A Syriac text, The Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite was written, in all probability, by an inhabitant of Edessa almost immediately after the conclusion of the war between Rome and Persia in A.D. 502-506. Although that conflict is treated in other ancient texts, none of them can match "Joshua" in his wealth of detail, his familiarity with the region where the hostilities occurred, and his proximity in time to the events. The Chronicle also vividly describes the famine and plague that swept though Edessa in the years immediately before the war. The work is therefore a document of major importance for both the social and military history of late antiquity, remarkable for the information it provides on Roman and Persian empires alike.