The Letter of Mara Bar Sarapion in Context Culture and History of the Ancient Near East
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The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion in Context Culture and History of the Ancient Near East Founding Editor M.H.E. Weippert Editor-in-Chief Thomas Schneider Editors Eckart Frahm W. Randall Garr Baruch Halpern Theo P.J. van den Hout Irene J. Winter VOLUME 58 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/chan The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion in Context Proceedings of the Symposium Held at Utrecht University, 10–12 December 2009 Edited by Annette Merz and Teun Tieleman LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.nl/brill-typeface. ISSN 1566-2055 ISBN 978 90 04 23300 3 (hardback) ISBN 978 90 04 23301 0 (e-book) Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. CONTENTS List of Illustrations .......................................................................................... vii List of Maps ...................................................................................................... xi Contributors ..................................................................................................... xiii 1. General Introduction .............................................................................. 1 Annette Merz and Teun Tieleman 2. Making Use of History beyond the Euphrates: Political Views, Cultural Traditions, and Historical Contexts in the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion ......................................................................... 11 Michael A. Speidel 3. Cultural Responses from Kingdom to Province: The Romanisation of Commagene, Local Identities and the Mara bar Sarapion Letter ................................................................. 43 Miguel John Versluys 4. Languages, Cultural Identities and Elites in the Land of Mara bar Sarapion ......................................................................................... 67 Margherita Facella 5. Religious Life of Commagene in the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Period ...................................................................................... 95 Michael Blömer 6. Jesus as the Ever-Living Lawgiver in the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion ................................................................................................. 129 Petr Pokorný 7. Mara’s God(s) and Time ........................................................................ 141 Albert de Jong 8. Where is Wisdom to be Found? A Plea in Favor of Semitic Influences in the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion ........................... 155 Pancratius C. Beentjes vi contents 9. Mara bar Sarapion and Greek Philosophy ....................................... 167 David L. Blank 10. The Death(s) of Plato ............................................................................. 183 Anna Ntinti 11. Consolation from Prison: Mara bar Sarapion and Boethius ...... 193 Pieter W. van der Horst 12. Mara bar Sarapion: Comments on the Syriac Edition, Translation, and Notes by David Rensberger ............................ 205 Ilaria L.E. Ramelli Index of Names and Subjects ...................................................................... 233 Index of Ancient Sources ............................................................................. 238 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Languages, Cultural Identities and Elites in the Land of Mara bar Sarapion By Margherita Facella Fig. 1. Nemrud Dağı, East Terrace: The gods of Antiochus I of Commagene [photo-courtesy of K. Painter] ..................................... 69 Fig. 2. Syriac inscription from Birecik [photo © H.J.W. Drijvers & J.F. Healey, The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene. Texts, Translations and Commentary, Leiden – Boston – Köln: Brill, 1999, As55a, Plate 40] ..................................................................... 71 Fig. 3. Inscription from Kılafık Höyük, front of the stele [photos © H. Waldmann, Die kommagenischen Kultreformen unter König Mithradates I. Kallinikos und seinem Sohne Antiochos I., EPRO 34, Leiden: Brill, 1973, Tafel XXXVIII] ...................................... 73 Fig. 4. Inscription from Kılafık Höyük, left side of the stele [photos © H. Waldmann, Die kommagenischen Kultreformen unter König Mithradates I. Kallinikos und seinem Sohne Antiochos I., EPRO 34, Leiden: Brill, 1973, Tafel XXXVIII] ............. 74 Fig. 5. Adıyaman Museum: The altar of Markellos from Sofraz Köy, front [photo-courtesy of Charles Crowther] .......................... 76 Fig. 6. Adıyaman Museum: The altar of Markellos from Sofraz Köy, right side [photo-courtesy of Charles Crowther] ................... 77 Fig. 7. Adıyaman Museum: The altar of Markellos from Sofraz Köy, left side [photo-courtesy of Charles Crowther] ...................... 78 Fig. 8. Coin of Samosata [photo-courtesy of P.-F. Jacquier] ............. 79 Fig. 9. Coins of Samosata from the British Museum Collection [photo © A. Burnett – M. Amandry – P.P. Ripollès, The Roman Provincial Coinage I. From the death of Caesar to the death of Vitellius (44 BC–AD 69), vol. I, London – Paris 1992: British Museum Press, part II Plate 148, nos. 3848–3851]. ........................... 81 viii list of illustrations Religious Life of Commagene in the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Period By Michael Blömer Fig. 1. City walls of Samosata (Urfa-Gate) [photo © Levent Zoroǧlu, Samosata. Ausgrabungen in der kommagenischen Hauptstadt, in Gottkönige am Euphrat. Neue Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Kommagene, ed. by Jörg Wagner, Mainz: v. Zabern, 2000, p. 76 fig. 102/103] ......................................................... 100 Fig. 2. General view of Samosata [photo-courtesy of the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Dörner-Archiv] .................................. 101 Fig. 3. Head of Zeus from Samosata [photo © Levent Zoroǧlu, Samosata. Ausgrabungen in der kommagenischen Hauptstadt, in Gottkönige am Euphrat. Neue Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Kommagene, ed. by Jörg Wagner, Mainz: v. Zabern, 2000, p. 77 fig. 105] ................................................................................................ 102 Fig. 4. Arsameia on the Euphrates (Gerger Kale): General view from eastern direction. The site is situated on top of the isolated rock [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] ......................... 104 Fig. 5. Arsameia on the Euphrates (Gerger Kale): Rock-relief of king Samos II [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] ........................ 105 Fig. 6. Ancoz (Eskitaş): Remains of the temple [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] .................................................................................... 106 Fig. 7. Ancoz (Eskitaş): Wall revetted with opus reticulatum in the substruction of the temple [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] ......................................................................................................... 107 Fig. 8. Damlıca. Site of the sanctuary in the escarpment of the Euphrates River [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] ................... 110 Fig. 9. Damlıca: Corridor with inscription below a recess in the wall [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] .......................................... 111 Fig. 10. Damlıca: Detail of the inscription [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] ......................................................................................... 112 Fig. 11. Yarımca: Relief of a mountain god in a Roman quarry [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] ................................................... 114 Fig. 12. Ain Dara: Orthostat with mountain god [photo-courtesy of Michael Blömer] .................................................................................... 115 Fig. 13. View of the Doliche and the Dülük Baba Tepesi with the sanctuary of Jupiter Dolichenus [photo-courtesy of the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster] .............................................. 116 list of illustrations ix Fig. 14. Bronze statuette of Jupiter Dolichenus from Maur an der Url [photo © M.P. Speidel, The Religion of Iuppiter Dolichenus in the Roman Army, EPRO 63, Leiden: Brill, 1978, Frontispiece] ............................................................................................... 118 Fig. 15. Dülük Baba Tepesi: Late Iron Age wall and adjacent pebble floor [photo-courtesy of the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster] ......................................................................................... 120 Fig. 16. Dülük Baba Tepesi: Small finds from Late Iron Age deposits in the sanctuary of Jupiter Dolichenus [photo- courtesy of the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster] ................ 121 Fig. 17. Dülük Baba Tepesi: Bronze applique in the shape of Jupiter Dolichenus [photo-courtesy of the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster] ..............................................................................