Roman Edessa : Politics and Culture on the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire, 114 - 242 C.E.

Roman Edessa offers a comprehensive and erudite analysis of the ancient city of Edessa (modern day Urfa, Turkey), which constituted a remarkable amalgam of the East and the West. Among the areas explored are: * the cultural life and antecedents of Edessa * Edessene religion * the extent of the Hellenization at Edessa before the advent of Christianity * the myth of an exchange of letters between a King Abgar and Jesus.