the old contest for the West; from now for seven centuries (till the Moslems come in 634 a.d.) East Syria is the frontier and the battle-ground of Rome and Persia.
But, meanwhile, between these two mighty Empires there is the Syrian desert, where tribes of Bedawin wander. These desert folk kept a kind of independence and constantly gave trouble to their neighbours. At various times they have formed independent states. So Palmyra (Tadmur) in an oasis between Damascus and the Euphrates (c. 230-272), Ituræa in the Lebanon, the Nabatæan kingdom south-east of Palestine, etc. One of these native states is important to us.
East of the Euphrates in the north of Mesopotamia stands a very old city called Urhâi. The Greeks had refounded it and given it the name Edessa. It is placed on a great caravan route which passes between the Armenian mountains and the great desert to the south. Here native princes managed to found a kingdom (Urhâi, Hellenized as Osroene[1]) since about 136 b.c. The kingdom of Osroene remained the one centre of national Syrian independence between the Greek Seleucids (or, later, Rome) and Persia. It was also, as we shall see, the centre of national Syrian Christendom. There was nothing Greek, no Hellenization, at Edessa. The people spoke only Syriac,[2] the Kings of Osroene were native Syrians. Of this dynasty of kings most were named either Abgar[3] or Ma‘nu.[4] The religion of Osroene was that of the pagan Semites generally—worship of the host of heaven (stars, sun, and moon) in general. There appears
- ↑ Urhâi is supposed to come from the name of a founder of the city. The Arabs make ar-ruhā of this, Greeks Ὀῤῥοηνή, then Ὀσῥοηνή. Edessa (Ἔδεσσα) is a different word. Osroene remains the usual name of the kingdom, Edessa (in Greek, Latin, and European languages) of the city. The city in Turkish (and common modern use) is now Urfa. It is now mainly Turkish-speaking and Moslem; there are a large Armenian, a small Jacobite, and a Syrian Uniate community. An account of the present state of the place will be found in Badger: The Nestorians and their Rituals, i. 321–333. He thinks Urhâi is Ur of the Chaldees. One of the Armenian massacres in 1896 was here (see Sir E. Pears: Turkey and its People, London, Methuen, 1911, pp. 285–289).
- ↑ Indeed, the dialect of Edessa became the classical Syriac language.
- ↑ Either from the Syrian root bgar, to shut, hinder, belame, or Armenian Apghar = apagh ahr, a prince.
- ↑ Arabic root ma‘an, to assert, consider, be useful, etc.
