Mara bar Serapion

Mara bar Serapion (Classical Syriac: ܡܪܐ ܒܪ ܣܪܦܝܘܢ), or "Mara son of Serapion", was a Syriac Stoic philosopher in the Roman province of Syria. He is only known from a letter he wrote in Aramaic to his son, who was named Serapion, which refers to the execution of "the wise king of the Jews" and may be an early non-Christian reference to Jesus of Nazareth.

The letter indicates that Mara's homeland was Samosata, i.e. modern-day Samsat, Turkey (on the west bank of the Euphrates), but his captivity appears to have been in Seleucia, in modern-day Iraq (on the west bank of the Tigris River).

Mara's captivity took place after the AD 72 annexation of Samosata by the Romans, but before the third century. Most scholars date it to shortly after AD 73 during the first century.