In Our Time - Queen Zenobia

Episode Date: May 30, 2013

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Queen Zenobia, a famous military leader of the ancient world. Born in around 240 AD, Zenobia was Empress of the Palmyrene Empire in the Middle East. A highly educated, intelligent and militarily accomplished leader, she claimed descent from Dido and Cleopatra and spoke many languages, including Egyptian. Zenobia led a rebellion against the Roman Empire and conquered Egypt before being finally defeated by the Emperor Aurelian. Her story captured the imagination of many Renaissance writers, and has become the subject of numerous operas, poems and plays.With:Edith Hall Professor of Classics at King's College, London Kate Cooper Professor of Ancient History at the University of Manchester Richard Stoneman Honorary Visiting Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter.Producer: Thomas Morris.

Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time, for more details about In Our Time, and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello. In this history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon wrote, Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of empire, but Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate and manners of Asia.

She equalled in beauty her ancestor Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity and valor. Sinobia was a warrior queen who ruled the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria. In the 3rd century AD she led a rebellion against the Roman Empire, conquered Egypt and briefly ruled a substantial empire of her own. Her reign lasted only a few years before her defeat and capture by the Emperor Orreelian, but she left a lasting impression on historians and later writers. The ruins of her capital, Palmara survived today in a region of six. Syria ravaged by today's civil wars.

With me to discuss Queen Zinobia are Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at King's College London, Kate Cooper, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Manchester, and Richard Sturman, honorary visiting professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter. Edith Hall, can you give us a quick summary of Zanobia,

who she was, where she was? Yes, Zinobia is an Arabic noblewoman. She's the daughter of the governor of Syria. She marries the government of Syria. She's born in about 240 AD and she has one small child and a little boy after she marries. And she, although an Aramaic speaker, is extremely Greek in culture because this is the era of the great Hellenizing of the East. And she's also very at home in the Roman imperial administration. She's very culturally sophisticated. She's a terrific horsewoman, a brilliant military commander, and very, very brave.

Where does all that come from? We basically have two important sources for Zinobia. She's in the middle of the third century AD. That's about 300 years after Cleopatra. We've got a Latin author who wrote a thing called Historia Augusta in the 4th century, at the end of the 4th century AD, and we've got a 5th century Byzantine Greek-Christian source called Zosimus. they sometimes agree they sometimes don't

we also have various bits and pieces in connection with other people in her court including the famous bishop Paul of Samasata who's a very important early Christian so she comes in tangentially we have inscriptions we have archaeology we have coins could you say a lot about her bravery intellectuality

and we'll come to that later still again we she's inside the pomara is inside the Roman Empire can you give listeners some idea what it had achieved by that time. In the middle of the third century, it's probably at its maximum size and effectiveness, isn't it? Palmyra has been very much on the ascendant for the last 150 years before this.

The Roman Empire itself has shrunk. It was at its biggest in the early second century AD under Trajan, when it went all the way to the Persian Gulf and it went all the way to the Caspian Sea. That eastern frontier has moved rather westward, which has meant the countries like Syria, who are the sort of buffer states between the Roman Empire and the Persians and the Parthians, have become more and more important

and have been able to exploit the buffer state status. So it's become a Roman garrison, then it became a Roman colonial, which is very important because it could collect its own taxes. It's been seen more and more as an equal partner of Rome, and it's got a huge amount of revenue from levying a 25% tax on every single item that the caravans of camels going from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates

across the desert had to stop there. And the parmireans actually levied their own taxes once they'd become a coloniar under Caracalla, which is in the earlier third century, and were unbelievably rich and really wanted to display it. Kate Cooper, what challenges to the Roman Empire, what challenges to its authority was it facing in the middle of the third century idea? Well, the third century is, I mean, either it.

a terrifying or a really exciting period for Rome, depending on how you know how you want to look at it. It's a period where they're looking at the destabilization and eventually decline of their major enemy on the eastern frontier, the Parthians. And then at the same time, they've got coming from the north, across the Danube, ultimately coming from the Caucasus, are barbarian peoples who have been trading with the Romans for centuries, but they're getting more and more aggressive on the northern Danubian frontier. So in the third century, the Romans are faced with a situation where there's a great deal to play for. They had expanded very aggressively into Parthian regions in the east.

