Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/220

 202 P A L M Y E A man by Zenobia a statement quite incredible, since we know from coins of her son Wahballath or Athenodorus, struck at Alexandria, that the suzerainship of Rome was acknowledged in the Palmyrene kingdom till the second year of Aurelian. That Odienathus fell under Gallienus seems, however, at first sight to be confirmed by the coins, which give 266-7 as the first year of Wahballath. On the other hand the inscriptions on two statues of Odienathus and Zenobia which stand side by side at Palmyra bear the date August 271, and, though De Vogue, mistaking an essential word, supposed the former to be posthumous, the inscription really implies that Odaenathus was then alive. 1 Now Pollio himself says that his wife and sons were associated in the kingship of Odienathus, and therefore the years of Wahballath do not necessarily begin with his father s death. The fact seems to be that, while Odienathus was busy at the other end of his kingdom, Zenobia administered the government at Palmyra and directed the conquest of Egypt, still nominally acting under the emperor at Rome, whose authority on the Nile was dis puted by one or more pretenders. 2 It still seems strange that Wahballath should strike money in his father s life time and he did so both at Antioch and Alexandria when there are no genuine coins of Odienathus ; but it is equally strange and yet an undoubted fact that Zenobia, who not only enjoyed the real authority behind her beard less son, but placed her name before his on public inscrip tions, 3 struck no coins till the second year of Aurelian, when the breach with Rome took place, and she suddenly appears as an empress (2e/3a&amp;lt;rrr/, Augusta) of five years standing. Up to that date the royal pair probably did not venture to coin in open defiance to Rome, and yet were unwilling to circulate an acknowledgment of vassalship in all the bazaars of the East. When, however, Aurelian had restored the unity of the West, and stood at the head of a powerful army flushed by victory in Gaul, Palmyra had to choose between real sub jection and war with Rome. Some time in the year ending August 28, 271, Wahballath assumed the title of Augustus, and drops Aurelian from his coins, and just at the same time Zabdai, generalissimo of the forces, and Zabbai, commander of the army of Tadmor, erected the statues already mentioned, where Oda^nathus is styled &quot; king of kings and restorer of the state.&quot; This was an open challenge, and the assassination of Odaenathus, which took place at Emesa, a town in which the Roman party was strong, must have followed immediately afterwards, and on political grounds. 4 Zenobia, supported by her two generals, kinsmen of her husband, was now face to face with a Roman invasion. She held Egypt, Syria, Mesopo tamia, and Asia Minor as far as Ancyra ; and Bithynia was ready to join her party had not the army of Aurelian appeared just in time from Byzantium. She could count too on the Armenians and the Arabs, but the loyalty of Syria was doubtful: the towns disliked a rule which was essentially &quot;barbarian,&quot; and in Antioch at least the patroness of the Monarchian bishop Paul of Samosata could not be popular with the large Christian party by whom he was bitterly hated. There were many Romans 1 That Odaeuathus lived to begin the war with Aurelian seems to have been known to Vopiscus (Probus, c. 9). 2 That the Probatus of Pollio, Claudius, c. 11 (the Probus of Zosi- mus), must have been a pretender was first seen by Mommsen, apud Sallet, Fiirsten von Palmyra, p. 44. 3 This is shown for Syria by an inscription near Byblus (C. I. G., 4503 b ; Waddington, p. 604), and for Egypt by the inscription from the Jewish synagogue already quoted, where indeed the names are net given but the order is Ba&amp;lt;riA.i&amp;lt;r&amp;lt;rr)s /cai jSa&amp;lt;ri&s in the Latin Regina et rex jusserunt. 