Page:Early Christianity in Arabia.djvu/83

71 obliged to retire before the Roman forces. The history of the eastern frontiers of the Roman empire does not rise to much importance till after the removal of the imperial residence to Byzantium, for the dominions of Rome and Persia were separated by the possessions of various independent princes, such as those of Palmyra, Edessa, &c, whom the policy established by Augustus had suffered to reign without interruption. On the death of Pertinax, these independent princes favoured the cause of Pescennius Niger, the Syrian governor, who aspired to the imperial purple. After his defeat they incurred the resentment of the conqueror, and Severus overran and subjected with his victorious army the whole of the country from Armenia, Osrhoëne, and the Persian frontiers, where he took Ctesiphon and Babylon, to the limits of the happy Arabia. The Arabs of Syria still, however, preserved their independence, and in later times, on the defeat of Valerian, the victorious army of Shahpoor was driven from Mesopotamia by the Palmyrene Arabs under Odenathus. The wife and successor of Odenathus was the celebrated Zenobia, and on her defeat by