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The corpus of Syriac historiographical writing, however, is extensive and is yet to be exploited in full. Given that several Syriac sources cover the Hellenistic and Roman period, researchers in this field will find it helpful to consult the work in Debié 2015, which surveys the material and includes a comprehensive repertoire of texts, and is accompanied by an updated bibliography (Brock 1979: 29 includes a helpful table on what period each one of the main historiographical texts covers). There also survive Syriac translations of Greek historiographical works, including Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History and Chronicon, Socrates Scholasticus’s Ecclesiastical History, Theodoret of Cyrrhus’s Ecclesiastical History and Religious History, and Zacharias Rhetor’s Ecclesiastical History, which is lost in the Greek original.

In addition to historiography proper, other Syriac texts can be useful for the study of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East, not only on account of the material they contain about the emergence of Christianity in relation to enduring pre-Christian cults and traditions (ssss1), but also, and more broadly, about the interactions between local and Greco-Roman cultures in the context of the Roman provincial world. One of the earliest surviving Syriac pieces of literature is also a most extraordinary Syriac text: it takes the form of a prose dialogue featuring the Edessene nobleman and philosopher Bardaisan (154–222) conversing with his philosophically minded pupils on the issue of human free will. This dialogue, composed in the early third century, shows awareness of Platonic models, and includes an ethnographic excursus that lists some of the curious customs of different peoples; these customs include the ancient (and reportedly no-longer-in-use) religious practice of self-emasculation in honor of Atargatis in Edessa of which Bardaisan was likely well-informed (English translation in Drijvers 1965; Millar 1993: 474–475; Healey 2019). Additional information about pre-Christian cults in Edessa, and the Near East more broadly, can be found in the Apology of Ps.-Meliton (ssss1). Despite being configured as Christian texts opposing non-Christian cults and practices, Christian apologies such as that by Ps.-Meliton can be helpful sources for the study of pre-Christian religion and cults, and, more broadly, of the continuity of Greco-Roman culture among Syriac speakers; the Syriac translations of the early apologists Ps.-Justin Martyr (Exhortation to the Greeks) and Aristides (Apology) effectively provided an elementary introduction, in Syriac, to Greek philosophy and Greek mythology.