But they're now in a position where under Hadrian they had retrenched and they're essentially in a situation where different generals across the empire are trying it out on the frontier and trying to build up a position as being the man who can bring Rome back together. So when the Persians take over, the Sassanians take over from the Parthians in the 220s, as it were, on the eastern frontier, it puts those buffer states, Syria, the independent city states such as Palmyro, which for years had been treated essentially quite benevolently as free cities that were working for Rome, that were helping to mediate Roman trade into the east, into the Persian Gulf. the Euphrates, the Persian Gulf, and ultimately on to India, and even as far as Madagascar for cinnamon. You know, there's this incredible trade of hundreds of millions of Cistercies, according to Pliny, that's going through these desert trading posts.

And Palmyra, which had originally been a little city built around a spring in the middle of the desert between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates. it finds itself under the stable Roman period in a really good position, as Edith has said. But then in the mid-third century, you get a number of factors. You get, on the one hand, the Sasanians have got, they're much stronger than the Perthians

where they're on the rise, they're much more hostile to the independent buffer states around them. So, for example, they start to challenge Palmyra's right to levy taxes in the area. which puts Palmyra essentially, you know, either on the back foot or the front foot. So they have to get aggressive with the Persians.

And they negotiate, but they really, you can see them negotiating with an eye to expanding and becoming aggressive if they need to. Really, I think the reason that you get the emergence of an independent palmyrene state, I would say, and I don't know if Edith agrees with me, that it's kind of a winner-take-all situation. You've got usurpers sprouting up all over the Mediterranean in this period. And in fact, Zinobia's husband, Odenythus, is that how you say it, is he is the person who actually takes control of the East from usurpers who have already kind of Roman generals who have taken this region in the 260s. But as I understand it, the Romans are not quite as preoccupied with Parmira in the middle

of the third centuries, they are with the north and west, where the serious troubles and incursions going on there. So they've moved their forces over there, as you slightly alluded to. Well, in the late second century, under Septimius Severus, there's a big push on the eastern frontier because they're aware of the Parthian instability and they're trying to take advantage. But then in the early to mid-third century, 200s, you get, because of these Gothic invasions coming from the north, you essentially get a sort of pulling back of forces and kind of trying to to let the Perthians lie. Of course, that feeds into the Sassanids taking advantage, at which point Persia is really back on the radar. So just to sum up, at about that time, the Romans' attention

is more focused on the north and the west and hoping that the east will get on with itself without causing too much trouble. And that's about the time when Zanobia makes her appearance. Well, it's a little bit more complicated in that the Sassanians emerged from the 220s by the 240s. They're causing enough trouble that the Palmyrians are having to get involved, and the Roman generals are having to get involved. But around 260 is really the crisis point. When the Sassanian king takes the Roman Emperor Valerian captive,

And once that happens in 260, it's really all hell breaks loose. Well, before all hell breaks loose. Richard, Richard Sennan, can you tell us a little bit more? We've got some information already about Palmyra and its history. Palmyra is a desert oasis. Its importance is the fact that it lies halfway between the Mediterranean coast and the Euphrates River, which was for many centuries the border between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire and subsequently the Persian Empire.

It remained a pretty small place for a very long time. It appears in the Bible under the name of Tadmore. When you say a very long time, what do you mean? I mean from 600 BC, something like that. I think the settlement around the Springs is there rather earlier, isn't it? Well, whenever you like to... It's archaeologically mentioned as early as the 18th century BC,

and then Solomon fortifies it. In the 10th or 9th, yeah. Okay. So it becomes of importance to us when it becomes part of the Roman Empire, and it becomes a Roman frontier post in around, probably in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, sometimes soon after AD 14, at which point the city starts to acquire the magnificent array of monumental buildings

that characterises most of the Roman cities of the east and of North Africa. So you've got, first of all, the temple of the god Bell, which is built probably around AD 17 to 19. Very interesting building because it's entirely on a near-eastern ground plan. And subsequent temples built in Palmyra are built on a classical model. So you're seeing this complete interplay of Arab traditions, Semitic traditions more generally, and the Hellenic Roman tradition of architecture. Further building in the region, the temple of Balchamene in the Lord of Heaven in the late 1st century AD,

and then following that some other temples, the massive colonnade, which goes right down the centre of the city of Palmyra and is divided halfway along by what's called the Tetrapilon, the gateway that faces four ways and divides the two main streets of the city as they cross. And all these buildings are of a kind that you can meet in other cities of the Near East, such as Gerrassah, Gerash in Jordan and Balbek in Lebanon. It was much admired and liked by the Romans, as I understand it,

