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An early Syriac document for which it has proved especially difficult to find a precise historical context is the Letter of Mara bar Serapion (text and English translation in Cureton 1855; see now the contributions in Merz and Tieleman 2012). It is unclear whether or not a Greek original underlies this Syriac text, and hypotheses of chronology have also varied considerably, ranging from the second to the fourth centuries CE. The text takes the form of a letter by a self-styled philosopher to his son and offers pieces of moral advice perhaps inspired by Stoic ethics. Especially problematic is the reference that the text makes to the Romans’ occupation of Samosata, and to the ensuing exile of the author; this passage might be a reference to the Roman takeover of Commagene in the early 70s CE. Some scholars, however, emphasizing the overall lack of historical detail in the text, have argued that its moral contents and format suggest instead strong links with higher rhetorical education and, in particular, with the school exercise of the chreia elaboration (McVey 1990; Millar 1993: 460–462; Chin 2006). In fact, the text contains references and anecdotes about Greek historical figures such as Achilles, Socrates, and Pythagoras, and does indeed attest to the endurance of Greek paideia (“education”) in Syriac. The Letter of Mara bar Serapion should be understood within the context of the large strand of early Syriac instructional literature that demonstrates the continuity of Greco-Roman educational traditions in Syriac, such as the translations of works by Plutarch, Lucian, and Themistius, and wisdom literature attributed to ancient Greek philosophers (Brock 2003; Rigolio 2013; Arzhanov 2019).