4 See, for the attitude of Emesa, Zosimus, i. 54, Fray. Hist. Grose., iv. 195. The assassin was a relative of Odaenathus named Maeonius, that is M anuai (Pollio Trig. Tyr.; Zonaras, xii. 24). in Zenobia s force, and it was they who bore the brunt of the two great battles at Antioch and Emesa, which follosved Aurelian s rapid advance through Asia Minor. But Zenobia made light of these defeats, &quot; I have suffered no great loss &quot; was her message to Aurelian, &quot; for almost all who have fallen are Romans&quot; (Fr. H. Gr., iv. 197). It was now plain that the war was one of races, and the fact that the fellahin of Palestine fought with enthusiasm on the side of Aurelian is the clearest proof that the empire of Palmyra was really an empire of Arabs over the peasants of the settled Semitic lands, whom the true Bedouin always despises, and who return his contempt with burning hatred. Thus the analogy already traced between the early history of Tadmor and Mecca is com pleted by an equally striking parallel between the empire of the Septimians at Palmyra and that of the Omayyads at Damascus. In each case it was a family of Arabian mer chant princes, strong in its influence over the sons of the desert, which rose to sovereignty and governed the old lands of the Semites from a city which had the desert behind it. But the empire of Palmyra came four centuries too soon. Rome was not yet exhausted, and Zenobia had neither the religious discipline of Islam to hold the Arabs together nor the spoil of the treasuries of Persia to keep their enthu siasm always fresh. Aurelian s military skill was strained to the uttermost by the prudence and energy of Zenobia, but he succeeded in forming and maintaining the siege of Palmyra in spite of its bulwark of desert, and his gold corrupted the Arab and Armenian auxiliaries. Zenobia attempted to flee and throw herself on the Persians, but she was pursued and taken, and then the Palmyrenes lost heart and capitulated. Aurelian seized the wealth of the city, but spared the inhabitants, and to Zenobia he granted her life while he put her advisers to death. She figured in his splendid triumph, and by the most probable account accepted her fall with dignity, and closed her days at Tibur, where she lived with her sons the life of a Roman matron. The fall of Zenobia may be placed in the spring of 272. Soon after, probably within a year, Palmyra was again in revolt, but on the approach of Aurelian it yielded without a battle ; the town was destroyed and the popula tion put to the sword. An obscure and distorted tradition of Zenobia as an Arab queen sur vived in the Arabian tradition of Zabba, daughter of Ainr b. Zarib, whose name is associated with Tadmor and with a town on the right bank of the Euphrates, which is no doubt the Zenobia of which Procopius speaks as founded by the famous queen. See C. de Perceval, ii. 28. iq., 197 sq. ; Tabari, i. 757 sq. But the ruins of Palmyra, which excited the lively admiration of the Bedouins, were not associated by them with the great queen ; they are referred to by Nabigha as proofs of the might of Solomon and his sovereignty over their builders the Jinn. This legend must have come from the Jews, who either clung to the ruins or returned when Palmyra partially revived as a military station founded by Diocletian. Under the Christian empire Palmyra was a bishopric ; about 400 A.D. it was the station of the first lllyrian legion (Not. Dig.}. Justinian furnished it with an aqueduct, and built the wall of which the ruins are still visible : it was deemed important, as we gather from Procopius, to have a strong post on the disputed marches of the Arabs of Ilira and Ghassan. At the Moslem conquest of Syria Palmyra capitulated to Khalid without embrac ing Islam (Beladhori, p. Ill sq. ; Yakut, i. 831). The town became a Moslem fortress and received a considerable Arab colony; for in the reign of Merwan II. it sent a thousand Kalhite horsemen to aid the revolt of Emesa, to the district of which it is reckoned by the Arabic geographers. 5 The rebellion was sternly suppressed and the walls of the city destroyed. 6 References to Palmyra in later 8 Ibn Athir (127 A.H.); compare Fray. Hist. Ar., 139 (where it is said to have been held by the Beni Amir); Ibn Vudih, ii. 230; Mokaddasi, p. 156. fi In this connexion Yakut tells a curious story of the opening of one of the tombs by the caliph, which in spite of fabulous incidents, recalling the legend of Roderic the Goth, shows some traces of local knowledge. Tlia sculptures of Palmyra greatly interested the Arabs, and are commemorated in several poems quoted by Yakut and others.