Page 33 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

2O EDESSA UNDER THE KINGS
Public order in the city was maintained by the city watchman, thegeziraye,
a term possibly also of Iranian origin. After the disaster of 201, the king gave
instructions that some geziraye should sleep on the walls from October to
April in order to give notice of the approach of river floods. There were also
city surveyors and other experts, 'wise men' or 'knowledgeable men', in
municipal administration, as well as workmen employed on the upkeep of
the royal buildings. Characteristic of the personal rule of the kings of Edessa
seem to have been the sharrire, or commissioners, probably persons whom
the king chose as his confidants. An important official with the status
of sharrira, was the king's tabular a, or secretary;1 we shall refer in a later
chapter to the role of Hannan, secretary to King Abgar, in the dissemination
of Christianity at Edessa. Two sharrire of the city were in charge of the
archives in which official documents were deposited. They may have been in
some degree the equivalent, under the kings, of the strategoi of pre-monarchy
days. At Dura in the third century, contracts were often witnessed by the
'strategos and Steward of the city'; at Edessa in 243, a document is certified
by a strategos who carries the title of bahora, the Inspector, that is, who
confirmed its bona fides. Later, in the Byzantine period, the office of the
sharrire was greatly reduced in popular prestige. Already in martyrologies of
the fourth century they had become minor officials who set down in writing
and then reported to the authorities the actions of the citizens.2
The archives of Edessa had a reputation for reliability. Eusebius gives an
account of the beginnings of Christianity there, which, he states, had been
translated into Greek from the Aramaic 'archives of Edessa which was at
that time ruled by its own kings'.3 A Syriac chronicle of Edessa has survived,
and provides us with extracts from the city's archives. For the most part they
are brief, and belong, in their present form, to the sixth century. But the
description of the flood at Edessa in A.D. 2Oi4 shows that records must have
been compiled at greater length; and the vividness and detail of this narra-
tive mark it as authentic and contemporary—written, that is, during the
monarchy, and at the specific command of the king. A wide range of docu-
ments was admitted to the archives. They are described, at the end of the
monarchical regime, as the 'sacred and profane archives of Edessa'. Centuries

1 This is the equivalent of the Latin tabu- version of the history ascribed to Zacharias
larius, not tabellarius, courier, as Eusebius and Rhetor, the epithet sharrire is used of Senators
Rufinus. The latter is rahpa in Syriac; it occurs at Rome.
in the memorial inscription of a cave outside 3 The establishment of archives at Edessa is
Urfa, probably of the second or third century, ascribed by the Armenian Moses of Khoren to
which reads: 'I, Rabbai son of 'Abshelama the the Romans. A Syriac chronicle declares that
courier, made for myself this tomb, for myself Jesus was on the earth for thirty-two years,
and for my children and for my heirs, and for 'according to the testimony which we have
GNY' my son'. found in the truthful book of the archives of
z The Syriac term was evidently not under- Edessa, which errs in naught but makes known
stood by the translators of the martyrologies everything truthfully'.
into Greek, and they omit it. In the Syriac 4 See p. 24 below.

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