Adiabene

Location

Adiabene occupied a district in Median Empire between the Upper Zab (Lycus) and the Lower Zab (Caprus), though Ammianus Marcellinus speaks of Nineveh, Ecbatana, and Gaugamela as also belonging to it. By the late 1st century CE, its borders extended as far as Nisibis. In the Talmudic writings the name occurs as חדייב ,חדייף and הדייב. Its chief city was Arbela (Arba-ilu), where Mar Uqba had a school, or the neighboring Hazzah, by which name the later Arabs also called Arbela.

In Kiddushin 72a the Biblical Habor is identified with Adiabene, but in Jerusalem Talmud, Megillah i. 71b with Riphath. In the Targum Jonathan on Jeremiah li. 27, Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz are paraphrased by Kordu, Harmini, and Hadayab, i.e., Corduene, Armenia, and Adiabene; while in Ezekiel xxvii. 23 Harran, Caneh, and Eden are interpreted by the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic translator as "Harwan, Nisibis, and Adiabene."

Population

Adiabene had a mixed population of Assyrians, Arabs, Arameans, Greeks, Iranians, and Jews. Adiabene was a major-speaking Syriac language kingdom. According to Pliny, four tribes inhabited the region of Adiabene: Orontes, Alani, Azones and Silices. The account of Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews shows that there was a substantial Jewish population in the kingdom. The difficult mixing of cultures can be seen in the story of the martyrdom of Mahanuš, a prominent Iranian Zoroastrian who converted to Christianity. In later times Adiabene became an archbishopric, with the seat of the metropolitan at Arbela.

The first known king of Adiabene was Abdissar who is known to scholarship only through his coinage, his Semitic name, meaning "the servant of Ishtar," suggests that he was of local Assyrian origin. Based on the names of some Adiabenian rulers, Ernst Herzfeld suggested a Sakan or Scythian origin for the royal house of the kingdom; however, later progress in Iranian linguistic studies showed that these names were common west middle Iranian names. It has been suggested that the royal house of Adiabene, after fleeing Trajan's invasion, established the later Amatuni dynasty which ruled the area between the lakes Urmia and Van.

Adiabene was a district in Mesopotamia between upper and lower Zab and was a part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and inhabited by Assyrians even after the fall of Nineveh. It was an integral part of Asoristan (Achaemenid and Sasanian Assyria). The region was later made a part of the Roman province of Assyria after the invasion by Trajan in 116.

According to Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, when the heartland of Assyria was back into focus in early Christianity (during the Parthian era and about six centuries after the fall of the Assyrian Empire), "it was with an Assyrian, not a Persian let alone Greek, self-identification: the temple of Ashur was restored, the city was rebuilt, and an Assyrian successor state that returned in the shape of the client kingdom of Adiabene." The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus states that the inhabitants of Adiabene were Assyrians.

Through an examination of Syriac source work, it can be seen that the population of Adiabene was Syriac speaking and of local Assyrian origin. Despite this, Adiabene's elites were integrated with values of Zoroastrian social life through Sasanian culture. It can be assumed that many local Semitic cults succumbed to state supported Zoroastrianism during this period. This development can be seen Legend of Mar Qardagh, where the main protagonist is portrayed as being of Assyrian royal descent, yet a follower of the Zoroastrian faith prior to his conversion to Christianity.

History

Achaemenid Persian Empire

Under the Achaemenid Persian kings, Adiabene seems for a time to have been a vassal state of the Persian Empire. The Ten Thousand, an army of Greek mercenaries, retreated through Adiabene on their march to the Black Sea after the Battle of Cunaxa.

