Jews and Others
privileged position as potential converts to either Christianity or Judaism,
they were acknowledged, in their present state, to be devotees of their own
variety of paganism. Their potential conversion from pagan customs and
dietary habits to Christianity is well represented in a passage, possibly not
original, found in Theodoret’sPhilotheos Historia, in which large groups of
‘‘Ishmaelites’’ are described as arriving at Symeon Stylites’ pillar, renounc-
ing their idols and the rites of Aphrodite, and abandoning the eating of wild
asses and camels.^79
Seen as communities, or as social organisations, the Saracens were clearly
distinguished from all the other groups who came within the purview of
contemporary writers, firstly in having individual political and military lead-
ers, either kings, apparently hereditary (or in the anomalous case of Mavia,
a queen), or ‘‘tribal leaders’’ (phylarchoi). We can even catch a glimpse of the
self-representation of an Arab king in the famous inscription of..,
in Arabic but written in Nabataean script, found at en-Nemara, east of the
Hauran.^80 For a comparable example of self-representation by aphylarchos,we
have to wait until after the period concerned here, when we find the bilin-
gual inscription, in Greek and Arabic, which was put up in..atHarran
in the Lejja: ‘‘Asraelos son of Talemos,phylarch[os], founded the martyr[ion]
of saint Ioannes’’ (as in the Greek version).^81 The immense significance of this
inscription cannot be explored here: as documentary evidence of aphylar-
chos; as a perfect example of the way in which the Arabs were being drawn
into the orbit of the (still predominantly Greek) Christian church; and as a
quite early example of Arabic writing. It also, of course, happens to be almost
exactly contemporary with the birth of Muhammad.
The Saracen or Arab groups were also distinctive in that they were mili-
tarised. Theodoret in fact continues, in hisLife of Symeon, to recount a vio-
lent dispute between two ‘‘Ishmaelite’’ tribes (phylai) as to which of their
phylarchoishould receive a blessing from Symeon, and further describes an-
otherphyle, this time identified as ‘‘of Sarakēnoi,’’ as established at the fort
(phrourion) of Callinicum, on the Euphrates.^82 But the military role of Sara-
cenfoederati(allies) on the eastern frontier of the fourth century and after is
well known and has been sufficiently analysed by others.^83
. Theodoret,Hist. Rel. , .
. See J. Cantineau,Le nabatéenII (), ; Millar (n. ), –.
. R. Dussaud and F. Macler,Mission dans les régions désertiques de la Syrie moyenne(),
.
.Hist. Rel. , –.
. M. Sartre,Trois études sur l’Arabie romain(); I. Shahîd,Byzantium and the Arabs in
the Fifth Century(); A. G. Grouchevoy, ‘‘Trois ‘niveaux’ de phylarques. Étude termi-