because it was very agreeable weather all the year round, and yet there was a good source of water. The water, of course, is very, very important in a desert climate. What numbers are we talking about in Pomara? Have any idea? It's very difficult to talk about population numbers in ancient cities, but mostly they are small, and the physical circumference of the city is not that great,

and one may be thinking of a population of 10,000, really quite small, but that would, of course, also include the, or the city's territory, the Khorah, would include all the outlying villages with the peasant population, unquantifiable numbers of slaves, and the Roman military presence. We've talked, Edith alluded to the wealth, that this was because of a switch in the track of the Silk Road, wasn't it? That's right. The Silk Road, or the Silk Route, the Silk and Spice Route, it is really, because, as Kate said, Pliny Cass investigated the Romans of his period in the first century AD for their addiction to the spices in particular of the East

and complained that Rome spent 100,000 cestices a year, whatever that means on this trade. So the spices come by stages from the Far East, from the East Indies, from South India, from Ethiopia and South Arabia. where the balsam trees grow. And at different periods, the route changes for a long time, particularly during the first century AD. It ran up the Red Sea to Elat, Ilaana, ancient Roman Ilanah, and then up through Navatia to the Mediterranean coast.

But there was also an alternative route which could come in through the Persian Gulf, up the Euphrates, and then across the desert via Palmyra, again to Damascus and the Mediterranean coast. And this was how Palmyra came to prominence, both as being involved in the trade, because we shouldn't ever think of the Silk Road or Silk Route as being something that is monolithic.

And people like Marco Polo, who go from one end of the, the trading line to the other are very, very exceptional, though we do hear of a character called Kan Ying in antiquity. But it's done by stages, and the Palmyrin's function was to carry the spices and silks over a certain stage, and also to protect the caravans. There are a number of honorific inscriptions from Palmyra

to honoring Synodiacs, protectors of the caravans. Okay, so Edithol, we have a place that's very rich, and it's been given great powers by Rome to get on with its own business. It has had good, it has now, when we're talking about, just before Zenobe's time, it has had a good ruler, and so it's used to a measure of independence

and used to a great measure of wealth. What's known about Zonobius character as she comes on the scene? Well, she's the second wife of O'Donathus, who's this very, very able governor. She's probably a bit younger than his first wife, who also has a son and his arrival. She's still alive?

I mean, this is a son. The other woman is one of the big mysteries. We don't have a name. We know very little about it. We know that there is a rival son who's older called Hyran, and Zanobi has had a little boy called Vabalathus is his name. They have strange Syriac names which are transliterated into Latin. and Greek. They sound strange in Latin and Greek. Her own name was in fact Beth Zabar in her own

Aramaic language and she's known today in the Arab world as Al Zabai. That is transformed into the much more recognisable sounding Greek sounding Zinobia. Do you see what I mean? She probably called herself Bet Shabar. She's certainly brought up extremely educated. Her family, her family, her claimed to be connected with the amazing family from Emerson, which is, we know as Homs, who had married in to the Roman imperial family. She's a distant relative of an empress called Julia Domna, who'd married Septimius Severus and had actually gone been Empress of Rome. Highly powerful intellectual culture in Syria, some of the greatest philosophers of late antiquity were actually Syrians. And we know that

certainly once she actually became the sort of dowager queen after a Dionysus' murder in 267, we know that she, after that she had four or five of the most distinguished intellectuals in the entire Roman Empire. I don't have to be dowager yet. We've quite got there. We have a young, it is said, unbelievably beautiful, unbelievably athletic. Okay, okay. I'm worried about this. You've read all the sorts of social.

several times. Yeah, fine, right. I have read the sources. Why shouldn't she be young and beautiful? She gets to marry the governor of Syria. I think it's highly likely that she was and she's fertile. She just produces the son. She can ride brilliantly, but I think an awful lot of these women could, you know, this is where Gibbon got it all wrong. She was not an exception to the secluded women of ancient Arabia. I think that they tended to go into battle with their horses. Julia Domna, this great, great, great, great aunt figure had actually been called mother of the camp by her husband. because she used to go and camp not follow but be mother of the camp. So these are astonishingly independent women. They are nothing like our image of secluded Athenian women, for example,

who can't go out without avail. They ride horses. She was said to be able to walk up to five miles at the front line of her troops. We don't know anything about it before then. I wish I could tell you. No, you're telling us enough. She only comes to historical life in 267. She fancies to some of an intellectual.

