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The rebellion of the dazzling Arab queen Zenobia against the fist of Roman domination
Palmyra: A History examines Palmyra, the city in the Syrian oasis of Tadmur, from its beginnings in the Bronze Age, through the classical period and its discovery and excavation, to the present day. It aims at reconstructing Palmyra’s past from literary accounts – classical and post-classical – as well as material evidence of all kinds: inscriptions, coins, art and of course the remains of Palmyra’s monumental architecture. After exploring the earliest inhabitation of Tadmur, the volume moves through the Persian and Hellenistic periods, to the city’s zenith. Under the Romans, Palmyra was unique among the cities of the empire because it became a political factor in its own right in the third century AD, when the Roman military was overpowered by Sassanian invaders and Palmyrene troops stepped in. Sommer’s assessment of Palmyra under Rome therefore considers how Palmyra achieved such an exceptional role in the Roman Near East, before its demise under the Umayyad Empire. The volume also examines the century-long history of archaeological and historical research at Palmyra, from its beginnings under Ottoman rule and the French mandate in the 1920s to the recent satellite based prospection carried out by German archaeologists. A closing chapter examines the occupation of the site by ISIS during the Syrian conflict, and the implications of the destruction there on the ruins, the archaeological finds and future investigations, and heritage in Syria more broadly. Palmyra offers academics, students and the interested reader alike the first full treatment in English of this fascinating site, providing a comprehensive account of the city’s origins, rise and fall.
Preface -- Map -- 1. Inventing Zenobias: pen, brush and chisel -- 2. Zenobia - 'a brigand or, more accurately, a woman' -- 3. Bride of the desert: deliberately inventing Palmyra -- 4. Persia resurgent: the crisis of the third century -- 5. Just another usurper? The political legacy of the first Mr Zenobia -- 6. Arms and the woman: Zenobia goes to war -- 7. The French connection: guardians of the Rhine -- 8. Warrior and showman: the 'puzzling' emperor Aurelian -- 9. Showdown: Aurelian versus Zenobia's cooking-pot men -- 10. The end of the affair: golden chains and silver statue -- 11. Re-assessing Zenobia: 'a celebrated female sovereign' -- Appendix A. Odenathus' (alleged) titles: what did they mean? -- Appendix B. The Zenobia-Aurelian coalition theory and P.Wisc. 1.2 -- Notes -- Bibliography and abbreviations -- Index.
Located northeast of Damascus, in an oasis surrounded by palms and two mountain ranges, the ancient city of Palmyra has the aura of myth. According to the Bible, the city was built by Solomon. Regardless of its actual origins, it was an influential city, serving for centuries as a caravan stop for those crossing the Syrian Desert. It became a Roman province under Tiberius and served as the most powerful commercial center in the Middle East between the first and the third centuries CE. But when the citizens of Palmyra tried to break away from Rome, they were defeated, marking the end of the city’s prosperity. The magnificent monuments from that earlier era of wealth, a resplendent blend of Greco-Roman architecture and local influences, stretched over miles and were among the most significant buildings of the ancient world—until the arrival of ISIS. In 2015, ISIS fought to gain control of the area because it was home to a prison where many members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood had been held, and ISIS went on to systematically destroy the city and murder many of its inhabitants, including the archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad, the antiquities director of Palymra. In this concise and elegiac book, Paul Veyne, one of Palymra’s most important experts, offers a beautiful and moving look at the history of this significant lost city and why it was—and still is—important. Today, we can appreciate the majesty of Palmyra only through its pictures and stories, and this book offers a beautifully illustrated memorial that also serves as a lasting guide to a cultural treasure.
This history of Roman Palmyra offers an examination of how the Palmyrenes constructed and maintained a unique identity, individually and collectively, amid progressive communal changes.
Palmyra has long attracted the attention of the world. Even before its rediscovery in the eighteenth century it had gained legendary status because of its third-century CE Queen Zenobia, who had rebelled against the Romans and expanded Palmyra's territory into that of an Empire, stretchingfrom what is modern eastern Turkey into Egypt. The city and its queen featured in European art and literature already in the century. Zenobia's Palmyra already existed as a mirage in the minds of the educated Europeans. Even though Zenobia's reign and extensive power was a fairly short interlude andthe Romans struck hard against the Palmyrenes devastating the city, this path to imperial power was one which tells us an immense amount about Palmyrene identity in the period before the devastation. While Zenobia has gained renewed interest among both scholars and the press, and while she hasserved as a political symbol for Syria's president As'ad (a statue of her was recently erected in Damascus), the time leading up to her reign still remains underexplored.With the current situation in Syria, a researched-based narrative is urgently needed to communicate the importance of this site to the general public. Palmyra has over the last years been used as a symbol of the resistance of the rebels, the power of ISIS over the region, as well as the supremacy ofthe Syrian state. UNESCO and the Russians have together with the Syrian state taken a particular interest in Palmyra and in monopolizing the potential rebuilding of the site after the destruction and looting of the past several years have subsided. We are, so to speak, standing at yet anotherturning point in Palmyra's long history, where history is being reinvented actively by several parties. There can be no doubt that the time is ripe for a book on the archaeology and history of Palmyra, as well as an analysis of the current situation, including the destruction and illicit traffickingof material remains from Palmyra. These three main topics will together highlight the ways in which this fascinating site has again and again captured the world's focus.Organized in nine chapters, this compact book will set out to provide an introduction for students and general readers. Following two overview chapters, the next six will give a chronological narrative of Palmyra from the late Hellenistic period through to Rome's destruction in 273 CE and itssurvival in the Byzantine and medieval Islamic periods. The book ends with a shorter conclusion chapter, which will summarize the most important findings and conclusions of the chapters of the book and will set out a number of lines of enquiry which could be taken up in research and culturalheritage management over the coming years. The result will be the best and most up-to-date account of Palmyra in English.
