits, the Two 149 virtue 130, 160, 163, 171, 172, 176, 178, 179,
status (standing) 1, 16, 121, 128, 194, 198; 180, 195, 197, 199, 207, 213, 217, 219, 228
see also honour; for provincial status see
provincialisation wealth 131, 161, 162, 163, 170, 171, 172, 177,
Stoicism, Stoa 131, 133, 138, 139, 168, 181, 194, 197, 198, 206, 221, 222, 227
220, 226; see also Cleanthes, Chrysippus, will (psychic faculty, free will) 137, 192,
Seneca 197,198, 215, 224, 228
Stowers, Stanley 230 will, last see Testament
Synesius 201 wisdom 167, 169, 172, 180, 181, 195
Syria 21, 23, 24, 26, 132, 138 wisdom literature 131, 167, 168, 169
Syria Coele 25n46, 35 Book of Wisdom 156
Syriac Egyptian wisdom tradition 156
Syriac language 1, 2n6, 33, 34, 36, 39, Greek and other wisdom traditions
70, 71, 82, 92, 93, 94, 129, 143 212
Syriac literature 1, 4n11, 32, 34, 129, 198, Near Eastern wisdom tradition
202, 208, 225 155–158 passim, 206
Syriac scripts 216, 221; see also wisdom, pursuit of 160, 172; see also
estrangela philosophy
wise king of the Jews: see Jews
ta eph’ hēmin (τὰ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν) “what is up to
us” (Stoic expression) 213, 223 Xenophon 89, 181
Tarsos 22
testament, last will 130, 132, 191, 192 Yarımca 114
Testimonium Flavianum 30n68, 134–135
theodicy 165; see also providence, God, Zabna 148, 165 ; see also time
fate Zaehner, Robert Charles 150
Thomas, Gospel of 137–138 Zeugma: see Seleuceia on the Euphrates
Tiberius 20, 26, 52 Zeus 81, 101, 102, 110, 113
time 148, 149, 152, 165 ; see also zabna Zeus-Oromasdes 68
Timon of Phlius 178 Zeus, Stoic notion 175, 223, 224
Tirdat IV of Armenia 142 Zoroastrianism 142, 148, 150
titulus crucis 136, 230 Zurvan, Zurvanism 148, 149, 150, 151
topos (biographical) 183, 188, 192;
(rhetorical) 158
INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES
A. Biblical Literature
Hebrew Bible, Septuagint and Pseudepigrapha
Ps. 49:16–17 162 Qoh. 9:1 164

Prov. 1:20–33 160 Sir. 2:1–4 157n13
Prov. 3:7 158n15 Sir. 2:6 164
Prov. 3:11 158n15 Sir. 3:17–18 157n13
Prov. 3:11–27 158n15 Sir. 4:1–6 158n15
Prov. 4:20–27 157n13 Sir. 4:7–10 157n13
Prov. 5:1–2 157n13 Sir. 4:11–19 160
Prov. 7:1–5 157n13 Sir. 4:28 164
Prov. 8:1–36 160 Sir. 5:1–3 161
Prov. 9:1–12 160 Sir. 6:23 157
Prov. 10:7 163 Sir. 9:1–12 158n15
Prov. 19:20 157 Sir. 11:17 164
Qoh. 1:13 160 Sir. 11:18–19 162
Qoh. 1:17 160 Sir. 31:8–11 162–163
Qoh. 3:1–8 165 Sir. 39:9–11 163
Qoh. 7:11–12 161 Sir. 44:15 163
Qoh. 7:25 160n22
New Testament and Early Christian Apocrypha
Matt. 203n33 Luke 9:58 226