We get to 267 quite soon. I just want to ask Kate Coo. who wants a little more about Odenathus, her husband. And just give us a little more about him. And then we're set to go. Okay. One of the things that's really hard about Odenathus is he's local. He's from a Syrian family,

but he's a Roman citizen from a family that are citizens before the great extension of citizenship in the third century under Caracalla. So he's from a family that have been in bed with Rome for a very long time. And there's a real question, to what extent does he think of him? as a Roman senator whose family comes from Syria versus to what extent does he think of himself as a local boy made good? I would tend to favor the former hypothesis. And so in that sense, his military valor, which is enormous, everything we know about Odenaitha suggests that he always thought of himself as acting on behalf of Rome, even when he goes out and reconquers

Asia Minor from the usurpers who are there. He is a military. He is a military. conquer himself, isn't it? So let's just simply get that straight. Sales Adipal Mara goes 500 kilometers into the former Persian Empire and does the business. He's one of the last great Roman Senator-generals

who's got that elite family background but also the incredible military prowess. Do you want to come in there? Yes, I would agree. I think that these people actually rather despise a lot of the upstart soldiers of the rest of the

of the Roman Empire who tended to come from what's now Hungary or from North Africa and were not very educated, didn't speak Greek, was extremely uncouth. And so weirdly, I think also people often don't realize how multicultural the actual Roman administration was at this period. You know, you had had an African emperor with a Syrian wife very recently, more recently than the Severans. You then have had this chain, as Edith says, of uncouth barbarian generals or not necessarily. barbarian but provincial generals. And so in a sense, somebody who's from an old urban family, in many ways, is the exemplification of what made Rome great.

Richard Sennam, can you tell us how Zanobio rose to power? She came to power as a result of the murder of her husband, Odinathus. Did she have any hand in that herself? It has, of course, been suggested, but there is no evidence one way or the other. What we are told is that there were. some kind of a quarrel over hunting and he was murdered by an enemy. What seems quite likely is that he has risen to power

from among the rival Sheikh families of Palmyra and there is a rival who has had enough of his prominence and puts him out of the way. But the result of this is not that that rival comes to the throne but that his son comes to the throne. His son, Vabalathus, is still a minor. If they were married in about 260 or so, I mean, he can't be more than about 10 to 12 years old.

We're talking about Zinobia's son. Yeah, but actually there's another son. This is what makes one suspicious, yeah. Yes. Because his son was murdered at the same time, clearing the way for Zenova's son. So do you know anything about the murder of his son? I think there's almost nothing we're told us

except that he was murdered. With his father. Yes. So the two of them are got out of the way at the same time. So it does look suspicious, doesn't it? Yes. But there is no evidence because the sources are so slight, really.

So Zenobe is a very young son becomes the heir and she becomes the regent and assumes full power right away. That's right. already in 266, 7, after the murder of Odynathus, Vabalathus is starting to appear on coins. So the new emperor, or the Roman emperor is appearing on the obverse, and Vabalethus appears on the reverse.

But pretty soon after that, he's appearing on the obverse of the coins himself, with the title Imperator, and then you get coins of Zenobia also with the same. title. So she is coming to Promenes. Zenovia Augusta. Thank you. That's not quite a lot later though. I mean she holds off on that for four or five years. Well that's into two-seventees isn't it? 272. And right at the end.

And it seems that she's already been challenged by Aurelian at that point really. Oralian's the Roman general. We're coming to him in a amendment to her. It's kind of it's one step at a time, for me anyway. So she's in power. She's a region. That is acceptable it is. This woman in power.

Is she having to fight that corner before she does anything else? I'm sure she had to fight the corner, but actually she's a descendant of the Ptolemus, as well as the Seleus, the same family as Cleopatra. And for hundreds of years, these old Macedonian families had a rather brutal Darwinian system where you would have several wives with children, and actually the wives fought it out between them

and did indeed kill off rival children and each other, in order to get there. sons on the throne, however young they might be. So it was actually an extremely normal system. I think she did have a right-hand man in her general who she inherited from her husband. Yes, he's called Zabdas, sometimes Labdas, that was Zaba. And he stuck with her throughout and was himself a brilliant general. So she's got this part. Does she immediately seize it, and as it were subtext, I'm in charge now, this is what I'm going to do.

