Author Description

The book presents the first ever monographic study on the family of royal converts from Adiabene in the broader perspective of the material and political environment of Hellenistic and Parthian Adiabene. To achieve this goal, it has been necessary to collect, arrange and discuss all available sources on the topic. Our discussion of sources was arranged into three parts. The aim of part 1 (chapters 1-5) is to read Ant. 20:17-96, the most comprehensive account on the Adiabene royalty in ancient literature, as a consciously planned literary product. The aim of part 2 (chapters 6-7) is to analyze the sources that convey the picture of the Adiabene dynasty as good royalty for the Jewish people. The aim of part 3 (chapters 8-13) is to gain insight into the material and political environment of Adiabene from the 3rd c. BCE to the 3rd c. CE, and this has been achieved through collecting, arranging and discussing a number of available sources: geographical and ethnographical texts, archaeological data, numismatic, epigraphic, and onomastic evidence.