OSROENE

This article appears in Volume V20, Page 354 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ORC-PAI

OSROENE , or OsRHOENE, a district of north-western Mesopotamia, in the hill country on the upper Bilechas (Belichus; mod. Nahr Belik, Bilikh), the tributary of the Euphrates, with its

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

at Edessa (q.v.), founded by 'Seleucus I. About 130 B.C. Edessa was occupied by a nomadic Arabic tribe, the Orrhoei (Plin. v. 85; vi. 25, 117, 129), who founded a small state ruled by their chieftains with the title of kings. After them the district was called Orrhoene (thus in the

inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS (from Lat. inscribere, to write upon)

, in Pliny and Dio

Cassius

), which occasionally has been changed into Osroene, in assimilation to the Parthian name Osroes or Chosroes (Khosrau). The founder of the dynasty is therefore called Osroes by Procop. Bell Pers. i. 17; but Orhai or Urhai, son of Hewya (i.e. " the
i Another supposed old form of the name is Orfraie "; but that is said by M.

Rolland

ROLLAND, JOHN (fl. 1560)

(Faune popul. France, ii. p. 9, note), quoting M. Suchier (Zeitschr. rom. Philol. i. p. 432), to arise from a mingling of two wholly different sources: (i) Oripelargus, Oriperagus, Orprais and (2) Ossifraga. " Orfraie " again is occasion-ally interchanged with Effraie (which, through such dialectical forms as Fresaze, Fressaia, is said to come from the Latin praesaga), the ordinary French name for the barn-owl, Aluco flammeus (see Own). According to Skeat's Dictionary (i. p. 408), Asprey " is the oldest English form; but " Osprey " is given by Cotgrave, and is found as early as the 15th century.
2 Two good examples of the different localities chosen by this bird for its nest are illustrated in Ootheca Wolleyana, pls. B. & H.
It
snake "), in the chronicle of Dionysius of. Tellmahre; he is no historical personality, but the eponym of the tribe. In the Syrian Doctrine of Addai (ed. Philipps 1876, p. 46) he is called Arjaw, i.e. " the lion." The kings soon became dependants of the Parthians; their names are mostly Arabic (Bekr,

Abgar

ABGAR

, Ma'nu), but among them occur some Iranian (Parthian) names, as Pacorus and Phratamaspates. Under

Tigranes

TIGRANES, or DIKRAN

of Armenia they became his vassals, and after the victories of Lucullus and Pompey, vassals of the Romans. Their names occur in all wars between Romans and Parthians, when they generally inclined to the Parthian side, e.g. in the wars of Crassus and Trajan. Trajan deposed the dynasty, but Hadrian restored it. The kings generally used Greek

inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS (from Lat. inscribere, to write upon)

on their coins, but when they sided with the Parthians, as in the war of Marcus Aurelius and Verna (A.D. 161165), an Aramaic legend appears instead. Hellenism soon disappeared and the Arabs adopted the language and civilization of the Aramaeans. This development was hastened by the introduction of Christianity, which is said to have been brought here by the apostle Judas, the brother of James, whose tomb was shown in Edessa. In 190 and 201 we hear of Christian churches in Edessa. King

Abgar

ABGAR

IX. (or VIII.) (i79214) himself became a Christian and abolished the

pagan

PAGAN
PAGAN (Lat. paganus, of or belonging to a pagus, a canton, county district,
village
- VILLAGE
, commune)

cults, especially the rite of castration in the service of Atargatis, which was now punished by the loss of the hands (see Bardesanes, " Book of the Laws of Countries," in Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, p. 31). His conversion has by the legend been transferred to his ancestor Abgar V. in the time of Christ himself, with whom he is said to have exchanged letters and who sent him his miraculous image, which afterwards was fixed over the principal gate of the city (see ABGAR; Lipsius, Die edessenische Abgarsage (188o); Dobschiitz, Christusbilder (1896) ). Edessa now became the principal seat of Aramaic-Christian (Syriac) language and literature; the literary dialect of Syriac is the dialect of Edessa.
Caracalla in 216 abolished the kingdom of Osroene (Dio Cass. 77, 12. 14) and Edessa became a Roman colony. The

list

of the kings of Osroene is preserved in the Syrian chronicle of Dionysius of Tellmahre, which is checked by the coins and the data of the Greek and Roman authors; it has been reconstructed by A. v.

Gutschmid

GUTSCHMID, ALFRED, BARON VON (1835-1887)

, " Untersuchungen uber die Geschichte des Konigreichs Osroene," in Memoires de l'Acad. de St Petersbourg, t. xxxv. (1887). Edessa remained Roman till it was taken by Chosroes II. in 6o8; but in 625 Heraclius conquered it again. In 638 it was taken by the Arabs. (ED. M.)

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