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Joshua the Stylite is the supposed author of a chronicle
Chronicle

Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronology order. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the chronicler....
 which narrates the history of the war between the Greeks
Greek Empire

Greek Empire can refer to the following:...
 and Persians
Persian Empire

The 'Persian Empire' was a series of successive Iranian or Persianization empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland, and beyond in Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
 in 502
502

Area code of northern central Kentucky, including Louisville, Kentucky...
 - 506
506

Events...
, and which is one of the earliest and best historical documents preserved in Syriac.

The work owes its preservation to having been incorporated in the third part of the history of pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre
Dionysius Telmaharensis

Dionysius Telmaharensis was a Syriac Patriarch of Antioch or supreme head of the Syriac Orthodox Church . He was born at Tell-Mahre near ar-Raqqa on the Balikh River....
, and may probably have had a place in the second part of the Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus
John of Ephesus

John of Ephesus was a leader of the Oriental Orthodoxy Syriac-speaking Church in the sixth century, and one of the earliest and most important of historians who wrote in Syriac....
, from whom (as Nau
Nau

Nau or NAU may refer to:*Nau , an outdoor apparel company*Northern Arizona University*North American Union*National American University...
 has shown) pseudo-Dionysius copied all or most of the matter contained in his third part.






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Joshua the Stylite is the supposed author of a chronicle
Chronicle

Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronology order. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the chronicler....
 which narrates the history of the war between the Greeks
Greek Empire

Greek Empire can refer to the following:...
 and Persians
Persian Empire

The 'Persian Empire' was a series of successive Iranian or Persianization empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland, and beyond in Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
 in 502
502

Area code of northern central Kentucky, including Louisville, Kentucky...
 - 506
506

Events...
, and which is one of the earliest and best historical documents preserved in Syriac.

The work owes its preservation to having been incorporated in the third part of the history of pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre
Dionysius Telmaharensis

Dionysius Telmaharensis was a Syriac Patriarch of Antioch or supreme head of the Syriac Orthodox Church . He was born at Tell-Mahre near ar-Raqqa on the Balikh River....
, and may probably have had a place in the second part of the Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus
John of Ephesus

John of Ephesus was a leader of the Oriental Orthodoxy Syriac-speaking Church in the sixth century, and one of the earliest and most important of historians who wrote in Syriac....
, from whom (as Nau
Nau

Nau or NAU may refer to:*Nau , an outdoor apparel company*Northern Arizona University*North American Union*National American University...
 has shown) pseudo-Dionysius copied all or most of the matter contained in his third part. The chronicle in question is anonymous, and Nau has shown that the note of a copyist
Copyist

A copyist is a person who makes written copies. In ancient times, a scrivener was also called a calligraphus . The term's modern use is almost entirely confined to music copyists, who are employed by the music industry to produce neat copies from a composer or arranger's manuscript....
, which was thought to assign it to the monk Joshua of Zuqnin near Amid, more probably refers to the compiler of the whole work in which it was incorporated. In any case, the author was an eyewitness of many of the events which he describes, and must have been living at Edessa during the years when it suffered so severely from the Persian War
Greco-Persian Wars

For other Persian wars, see Roman-Persian Wars, Islamic conquest of Persia, Iraq war , and Military history of Iran.The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between several ancient Greece city-states and the Achaemenid Empire that started in 499 BC and lasted until 448 BC....
. His view of events is everywhere characterized by his belief in overruling Providence; and as he eulogizes Flavian II
Flavian II of Antioch

Flavian II of Antioch , bishop or patriarch of Antioch, was chosen by the Anastasius I to succeed Palladius of Antioch, most probably in 498....
, the Chalcedon
Chalcedon

Chalcedon was an ancient maritime town of Bithynia, in Anatolia, almost directly opposite Byzantium, south of ?sk?dar . Today, in modern Turkish language, Chalcedon is called Kadik?y, and is a district of Istanbul, Turkey....
ian patriarch of Antioch
Patriarch of Antioch

Patriarch of Antioch is a traditional title carried by the Bishop of Antioch. As the traditional "overseer" of the first gentile Christian community, the position has been of prime importance in the church from its Early Christianity....
, in warmer terms than those in which he praises his great Monophysite contemporaries, Jacob of Serugh
Jacob of Serugh

Jacob of Serugh was one of the foremost Syriac language poet-theologians among the Aramean-Syriac people, perhaps only second in stature to Ephrem the Syrian and equal to Narsai....
 and Philoxenus of Mabbog
Philoxenus of Mabbog

Philoxenus of Mabbog , was one of the best of Syriac prose writers, and a vehement champion of theOriental Orthodox doctrine in the end of the 5th and beginning of the 6th centuries....
, he was probably an orthodox Catholic
Catholic

Catholic is an adjective derived from the Greek language adjective , meaning "whole" or "complete". In the context of Christianity ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages....
.

The chronicle was first made known by Assemani's abridged Latin version (B O i. 260-283) and was edited in 1876 by Paulin Martin
Paulin Martin

Paulin Martin was a French Catholic Biblical scholar....
 and (with an English translation) by William Wright
William Wright (orientalist)

William Wright was a famous British Orientalist, and Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge. Many of his works on Syriac literature are still in print and of considerable scholarly value, especially the catalogues of the holdings of the British Library and Cambridge University Library....
 in 1882. After an elaborate dedication to a friend the priest and abbot Sergius a brief recapitulation of events from the death of Julian
Julian the Apostate

Flavius Claudius Julianus, known also as Julian or Julian the Apostate , was Roman Emperor of the Constantinian dynasty. He was the last non-Christian Roman Emperor, and expended much energy during his reign attempting to supplant the growing power of Christianity within the empire with officially revived Religion in ancient Rom...
 in 363
363

Events...
 and a fuller account of the reigns of the Persian kings Peroz I (457-484) and Balash (484-488), the writer enters upon his main theme the history of the disturbed relations between the Persian and Greek Empires from the beginning of the reign of Kavadh I (489-531), which culminated in the great war of 502-506.

From October 494
494

Events...
 to the conclusion of peace near the end of 506, the author gives an annalistic account, with careful specification of dates, of the main events in Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is the area of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, largely corresponding to modern Iraq, as well as some parts of northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khuzestan Province of southwestern Iran....
, the theatre of conflict such as the siege and capture of Amid by the Persians (502-503), their unsuccessful siege of Edessa
Siege of Edessa

The Siege of Edessa took place from November 28 to December 24, 1144, resulting in the fall of the capital of the crusader County of Edessa to Zengi, the atabeg of Mosul and Halab....
 (503), and the abortive attempt of the Greeks to recover Amid (504-505). The work was probably written a few years after the conclusion of the war. The style is graphic and straightforward, and the author was evidently a man of good education and of a simple, honest mind.

A modern German translation with a good historical commentary was published 1997.

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de:Josua Stylites