Roman Edessa offers a comprehensive and erudite analysis of the ancient city of Edessa (modern day Urfa, Turkey), which constituted a remarkable amalgam of the East and the West. Among the areas explored are:

• the cultural life and antecedents of Edessa
• Edessene religion
• the extent of the Hellenization at Edessa before the advent of Christianity
• the myth of an exchange of letters between a King Abgar and Jesus.