Page:Syria, the land of Lebanon (1914).djvu/173

THE DESERT CAPITAL upon Palmyra itself. Just below us stretched a vast, confused mass of broken, reddish stones, from which rose here and there a group of graceful columns or the massive wall of a ruined temple. Back of the city were the desert hills; before it lay the desert plain. Built by a spring at the crossroads of the wilderness—surely no other of the world's great capitals had so strange a site as this one!

The thrilling story of Palmyra's rise and fall has been enshrined in poetry and romance and has inspired the painter's genius. The city lay, as has been said, midway between Damascus and the Euphrates, on the most fertile oasis along the ancient caravan route. It thus early became the center of the trade between the Mediterranean countries and the heart of western Asia. If, as is probable, the Tadmor or Tamar (Palm City) of the Bible is the same as Palmyra, then it was built (or, more probably, rebuilt) by Solomon; but it does not again emerge into historical notice until about the beginning of the Christian era, when Mark Antony led an unsuccessful expedition against it. Still later, the Roman emperors recognized Palmyra as an important ally and buffer-state against the inroads of the Parthians. In the third century the Empire was thrown into a state of anarchy by continual contests between rival claimants for the throne; so, though in theory distant Palmyra was only a [ 133 ]