The story of the third century AD rebellion of the Palmyrene Empire against the Roman Empire remains one of the most curious and fascinating episodes from the ancient world. Palmyra, a wealthy desert city-state, was neither the largest, richest, nor most significant city of the Roman Near East, yet it was the city that capitalized on Rome's weakness in the third century to lead its own independence movement, taking over vast swathes of wealthy territory for a brief period from approximately 270 to 273 AD. But why was Palmyra the city to lead the revolt against Rome? And how was it so successful for such a short time? At first glance, it would appear that Palmyra was ill-suited to successfully carve an independent state. Yet the city's distinctive history and culture actually suggest that it was uniquely positioned to contest Rome for supremacy of the Near East. Palmyra's economic, military, and cultural history left it in an exceptional situation in the third century. This thesis supplements readings of the textual evidence preserved by literary sources including the Historia Augusta and Zosimus with an examination of archaeological, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence to reveal the importance of Palmyra's history in understanding the episode of the Palmyrene Empire. The city's leaders capitalized on their past history and present position to attempt their challenge against Rome which, while ill-fated, is more understandable in the context of the period.
The ancient caravan city of Palmyra, although located in the Syrian Desert, was very much a cultural locus, a place where peoples, goods, and ideas met and mingled from as far afield as Europe to the west and India and China to the east. It was a city that stood balanced between the power of the Roman Empire to one side, and the Parthian Empire to the other. Yet despite the city's location at a cultural crossroads, and its greater proximity to Parthia than Rome, scholars focusing on Palmyra have traditionally focused on links with the west, while relatively little attention has been paid to the threads that wove a connection between Palmyra and regions further to the east. This edited volume seeks to address this lacuna in scholarship by offering an in-depth exploration of Palmyra's connections with its eastern neighbours in the first three centuries ad. The papers gathered here examine the city's art, architecture, and material finds, its languages and inscriptions, its political interactions, social life, and religious identity from a time when Palmyra was at the height of its powers in order to shed light on the city's own distinctive identity, as well as its close - and often tense - relationships with Parthia and beyond. Together, these contributions offer fascinating new insights into Palmyra's dynamic relationships with the regions to its east, as well as on how these influences underpinned and were diffused throughout Palmyrene culture.
The ancient sources for the life and times of Zenobia are sparse, and the surviving literary works are biased towards the Roman point of view, much as are the sources for two other famous women who challenged Rome, Cleopatra and Boudica. In Empress Zenobia, Pat Southern seeks to tell the other side of the legendary 3rd century queen's place in history. As queen of Palmyra (present-day Syria), Zenobia was acknowledged in her lifetime as beautiful and clever, gathering round her at the Palmyrene court writers and poets, artists and philosophers. It was said that Zenobia claimed descent from Cleopatra, which cannot be true but is indicative of how she saw herself and how she intended to be seen by others at home and abroad. This lively narrative explores the legendary queen and charts the progression of her unequivocal declaration, not only of independence from Rome, but of supremacy. Initially, Zenobia acknowledged the suzerainty of the Roman Emperors, but finally began to call herself Augusta and her son Vaballathus Augustus. There could be no clearer challenge to the authority of Rome in the east, drawing the Emperor Aurelian to the final battles and the submission of Palmyra in AD 272. Zenobia's story has inspired many melodramatic fictions but few factual volumes of any authority have been published. Pat Southern's book is a lively account that is both up to date and authoritative, as well as thoroughly engaging.
Discover a comprehensive and cross-disciplinary handbook exploring several sub-regions and key themes perfect for a new generation of students A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East delivers the first complete handbook in the area of Hellenistic and Roman Near Eastern history. The book is divided into sections dealing with interdisciplinary source material, each with a great deal of regional variety and engaging with several key themes. It integrates discussions of the classical Near East with the typical undergraduate teaching syllabus in the Anglo-Saxon world. All contributors in this edited volume are leading scholars in their field, with a combination of established researchers and academics, and emerging voices. Contributors hail from countries across several continents, and work in various disciplines, including Ancient History, Archaeology, Art History, Epigraphy, Numismatics, and Oriental Studies. In addition to furthering the integration of the Levantine lands in the classical periods into the teaching canon, the book offers readers: The first comprehensively structured Companion and edited handbook on the Hellenistic and Roman Near East Extensive regional and sub-regional variety in the cross-disciplinary source material A way to compensate for the recent destruction of monuments in the region and the new generation of researchers’ inability to examine these historical stages in person An integration of the study of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East with traditional undergraduate teaching syllabi in the Anglo-Saxon world Perfect for undergraduate history and classics students studying the Near East, A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East will also earn a place in the libraries of graduate students and scholars working within Near Eastern studies, as well as interested members of the public with a passion for history.