Matt. 5:21ff 136 Luke 23:38 230
Matt. 8:20 137 John 7:42 136
Matt. 21:43 29n67 John 12:24 138
Matt. 22:34–40 136 John 19:19–21 230
Matt. 25:40 137 John 19:21 136
Matt. 27:25 29n67 Rom. 1:3–4 136
Matt. 27:37 230 Rom. 5:5 137n16
Matt. 28:19–20a 137 Rom. 8:28 136n16
Matt. 28:20b 137 Rom. 13:9 137n16
Mark 5:23 224–225 1 Cor. 8:3 136n16
Mark 7:18b–19 136 1 Cor. 15:36 138
Mark 10:48 136 Gal. 1:19 130
Mark 12:28–34 136 Eph. 6:20 132n10
Mark 15:2 136 1 Tim. 5:1–2 229n53
Mark 15:9 136 1 Tim. 6:10 171
Mark 15:26 136, 230 2 Tim. 1:16 132n10
Gospel of Thomas
prologue 138 76 137

11 138 108 138
13.2 136
index of ancient sources 239
B. Other Ancient Sources
Africanus, Iulius Rhetorica 2.10, 1369b13 169

Kestoi
1,1,5–8 27n55 Aristoxenus of Tarentum, ed. Wehrli
1,20 36n97 fr. 51–60 189n37
5,1,50ff 27n55 fr. 61–68 189n37
Aelian Athenaeus, ed. Kaibel

Varia Historia IV.19 185n6 V.57.2–10 185n8
Aelius Aristides Bardaisan

Contra Platonem 260 180n15 The Book of the Laws of the Countries,
Against//On Fate, ed. Drijvers
Ahiqar 5 15n6, 214
9–10 158n18 5 224
151 58n18 30–31 37n106
31 220n30
Amenemope, Instruction of 52–53 37n108
XIX,18 158 56–57 37n109
XXII,1–4 158 57 222n36
58–59 38n110
Ankhsheshonqy, Instruction of 59 222n36
6:10–24 158n15 60–61 37n107
7:3–24 158n15 63 34n82
9:5–14 158n15
11:23 164 ed. Patrologia Syriaca
20:6 164 2.536 224
26:11 164 2.571 220
2.603 222
Anonymous 2.607 222
Prolegomena
I.22–28 187n15 Signs of the Zodiac 4
I.29–32 187 Boethius
I.42–44 186n12
II.5–8 185n6 Consolatio Philosophiae 193–203
VI.1–7 185n8 4.6 198n20
5.6.46–47 197
Anthologia Palatina
VII.60–61 192n58 Censorinus
VIII.176–179 58n59 De Die Natali 15.1 185n8
VIII.176–256 58n51
Cicero
Any, Instruction of Cato V.13 185n8
5:7–8 158 De Finibus V.1.2 192n55
De Legibus 1.9.27 218–219
Appian De Natura deorum
Praefatio 1,1 15n7 2.176 176
3.90 176
Apuleius Epistulae ad Familiares
De Platone I.1 187n15 4.5 194
Tusculanae Disputationes
Aristoteles 3.1–13 198n19
Historia Animalium 3.76 193n1
556 B-557 A 189n41
240 index of ancient sources
Clement of Alexandria 7.116 215

Stromata 7.121 217–218
5.3.17 181 7.184 188n24
5.4.110 181 8.36–38 190n48
8.38 190n45
Damascius 9.43 188n24
Vita Isidori 274 188n27 10.15 188n24
Digesta Dion Chrysostomos (Dio of Prusa)