Queen Helena's conversion to Judaism

According to Jewish tradition, Helena, the Queen of Adiabene converted to Judaism from paganism in the 1st century. Queen Helena of Adiabene (known in Jewish sources as Heleni HaMalka) moved to Jerusalem where she built palaces for herself and her sons, Izates bar Monobaz and Monobaz II at the northern part of the city of David, south of the Temple Mount, and aided Jews in their war with Rome. Queen Helena's sarcophagus was discovered in 1863. A pair of inscriptions on the sarcophagus, "tzaddan malka" and "tzadda malkata," is believed to be a reference to the provisions (tzeda in Hebrew) that Helena supplied to Jerusalem's poor and to the Jewish kingdom in general. According to Josephus, the queen converted to Judaism together with her son Monobaz II, under the influence of two Jews. Another tradition has it that she met a Jewish jewelry merchant in Adiabene by the name of Hananiah (Ananias) or Eliezer, who told her about the people of Israel and persuaded her to join them. All historic traces of Jewish royalty in Adiabene ended around 115 CE, but these stories made a huge impact on rabbinic literature and Talmud. Nominally Zoroastrian, the people of Adiabene were tolerant toward Judaism, and permitted the establishment of Jewish communities there. The Jews of Edessa, Nisibis, and Adiabene repaid them by being among the most vigorous opponents of Trajan. In late second century Christianity rapidly spread among Zoroastrians and those formerly professing Judaism. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire under Constantine, the position of Adiabenian Christians was naturally exacerbated, since they were seen as potentially disaffected by the zealously Zoroastrian Sasanians.

Hellenistic period

The little kingdom may have had a series of native rulers nominally vassal to the Macedonian, Seleucid and later Armenian (under Tigranes the Great) empires.

Parthian Empire

It later became one of the client kingdoms of the Parthian empire. During the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE, it gained a certain prominence under a series of kings descended from Monobaz I and his son Izates I. Monobaz I is known to have been allied with king Abennerig of Characene, in whose court his son Izates II bar Monobaz lived for a time and whose daughter Symacho Izates married, as well as the rulers of other small kingdoms on the periphery of the Parthian sphere of influence.

Roman intermezzo (117–118)

The chief opponent of Trajan in Mesopotamia during the year 115 was the last king of independent Adiabene, Meharaspes. He had made common cause with Ma'nu (Mannus) of Singar (Singara). Trajan invaded Adiabene, and made it part of the Roman province of Assyria; under Hadrian in 117.

In the summer of 195 Septimius Severus was again warring in Mesopotamia, and in 196 three divisions of the Roman army fell upon Adiabene. According to Dio Cassius, Caracalla took Arbela in the year 216, and searched all the graves there, wishing to ascertain whether the Arsacid kings were buried there. Many of the ancient royal tombs were destroyed.

Sasanian rule

Despite the overthrow of the Parthians by the Sasanians in 224 CE, the feudatory dynasties remained loyal to the Parthians, and resisted Sasanian advance into Adiabene and Atropatene. Due to this, and religious differences, Adiabene was never regarded as an integral part of Iran, even though the Sasanians controlled it for several centuries.

After the Roman Empire gradually made Christianity its official religion during the fourth century, the inhabitants of Adiabene, who were primarily Assyrian Christians, sided with Christian Rome rather than the Zoroastrian Sasanians. The Byzantine Empire sent armies to the region during the Byzantine–Sasanian wars, but this did nothing to change the territorial boundaries. Adiabene remained a province of the Sasanians Empire until the Muslim conquest of Persia.

The region was recorded as Nod-Ardadkhshiragan or Nod-Ardashiragan in Sasanian period.

Kings

Bishops

Between the 5th and the 14th centuries Adiabene was a metropolitan province of the Assyrian Church of the East. The Chronicle of Erbil, a purported history of Christianity in Adiabene under the Parthians and Sasanians, lists a number of early bishops of Erbil. The authenticity of the Chronicle of Erbil has been questioned, and scholars remain divided on how much credence to place in its evidence. Some of the bishops in the following list are attested in other sources, but the early bishops are probably legendary.

1. Pkidha (104–114)
2. Semsoun (120–123)
3. Isaac (135–148)
4. Abraham (148–163)
5. Noh (163–179)
6. Habel (183–190)
7. Abedhmiha (190–225)
8. Hiran of Adiabene (225–258)
9. Saloupha (258–273)
10. Ahadabuhi (273–291)
11. Sri'a (291–317)
12. Iohannon (317–346)
13. Abraham (346–347)
14. Maran-zkha (347–376)
15. Soubhaliso (376–407)
16. Daniel (407–431)
17. Rhima (431–450)
18. Abbousta (450–499)
19. Joseph (499–511)
20. Huana (511–?)