Page 23 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

IO EDESSA UNDER THE KINGS
bounded to the west, the north-west, and the south-west by the Euphrates.
As long as Seleucid Syria clung to its political pretensions in Mesopotamia, it
could not relinquish interest in the crossing points of the Euphrates from
Samosata to Callinicos. Through Zeugma—but from the second century
A.D., through Caeciliana near Hierapolis—passed the road that linked An-
tioch, the western capital of the Seleucids, with their eastern capital, Seleucia
on the lower Tigris. Another road went northwards to Nisibis, the great mart
of the eastern frontiers—called appropriately in Syriac Soba, the meeting-
place—and crossing the northern Tigris led to Arbela, with a diversion to the
south. Batnae (Serug), Harran, Resaina (Resh'aina), as well as Edessa, were
important staging points on these routes.
We have virtually no contemporary allusions to Edessa's role on the
international scene during the early Seleucid period. For the later period we
must rely largely upon Roman historians (in both Latin and Greek), and these,
it should be remembered, have little immediate concern for a theatre of
operations so remote from the imperial capital. Nevertheless, it is clear that
whenever Rome intervened in this region of Mesopotamia she came into
contact with Edessa.
Sextilius led a Roman expedition against Tigranes of Armenia. Allied
with Tigranes and defeated with him in 69 B.C. was the phylarch of Edessa.1
A few years later, in the winter of 65-64 B.C., the soldiers of the Roman
general Afranius,
returning through Mesopotamia to Syria . . . wandered from the way and encountered
many hardships by reason of the winter and the lack of supplies. His troops would have
perished had not the people of Harran, Macedonian colonists, who dwelt somewhere in
that vicinity, received him and helped him forward.2
Evidently Edessa too showed friendship to the Romans, for in Pompey's
settlement of the East, after the defeat of Tigranes, Abgar of Edessa was
confirmed as ruler of his city.3
It was the same Abgar of Edessa who, twelve years later, in 53 B.C. was an
actor in one of the most crushing disasters that ever befell a Roman army.
Crassus, determined to win a reputation by victory over Parthia—and, it is
alleged, fired by the example of Lucullus who had captured great booty at
Nisibis and Tigranocerta—led his forces across the Euphrates. The events
that ensued are vividly portrayed by Plutarch :4
obscure.) The suffix ene is used to denote a 2 Dio Cassius.
Seleucid eparchy, the subdivision of a satrapy. 3 Abgar II, 68-53 B.C.
Another form of the name is Osdroene. Pro- 4 Dio Cassius, writing a century after Plu-
copius derives the province's name from an tarch, adds nothing of substance to his account,
eponymous king, Osroes; this name, like except to maintain that the Osrhoenians
Orroes, Osdroes and Cosdroes, is a variant of actually joined the Parthians in their onslaught
the Persian Khusraw. on the legions. This allegation is to be treated
1 Probably Abgar I, Piqa (the stammerer), with caution if the arguments advanced here
94-68 B.C. about Abgar are valid.

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