1,5,4,2 20n21 Or. 13,21 181
1,5,5,1 20n21 Or. 43.8–9 230
27,1,6,14 26n52 Or. 47.2–7 230
Or. 47.7 230
Dio Cassius Or. 51.7–8 230
Historia Romana Or. 64.17 190n49
1,1 15n7
40,20,1 34n86 Dionysius of Halicarnassus
51,20,7 23n37 De Compositione Verborum
52,43,1 17 25.211 185n8
54,9,3 18
57,17,3ff 18n15 Ephrem
60,8,1 22n30 Prose Refutations 2,7,13–8 37n102
64,12,3 20n21
68,18,1 35n86 Ephiphanius
77,12,1a-12 35n88 Haereses 56 36n97–98,
78,14,2 20n21 38n112; 39n113
79,16,2 35n90
Epictetus
Diogenes Laertius Dissertationes
1.33 191n51 1.18.12 173
1.72 188n24 1.20.10–11 172
1.118 190n45 1.24.11 173
2.79–80 168n3 3.15.11 182
2.120 188n24 4.7.9 171
3.2 185n6,
186n11–12, Euphemia and the Goth
188n25 68,12 224
3.5 187n15
3.40 185n6, 189n38 Euripides
3.41 192n55.57 Palamedes
3.41–43 191n53 fr. 578 181
3.43–44 192n58 fr. 580 181
4.4 190n45 fr. 584 181
4.10 168n3 fr. 588 181
4.44 188n24
5.5 190n45 Eusebius
5.11–16 191n53 Historia Ecclesiae
5.31 168n3 4,30 39n116
5.51–57 191n53 4,30,2 38n110, 39n112
5.78 188n24 Praeparatio Evangelica
5.91 188n24 6,10,35 37n108
6.57 178 6,10,41 37n109
6.99 188n24
7.8 219 Faustus Buzand
7.115–116 215 Epic Histories 4.24 142n4
Favorinus of Arelate Josephus

De Fortuna 17 191n52 Antiquitates Judaicae
14,15,9 81n30
Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker 17,13,2–3 22n34
(FGrHist), ed. Jacoby 18,2,5 20n22,
84 F20 185n8 22n33, 52,
84 186n8 127n73
87 F 105a 72 18,3,3 30n68,
115 F294 185n5 134–135
244 186n12 19,5,1 22n30
328 F223 185n8 20,9,1 135
Bellum Judaicum
Galenus 1,17,2 81n30
De Compositione Medicamentorum 1,33,5 189n40
secundum Locos ed. Kühn 2,7,3 22n34
XII.462 189n42 7,1,3 20n21
7,7,1 13n4, 22n32
Gathas 7,7,2 21n27,
Y. 30.3 149 22n29
7,7,1–3 3, 19, 21n25,
Gellius 29n63, 46n9
Noctes Atticae
7.1.2 175 Juvenal
7.1.7 175 Satire 4 225
Gregorius Nazianzenus Lactantius

Epigrammata Divinae Institutiones 3.19.17 190n49
176–179 58n59
176–256 58n51 Lucian
Orationes 15.2 231 Adversus Indoctum
4 85n46
Hermippus, ed. Wehrli 19 28n61,
fr 41 185n8 85n44
fr. 72 188n30 Bis Accusatus
14 28n61,
Herodian 85n44
3,9,3 35n90.92 25 85n44
25–34 28n61
Hesiod 27 28n61,
Theogonia 26 178 85n44.46,
86n50, 87
Iamblichus 30 86n50
Vita Pythagorica II.7 186n13 34 85n44
De Dea Syria
Ignatius of Antioch 31, 195–196 1 28n61,
Smyrn. 1,1 136 85–86
De Mercede Conductis 24 87
Isidor of Charax De Morte Perigrini
Mansiones Parthicae 1 35n86 11 93, 134
12 93
Jerome 13 30n68
De Viris Illustribus 33,2 38n110 Deorum Concilium
9 87
Hercules 1 88n59 13 33n80, 130,

