PEOPLEThe fall of the Sasanians ended the large scale forced immigration
of Syrians and Greeks into Iraq. Judging by the general lack of infer-
mation about such people in Islamic Iraq their presence seems to have
declined after the conquest. The only person who fits this description
is 'Atiyya ibn Sa'd ibn Junada (Gennadios?), whose mother was a
Ruml umm walad. 'Atiyya was born in Kufa when 'Ali was Com-
mander of the Faithful, and he died in 729.^14 The reference to a street
of Igifanus at Basra in 'Ubaydullah's time suggests the presence of
such people there as well.ls
These people brought various cultural influences with them from
the west, and this contributed to the general synthesis in sixth-and
seventh-century Iraq. The captives who were resettled at New Antioch
appear to have been responsible for introducing the custom of carrying
candles and incense in funeral processions. The influence of Byzantine
(and ultimately Roman) domestic architecture was also being felt in
the sixth century just across the border in Nasibin. The headmaster
of the Nestorian school there, Abraham of Beth Rabban, who kept
his door open to anyone who wanted to see him, built an atrium at
the outer door of his residence in order to keep animals from wandering
in. He thereby became "the one who first made such a one, as this is
the custom of the Romans, in Nisibis."l6
However, the most significant result of western influences in late
Sasanian Iraq was the reintroduction and spread of public baths. Baths
had existed in Seleucid Iraql? but appear to have gone out of use in
the Parthian and Sasanian periods. Jews may have had private baths
for ritual purposes under the Sasanians, and the Babylonian Talmud
mentions a bathhouse named after the owner.l8 Public baths began to
spread in Byzantine and Sasanian Mesopotamia towards the end of
the fifth century. In 497 Alexander the hegemon (Gr.) began construc-
tion on a public bath at Edessa which had been planned years before,
but the tepidarium collapsed before it was finished. It was rebuilt and
completed in 505 by Eulogius, the governor of Edessa.l9
In addition to such official patronage, the Christian church helped
to spread baths in Mesopotamia. In 500 there was a bath underneath
14 Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqat, VI, 212-13.
15 Ibn ai-Faqih, Buldan, p. 191.
16 A. Voobus, History of the School of Nisibis CSCO, Subsidia 26 (Louvain, 1965),
151.
17 I. Saiman, "Forward," Sumer 27 (1971), h.
18 Rodkinson, Talmud, XVIII, "Abuda Zara," 39.- Wright, Joshua the Stylite, pp. 20-22, 69.