Paul of Samosata, Zenobia and Aurelian: the Church, Local Culture and Political Allegiance in Third-Century Syria

TLDR

The Roman Eastern frontier was largely a diplomatic construct that did not significantly impede cross‑border movement of people, ideas, and culture, as shown by trade, religious offerings, artistic exchange, and the continued use of Semitic languages across the region. The region remained a cultural unity largely unaffected by the empires of Rome, Parthia, or Sassanid Persia.

Abstract

What we call the ‘Eastern frontier’ of the Roman Empire was a thing of shadows, which reflected the diplomatic convenience of a given moment, and dictated the positioning of some soldiers and customs officials, but hardly affected the attitudes or the movements of the people on either side. Nothing more than the raids of desert nomads, for instance, hindered the endless movement of persons and ideas between Judaea and the Babylonian Jewish community. Similarly, as Lucian testifies, offerings came to the temple of Atargatis at Hierapolis-Bambyce from a wide area of the Near and Middle East, including Babylonia. The actual movement to and fro of individuals was reflected, as we have recently been reminded, in a close interrelation of artistic and architectural styles. Moreover, whatever qualifications have to be made in regard to specific places, it is incontestable that Semitic languages, primarily Aramaic in its various dialects, remained in active use, in a varying relationship to Greek, from the Tigris through the Fertile Crescent to the Phoenician coast. This region remained, we must now realize, a cultural unity, substantially unaffected by the empires of Rome or of Parthia or Sassanid Persia.