The RomanColoniaeof the Near East rect; this is the ‘‘King Abgar’’ ruling when there was the flood of..,
recordedbytheChronicle of Edessa(text to n. above); theΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ
ΑΒΓΑΡΟΣwhom the coins show to have been a contemporary of Seve-
rus; and the ‘‘Septimius Abgar’’ whoseregnumis attested inAE, , of
.. (text to n. above).
Von Gutschmid concluded that there followed a joint reign of Abgar IX
and his son Severus Abgar (X), and then the nominal rule as ‘‘Titularkönig’’
of Ma‘nu son of Abgar, in..–, followed finally by the restoration of
a genuine king, whom he thought was called Abgar (XI) Phrahates, son of
Ma‘nu.
The headings of the two extensive Syriac documents from the impor-
tant new archive from Mesopotamia show both that there is a reflection of
a genuine sequence of events in all this, but also that it now requires radi-
cal readjustment.^180 Firstly, the document designatedP.Euphr.Syr. A is dated
..,^181 intheSeleucidyear,yearofGordianandyearof’LYWS
SPṬMYWS ’BGR MLK’ BR M‘NW PSGRYB’ BR ’BGR MLK’; that is ‘‘year
of Aelius Septimius Abgar, son of Ma‘nu, crown prince, son of Abgar the
King.’’ As Teixidor suggested, this allows the reconstruction of a much sim-
plified succession: firstly ‘‘the’’ Abgar, the contemporary of Severus (with the
possibility that it was he rather than a son called Abgar who was deposed
by Caracalla, as recorded by Dio , , a–^2 ); then Abgar’s son Ma‘nu, left
with the status of ‘‘crown prince’’ (PSGRB’) for the twenty-six years /–
,^182 then the restoration as king of Ma‘nu’s son, Aelius Septimius Abgar.
His second year coincided with Seleucid year , autumn –autumn ,
so his first coincided with autumn –autumn . It is thus he who appears
on coins along with Gordian III.
At that point the titlecolonia, which had been in regular use on the coins of
Edessa (text to n. above) was dropped, for the name and title of the city
. J. Teixidor, ‘‘Les derniers rois d’Edesse d’après deux nouveaux documents syriaques,’’
ZPE (): . I was extremely grateful to J. Teixidor and D. Feissel for a preliminary
text of the archive, and for permission to quote the ‘‘colonial’’ titles which appear there. For
my suggested reconstruction and dating of the entries in the Chronicle, see Millar (n. ),
app. .
. J. Teixidor, ‘‘Deux documents syriaques du IIIesiècle après J.-C., provenant du
Moyen Euphrate,’’CRAI(): ; cf. S. Brock, ‘‘Some New Syriac Documents from
the Third Century,’’Aram.– (): ; B. Aggoula, ‘‘Studia Aramaica III,’’Syria
(): . This text is reprinted as P in Drijvers and J. F. Healey (n. ), app. I.
. It is worth noting that a Ma‘nu with the title PSGRYB’ is attested on a Syriac in-
scription from the citadel of Edessa; see H. J. W. Drijvers,Old-Syriac (Edessean) Inscriptions
(), no. . See Segal (n. ), and pl. a.