The king of Edessa had certain prerogatives. He alone was entitled to wear a diadem with the tiara worn by noblemen, possibly also by the priests; he also carried a scepter. The local Syriac Chronicle (ed. Guidi, p. 3) describes him as residing in a “great and beautiful palace” (Syr. ʾapadnā; Parth. ap(p)adān, OPers. appadāna) “at the source of the springs” beside the pools of sacred fish (see below). After the flood of A.D. 201 it was rebuilt as a summer palace; a winter palace was then erected on the citadel mount nearby (where two columns still stand). After A.D. 88-89 the kings were buried in a great tomb tower reserved for them.
The regnal year of the king provided the official system of dating, side by side with that of Roman emperors. The king maintained personal control of the military force of the state and of taxation. Abgar the Great’s style of government was direct and paternalistic. He seems to have had his own confidants (Syr. šarrīrē), who included his secretary and keeper of the archives. He supervised personally the measures taken at the flood of 201; he forbade the building of booths near the river and ordered that artisans should not pass the night there in winter time.
The principal officer of the state after the king, the “second in the kingdom,” had the title of paṣgrībā (Parth. pasāgrīw). From the Syriac inscription on a column we learn that Queen Šalmath, wife of Abgar (the Great?), was daughter of a paṣgrībā (Segal, Edessa, pl. 29a and p. 19; his head possibly appears on a coin). The nobleman who governed the marches east of Edessa occupied by the semi-nomad ʿArab was called, both in Greek and Syriac, “governor of the ʿArab” (arabarchos). The nūhadrā (Parth. naxwadhār, noxadhār) was probably of lower rank. In the time of Abgar the Great, the nūhadrā evidently controlled the city administration. Order was maintained in the city by the gezīrāyē, a term possibly of Iranian origin. City officials included surveyors and other experts. The king himself housed the workmen employed on the upkeep of the royal buildings. In the royal archives were preserved records of private transactions as well as of matters of state; they had a high reputation for accuracy.
By Roman historians the term phylarch is applied to members of the Abgar dynasty; the city was divided into districts allocated to phylae or clans, each administered by an archon. The king ruled through a council of elders. A description of Edessan chiefs as “those who sit with bended knees” may reflect the Parthian practice by which nobles squatted at court, but the Syriac text is not certain (G. Phillips, The Doctrine of Addai the Apostle, London, 1876, p. 5; Syr. text, line 15). The nobles of Edessa—called “great men” or “free men”—lived in mansions in the vicinity of the palace. Artisans formed an important category of the population; there is evidence for slaves in the latest period of the kingdom.
Outside the city were villages and farms, dependent economically on the city-dwellers and paying taxes to the royal treasury. In the uncultivated area beyond, like the Tektek mountains east of Edessa, lived the ʿArab governed by the arabarchos. One of his functions was to protect them against the Beduins (Syr. Ṭayyāyē, after the Arab tribe Ṭayy).
Bibliography
There are few primary sources for the history of the Abgar dynasty. Firsthand accounts are the Syriac Chronicle of Edessa, ed. I. Guidi et al., in Chronica Minora (CSCO 1-2 = Scriptores syri 1-2), Louvain, 1955.
For the work of Julius Africanus, see also H. Gelzer, Sextus Julius Africanus und die byzantische Chronographie, Leipzig, 1880-98.
On contemporary inscriptions and other archeological finds, and on the evangelization of Edessa, see the bibliography under Edessa.
Bardaiṣan is treated by H. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaiṣan of Edessa (Studia Semitica Neerlandica 6), Te Assen, 1966.
G. F Hill, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Arabia, Mesopotamia and Persia in the British Museum, London, 1922, p. 91-118 should be consulted for numismatic material.
The viewpoint of Roman historians will be found in Plutarch Life of Crassus; Tacitus Annals 6.44, 12.12f.; Dio Cassius Roman History 68, 77-78; Scriptores historiae Augistae: Lives of Septimus Severus and Caracalla.
The Armenian history of Moses of Khorene should be regarded with caution; see A. Carrière, “La Légende d’Abgar dans l’Histoire d’Arménie de Moïse de Khoren,” Centenaire de l’École des langues vivantes 1795-1895, Paris, 1895, pp. 357-414.
For a discussion of Iranian inscriptions and Iranian terms, see W. B. Henning, “The Monuments and Inscriptions of Tang-i Sarvak,” Asia Major N.S. 2, 1951-52, p. 151.
Idem, “A New Parthian Inscription,” JRAS 1953, p. 124.
A. D. H. Bivar and S. Shaked, “The Inscriptions at Shimbar,” BSOAS 27, 1964, p. 265.
For a general treatment of the Abgar dynasty, see R. Duval, Histoire politique, religieuse et littéraire d’Édesse jusqu’à la première croisade (= JA 8e Sér., 18-19, 1891-92), 1892.
E. Kirsten, “Edessa,” in T. Klauser, ed., Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum IV, Stuttgart, 1959, cols. 552-97.
J. B. Segal, Edessa “The Blessed City”, Oxford, 1970.