Herodotus 7–8 89 157, 163,
Historia Conscribenda 24 86n51, 90n71 179–180, 206,
Icaromenippus 199 207
Macrobii 21 185n8 14 157, 158, 161,
Nekyomanteia 199 164, 165, 169,
Patriae Encomium 170, 174, 179,
2 90 180, 203, 223
6 88; 89, 91 14–17 16, 131
Piscator 199 15 130, 157n11,
19 85n44.46, 159, 162, 173,
86n50, 91 206, 224
Pseudologista 16 157n11, 161, 163,
1 85n44–45, 86, 179, 203, 224
87 16–17 161
Scytha 9 85n44 17 161, 173
Somnium 18 1, 29, 33n80,
9 90, 91n72 92, 129,
10 89n63 133–139, 164,
18 89 169, 171–180,
Verae historiae 1 89 183, 192, 201,
202, 203, 207,
Mara bar Sarapion 208, 210,
Letter 225–226, 229
1 157, 167 19 14, 16, 159, 177
2 167, 210 19–23 29
2–4 168 20 159, 164, 172,
3 12, 31, 92, 159, 177, 226
168, 211 21 177
3–4 14, 33 22 227
3–5 17 22–23 14
4 131, 157n11, 169 23 157n11, 159,
4–5 167 170, 227
5 160, 167, 169, 24 157n11, 160,
179, 203, 206, 169, 223, 226
212 25 157n11, 163,
6 158, 159, 173, 167, 169, 179
206, 213 26 13, 14, 17, 23,
6–7 130 31, 65, 179, 227
7 214, 215 26–27 12, 132, 179
8 13, 67, 95, 148, 27 13, 15, 17, 18,
203, 206, 216 20, 27, 131, 133,
9 13, 17, 20, 65, 164, 169, 181
132, 172, 206, 28 157, 171, 228
217 28–29 16, 17
10 17, 65, 67, 29 16, 31, 131, 159,
157n11, 158, 178, 203
159, 195, 217 30 33, 34, 131, 200,
11 146, 157n11, 203, 208–209
159, 172, 217,
220, 221 Maximus of Tyre
11–12 37n106 3 230
12 157n11, 179, 3,8 230
206, 207, 222
Neanthes Plinius (maior)

FGrHist 84 F 20 185n8 Naturalis Historia
5,13,66 19n20,
Olympiodorus 25n50
In Platonis Alcibiadem Commentarii 5,20,85 25n49,
2.30–31 187n21 72n14
2.83 187n15 5,21,86 25n50,
2.156–162 187n15 72n14
2.165 192n57 5,82 19n20
27,1 16
Parmenides
Fr. 28 B 64–67 172 Plinius (minor)
Epistulae 10,96 30n68
Pausanias
I.30 187n15 Plutarch
I.30.3 192n55 Crassus 21,2 34n86
De Profectu in Virtute 12, 82 F 218
Philo Alexandrinus De Stoicorum Repugnantiis
De Congressu Eruditionis 5, 1034 B 181
9–14 169n5 15, 1040 C 169n6
71–80 169n5 35, 1050 F 175n9
Vita Mosis 134 1050 E 175n10, 176
1051 B 229
Philochorus 1051 C 174, 176
fr. 223 185n8 1051 D 229
Marius 46.1 190n49
Philodemus Sulla
Index Herculanensis 36.3–4 189n43
Col. II.35–6 185n8 36.2–3 190n44
Col. V.1–19 187n16
Porphyrius
Philostratus De Abstinentia I.36 192n55
Vita Apollonii
1,12 18n15 Procopius
1,13 188n27 Belum Persicum 2,12 35n90
De Aedificiis 1,1,11–16 15
Plato
Apologia Pseudo-Andronicus
20 E-21 A 187 Περὶ παθῶν 1 215
23 A–C 187n20
28 D-20 A 187n20 Pseudo-Galenus
30 A 187n20 Historia Philosopha 3 192n55
37 E-38 A 187n20
41 B 180n14 Pseudo-Menander
Gorgias 66 162
511 A–B 174n8
521 B-522 E 174n8 Pseudo-Plutarch
Leges 10, 903 B–D 175 Consolatio ad Apollonium 194
Epistulae 361 C 188 De Liberis Educandis 10.7 168n3
Phaedo
60 E 187 Pseudo-Phokylides
80 E-81 A 184n2 109–110 162
84 E-85 B 187
Ptolemaeus SVF III fr. 220 218–219

