Edessa

It was founded during the Hellenistic period by Macedonian general and self proclaimed king Seleucus I Nicator (r. 305–281 BC), founder of the Seleucid Empire.

The city was situated on the banks of the Daysan River (Ancient Greek: Σκίρτος; Latin: Scirtus; Turkish: Kara Koyun), a tributary of the Khabur, and was defended by Şanlıurfa Castle, the high central citadel.

After the defeat of the Seleucids in the Seleucid–Parthian Wars, Edessa became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene, with a mixed Syriac and Hellenistic culture.

[1][2] The Roman Republic began exercising political influence over the Kingdom of Osroene and its capital Edessa from 69 BC.

The Roman soldier and Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus described the city's formidable fortifications and how in 359 it successfully resisted the attack of Shapur II (r. 309–379).

[3] The city was a centre of Greek and Syriac theological and philosophical thought, hosting the famed School of Edessa.

Edessa remained in Roman hands until its capture by the Persians during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, an event recorded by the Greek Chronicon Paschale as occurring in 609.

It did not return to the Romans' control until the Byzantine Empire temporarily recovered the city in the mid-10th century after a number of failed attempts.

[3] The Byzantine Empire regained control in 1031, though it did not remain under their rule long and changed hands several times before the end of the century.

[9][6][7] After Antiochus IV's reign, the name of the city reverted to Edessa, in Greek,[6] and also appears in Armenian as Urha or Ourha (Ուռհա), in Aramaic (Syriac) as Urhay or Orhay (Classical Syriac: ܐܘܪܗܝ, romanized: ʾŪrhāy / ʾŌrhāy), in local Neo-Aramaic (Turoyo) as Urhoy, in Arabic as ar-Ruhā (الرُّهَا), in the Kurdish languages as Riha, Latinized as Rohais, and finally adopted into Turkish as Urfa or Şanlıurfa ("Glorious Urfa"), its present name.

This kingdom was established by Arabs from the northern Arabian Peninsula and lasted nearly four centuries (c. 132 BC to A.D. 214), under twenty-eight rulers, who sometimes called themselves "king" on their coinage.

Following its capture and sack by Trajan, the Romans even occupied Edessa from 116 to 118, although its sympathies towards the Parthians led to Lucius Verus pillaging the city later in the 2nd century.

[6] The Roman army was defeated and captured in its entirety by the Persian forces, including Valerian himself, an event which had never previously happened.

[11] Traces of Hellenistic culture were soon overwhelmed in Edessa, which employed Syriac legends on coinage, with the exception of the client king Abgar IX (179–214), and there is a corresponding lack of Greek public inscriptions.

[3] She saw a longer version of the Letters than she was previously familiar with, and was assured that the holy words had repelled a Persian assault on the city.

According to the late-6th-century Frankish hagiographer and bishop Gregory of Tours, the relics had themselves been brought from India, while in Edessa an annual fair (and alleviation of customs duties) was held at the church in July in the saint's honour (the feast of St Thomas was observed on 3 July) during which, Gregory alleged, water would appear in shallow wells and flies disappeared.

[13] This text is the earliest to allege that a painting (or icon) of Jesus was enclosed with the reply to Abgar and that the city of Edessa was prophesied never to fall.

[13] According to this text, Edessenes were early adopters of Christianity; the inhabitants of the neighbouring city of Carrhae (Harran), by contrast, were pagans.

According to the Chronicle of Edessa, the early 5th-century theologian and bishop Rabbula built a church dedicated to Saint Stephen in a building that had been a synagogue.

This school, largely attended by the Christian youth of Persia, and closely watched by Rabbula, the friend of Cyril of Alexandria, on account of its Nestorian tendencies, reached its highest development under bishop Ibas, famous through the Three-Chapter Controversy, was temporarily closed in 457, and finally in 489, by command of Emperor Zeno and Bishop Cyrus, when the teachers and students of the School of Edessa repaired to Nisibis and became chief writers of the Church of the East.

[17] The Greek historian Procopius, in his Persian Wars, describes the inscription of the Letter of Jesus's text on the city gates of Edessa, which he stated made the defences impregnable.

However, there is no doubt that even before AD 190 Christianity had spread vigorously within Edessa and its surroundings and that shortly after the royal house joined the church.

Thence came to us in the second century the famous Peshitta, or Syriac translation of the Old Testament; also Tatian's Diatessaron, which was compiled about 172 and in common use until Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa (412–435), forbade its use.

The Armenian chronicler Sebeos, bishop of Bagratid Armenia writing in the 660s, gives the earliest narrative accounts of Islam in any language today.

Sebeos' account suggests that Muhammad was actually leading a joint venture toward Palestine, instead of a Jewish-Arab alliance against the Meccan pagans toward the south.

This venerable and famous image, which was certainly at Edessa in 544, and of which there is an ancient copy in the Vatican Library, was looted and brought to the West by the Republic of Venice in 1207 following the Fourth Crusade.

It was retaken by the Arabs, and then successively held by the Romans, the Armenians, the Seljuq dynasty (1087), an Armenian named Thoros who gained independence from the Turks (1094), and the Crusaders (1098), who established there the County of Edessa and kept the city until 1144, when it was again captured by Imad ad-Din Zengi, and most of its inhabitants were allegedly slaughtered together with the Latin archbishop.