Greco βατησα a Dura Europos

The paper analyzes the hapax βατησα occurring in a Greek parchment from Dura Europos (nr. 20 Welles, 121 AD). The term, referring to a certain Manesos (a Parthian proper name), is certainly an Iranian loanword, com- monly interpreted as a pure transcription of a Parthian court title. Actually, the etymology is still unknown. The syntactic function of the voice, which is patently coordinated with Gr. τῶν ἐλευθέρων in the text, is thoroughly dis- cussed. It certainly indicates a court title, but the current derivation from Parth. bitaxš “governor, margrave” is here rejected, both from a formal and a semantic point of view. It is proposed that the Gr. βατησα is a transcrip- tion of the Parthian phrase wxatāy, šāh which, together with ἐλεύθεροι (= Parth. āzātān), refers to the three highest classes of the Parthian nobility.