Geographia SVF III fr. 225 219
5,14,8 19n20, SVF III fr. 356 217–218
24n39 SVF III fr. 389 215
SVF III fr. 391 215
Seneca SVF III fr. 431 215
Ad Marciam (Dial. 6) 194 SVF III fr. 698 181
Ad Helviam Matrem (Dial. 12) 194
Apocolocyntosis 199 Strabo
De Beneficiis 5.7.5 190n49 1,2,34 72n14, 142
De Constantia 2.7.3 174 14,2,29 81n30
De Providentia (Dial. 1) 16,2,3 23n35,
1.1.4 176 26n53
1.2.1 174
1.2.4 178 Sueton
1.2.7 178 Augustus 21,2 20n21
1.2.8 176–177 Caligula 16 53
1.4.6 178 Vespasian 8 22n30
1.6.4–6 173
1.6.6 176 Sibylline Books
De Tranquillitate Animi (Dial. 9) 3, l. 364 133
9.16 177, 223n39 4, l. 91 133
Epistulae Morales
49 219 Tacitus
58,13 185n8 Annales
63 194 2,42 18n15,
75,18 131 20n42,
88,1–20 169n5 22n33,
93 194 127n73
99 194 12,12ff 35n86
107,11 212, 228–229 Historiae
4,59 62
Socrates and the Socratics
Letters Tertullianus
7 195, 196 De Anima
46.9 187n15
Sozomenos 52.3 189n36
Historia Ecclesiastica 3,16 36n99
Theodoret
Stobaeus, Johannes Haereticarum fabularum
I.1.12 223 compendium 1,22 36n99
IV.22b.33 188n27
Timon
Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta fr. 784 178
SVF I fr. 234 218, 219
SVF I fr. 537 223 Valerimus Maximus
SVF I fr. 560 181 VIII.7 185n8
SVF II fr. 1169 175
SVF II fr. 1170 175 Xenophon
SVF II fr. 1176 175n10 Anabasis 3.1.11 89
SVF II fr. 1178 176 Apologia Socratis 26 180n14, 181
SVF II fr. 1181 175n9 Cynegeticus 1.11 180n15
SVF III fr. 217 219 Memorabilia 2.1.21–34 89
SVF III fr. 219 219
C. Inscriptions and Papyri
Inscriptions ILS 7204 23n38

AE 1927, 95 25n46 ILS 8819a 24n43
AE 1942/43, 33 29n63 Inschriften von Didyma 151 24n43
AE 1982, 873 24n43 Inschriften von Pergamon 3 24n43
AE 1982, 885 26n53 Inschriften von Pergamon 21 24n43
AE 1984 553 26n53 Inscription from Birecik
AE 1997 862 26n53 (Drijvers & Healey As55) 31n71,
Altar of Markellos from Sofraz 71–72
Köy (=SEG XXXVIII 1544) 28n58, Inscription from Damlica 110–113
54n36, Inscription from Kilafik Höyük 72–75
75–78 SEG XXXVIII 1544 28n58,
BMC II p.146 13n4 54n36,
CRAI 1908, 445 (BE 1958, 172) 31n71 75–78
IAG 62 26n52 SEG 41,1117 26n52
IGLS I 42 23n38 OGIS 383 68n5,
IGLS I 43 23n38 69n6
IGLS I 44 23n38
IGLS IV 2775a/b 24n43 Papyri
IGR IV 374 24n43 Louvre Demotic Papyrus 2414
IGRR I 445 25n47 col II–III 158n15
IGRR III 132 25n50 Papyrus Insinger
ILS 246 13n4 3:1–22 158n15
ILS 918 25n46 29:11 164
ILS 8924 27n54 33:6 164
ILS 9198 29n63 33:2 164
ILS 9200 22n29 Papyrus Yadin 52 32n74
MAPS
Map 1. Asia Minor in the Graeco-Roman period: From: “Historical Atlas” by William R. Shepherd (New
York: Henry Holt and Company, 1923), 20. Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of
Texas at Austin.
Map 2. Commagene: Tafel 1 from E. Winter (ed.), PATRIS PANTROFOS KOMMAGHNH. Neue Funde und For-
schungen zwischen Taurus und Euphrat, Asia Minor Studien 60 (Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmBH: Bonn, 2008).

