Queen Zenobia of Palmyra briefly carved an empire out of Rome's east
In 270 the widowed queen of a Syrian desert city launched a campaign that swept most of Rome's eastern provinces, including Egypt, under her control. Within a year Zenobia's realm stretched from central Anatolia to Upper Egypt. When Emperor Aurelian marched against her, she declared herself empress and Palmyra independent.
Zenobia was born around 240. Her native Aramaic name was Bat-Zabbai, daughter of Zabbai, where the named figure may be a distant family ancestor rather than her father. In Greek, Palmyra's diplomatic language, names built on Zabbai were routinely rendered as Zenobia, meaning one whose life comes from Zeus. Palmyra mixed Arab and Aramean peoples, and she may have had both kinds of ancestry. Nothing is known of her mother, and even her father's identity is disputed.
Her husband Odaenathus became king of Palmyra in 260 and made the city the leading power in the Near East by defeating Sasanian Persia and steadying Rome's eastern frontier. After his assassination in 267, Zenobia ruled as regent for their son Vaballathus, holding real power until 272. Her court welcomed philosophers and scholars, she protected religious minorities, and her administration held together a diverse, multilingual realm.
Her expansion, though still nominally under Roman authority, provoked Aurelian. After hard fighting the Romans besieged her capital and captured her in late 272, and she was sent into exile in Rome, where she lived out her days. The date and manner of her death after 274 are wrapped in competing tales.
Much of her story is unreliable. The late Roman Historia Augusta invented events and letters attributed to her, though the Byzantine chronicler Zonaras is considered more useful. No contemporary statue of her survives, only inscribed bases where statues once stood, so idealised coin portraits are the closest likenesses. A British scholar searched Palmyra in vain for a sculpture of her in the late nineteenth century. She remains a patriotic symbol in Syria and a favourite subject of artists and novelists.
Source: Zenobia
