Page 31 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

i8 EDESSA UNDER THE KINGS

in a tomb tower1 erected by Abgar VI in A.D. 88-9; one writer describes it
as a 'great sepulchre of ornamental sculpture'.2
A significant symbol of royalty was the special head-dress that was the
prerogative of the king. 3 Tiaras of silk were conferred by the king on all the
chiefs and commanders and other high dignitaries of the kingdom, and these
appear in sculptures of Edessa and the neighbourhood.4 Among Parthians
the wearing of the tiara was an honour 'shared by those who sat at the royal
table and allowing men of merit... to speak counsel and vote in the assem-
blies'. At Edessa, if we may trust the account of a late martyrology, the prin-
cipal pagan priests carried tiaras embossed with gold. Only the king, however,
was entitled to wear a diadem with his tiara. The distinction is shown
clearly on some coins of Edessa. On the obverse side Abgar the king wears
his full regalia of tiara and diadem, while on the reverse appears a certain
Ma'nu with only a tiara and the Greek legend Tais'. This term may be an
abbreviation of pas(griba), the chief officer of the kingdom.5 The importance
of the prerogative of the royal head-dress is vividly recalled in the biography
of Aggai, the legendary bishop of Edessa, the first after the Apostle Addai.
When the reprobate son of Abgar the Great ascended the throne, he in-
structed Aggai, who evidently had a monopoly of this craft, 'Make for me a
tiara of gold as thou didst make for my fathers'. Aggai refused, and by order
of the king was put to death for his act of lese-majeste.
Taxation was in the hands of the king, as we shall observe later. He alone
had the power to remit taxes. We read of a 'master of imposts' a few years
after the end of the monarchy, who ensured that fees were paid on the sale
of a slave girl by a woman of Edessa.6 The king also controlled the military
forces of the state. During the campaign in which Crassus was defeated in
53 B.C., King Abgar II was present with his troops. Abgar VII, it will be
remembered, presented Trajan with horses and mailed horsemen, suits of
armour, and arrows in A.D. 114. Some eighty years later, Abgar the Great
offered Emperor Severus the services of his skilled archers. Archery was a
favourite pastime at Edessa and the archers of the region were famous
already in the ninth century B.C.7 Osrhoenian archers formed a crack unit in
1 Syriac naphsha. officers of the kingdom at Sumatar Harabesi,
2 The Syriac is obscure. The rendering p. 58 below.
given here is based, following Duval, upon the 5 Perhaps this Ma'nu, the pasgriba, is the
amendment of one letter in the text; it receives father of Queen Shalmath, whose statue stood
support from the instruction of the Testament on a column on the Citadel mount at Edessa;
of St. Ephraim, 'In your sepulchres do not p. 19.
place me, for your ornaments do not help me'. 6 This interpretation of the text may be
Less probable is the rendering, also with a accepted, although it has been doubted by some
slight emendation of the text, 'great sepulchre scholars.
of coloured sculpture". 7 Archers of the Balikh region are shown on
3 On some coins of Edessa a sceptre is panels recording the achievements of Ashur-
shown before the face of the king. nasirpal II engraved on gates erected at Bala-
4 Notably in the reliefs of high-ranking wat near Mosul and now being deciphered.

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