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The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion in Context

Culture and History of the

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/chan

Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

List of Illustrations .......................................................................................... vii

1. General Introduction .............................................................................. 1

2. Making Use of History beyond the Euphrates: Political Views,

3. Cultural Responses from Kingdom to Province: The

4. Languages, Cultural Identities and Elites in the Land of Mara

5. Religious Life of Commagene in the Late Hellenistic and Early

6. Jesus as the Ever-Living Lawgiver in the Letter of Mara bar

7. Mara’s God(s) and Time ........................................................................ 141

8. Where is Wisdom to be Found? A Plea in Favor of Semitic

9. Mara bar Sarapion and Greek Philosophy ....................................... 167

10. The Death(s) of Plato ............................................................................. 183

12. Mara bar Sarapion: Comments on the Syriac Edition,

Index of Names and Subjects ...................................................................... 233

Fig. 1. Nemrud Dağı, East Terrace: The gods of Antiochus I of

Religious Life of Commagene in the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman

Fig. 1. City walls of Samosata (Urfa-Gate) [photo © Levent

Fig. 14. Bronze statuette of Jupiter Dolichenus from Maur an der

Maps are located in a separate quire at the back of this book.

Map 1. Asia Minor in the Graeco-Roman period: From: “Historical Atlas”

Map 2. Commagene: Tafel 1 from E. Winter (ed.), PATRIS PANTROFOS

Pieter W. van der Horst

Ilaria L.E. Ramelli

Miguel John Versluys

Annette Merz and Teun Tieleman

The letter of Mara bar Sarapion to his son—preserved in a single Syriac

passage alone illustrate the need for a more comprehensive approach

it seemed best to retain Rensberger’s edition as the textual basis to which

8 H. Ewald, “Spicilegium Syriacum etc. by Cureton,” Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen

allusions to military events are little to go by; other aspects—e.g. linguis-

occasionally referring to himself as a Syrian, composed his voluminous

cases continued afterwards. This has inevitably led to varying degrees of

Utrecht, August 2011

opposition to Roman rule in Samosata. And it has been claimed to be

I. Mara bar Sarapion and “the Romans”

remains unnamed, but a single reference to Samosata places the episode

of “Roman” identity, which are fundamentally different from Mara’s ideal

proudly claimed to characterize their rule.10 No need to say that doubts

10 See only Plin., NH 27,1: immensa Romanae pacis maiestas.

to abstain from political involvement and personal possessions.12 Instead,

II. The Commagenian Setting

12 But cf. above for a political connotation of paideia in the Letter.

Seleuceia / Zeugma, Mara should therefore have been a contemporary

fled to the king of Parthia. An inscription set up for the commander of

not automatically assume that all Commagenians categorically rejected

35 Strabo 16,2,3: Σαμόσατα, ἐν ᾗ τὸ βασίλειον ὑπῆρχε.

apart from Samosata were included. Doliche and Germanikeia certainly

51 Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft, 573–580 (Commagene), 585–594 (Cappadocia). Eck

The dearth of evidence from Commagene makes it difficult to trace in

this respect is a Greek funerary inscription from the village of Sofraz,

favoured)62 is, however, the absence of conclusive and unambiguous

and contemporary perspective, as the loss of a “kingdom”, and whether

III. The Osrhoenian Perspective

The difficulties in connecting the setting of Mara’s “letter” to any known

when we can observe the development of Syriac into a literary language in