If so, what does she go to do? Can I come in on that? Yes. I mean, the sources are not precise on this point, but what they make clear is that by securing her husband's general, she is perceived very quickly by the Palmyrian military as being the authentic representative of their group. And what she's playing for is trying to be like her husband,

the accepted and authoritative representative of Rome. But that's where things go wrong. Now, it's possible that it's because Orillian has something against her individually, but it's more likely that it's simply that under Galleanus, at the time of her husband's death, Rome actually needed somebody in the region. And it's not until later that an empire from the West is in a position to come east himself.

But as I've alluded to her in the conversation, around 260, the Romans started to lose their grip. Did she see this as a chance? I'd just like to know what your view is about, did she set out to create an empire, or did she set out to push a bit and found, oh, I can go a little bit further? Did she have a longer policy, or was it as it came?

Well, I think you'll get three different opinions out of us. My opinion is that, I mean, The degree of incompetence in the Western Roman Empire at this time, and there had been 19 emperors since 2, 3, 5, almost all of which... Not in about 30 years. Yeah, had been murdered by their own Praetorian Guard or by their own generals.

And the empire was falling to bits... 19? Yes. And Britain and Gaul had actually split off for the first time in no effort they had lost the whole of that part of the empire. The Hungarians, the Pinonians and the Scythians and the Goss were all kicking off. It was just chaos.

I think that she thought that she was the ruler of her people and that they would have a much more peaceful and a better time. If she went to war. If she, no, if she consolidated, she never tried to get beyond the Dardanelles. She went up to the Bosporus and she took Egypt. So she got a very sensible geopolitical arc of an Eastern Empire. She never tried to take the West. And she was much loved and respected by a lot of people in Egypt.

We know that time. Maginese was the, was the, her friend there who actually helped her take it. There is absolutely an argument that she was really quite an altruistic, principled leader of Syria. There is absolutely no suggestion, for example, that she was anything other than a fair and systematic user of punishments. She headed people when the men beheaded them,

but not when they didn't. I mean, she was a very good leader. Yes, Gibbon goes on and on about her temperance in that area. and something about her. I think it's almost a fantasy role than history of that. But that's another, that's another, sorry, that's another programme. I want to correct the fantasy of her being this sort of sexual person

who went around in chains and things, which is the other one. That's at the end of the programme. I want the other fantasy. If we're just, we've only got alternative fantasies. Can I just advocate the good sensible ruler? I'm with the good sensible rule. I'm just asking you about it. I'm going to Richard Sternman now because I want to know,

Again, in your view, because there seemed to be slightly different views here, why do you think, did she decide to rebel against the Roman Empire? Was that what she was trying to do? Or was she trying to, you tell me. There are a number of different ways of interpreting what Zinobia did. The historian Augusta, which as we know is more or less a fantastical, fictional piece of work from the late fall century, has her writing a letter to the Emperor Orillian shortly before the conquest,

saying it was my idea that we might become partners in empire. So it was not an impossible idea that a Syrian queen should become a ruler of the Roman Empire. Edith has mentioned Julia Domna and there was the whole Syrian dynasty about 50, 60 years before this. But there are other ways of looking at it as well. It doesn't have to be a union of empires. It could have been a breakaway state. there are lots of good reasons for supposing that the lack of security that the Roman legions were able to provide on the frontiers

was becoming a real problem for the trade of Palmyra and that the only way to protect it was to establish an independent state. That doesn't entirely explain why she might have invaded Egypt because to invade Egypt is to strike directly at Rome, not at its heart but at its stomach, because that was where the grain came from to give the Roman plebs their bread and circuses, the bread half of their circuses.

Why did you go to Egypt either all? I mean, as Richard said, one thing's Roman citizens were promised was free bread and the bread came from the grain came from Egypt. Well, I think that the argument that she was very worried about the Roman ability to protect all the important trade routes is a very valid one. Egypt, however, she probably had a sense.

a mental attachment to it. It's true. She claimed that she was descended from Cleopatra the 7th. And she had a historian called Calinicus who wrote almost immediately after she'd taken Egypt a 10-volume history of Egypt, which she addressed to my Cleopatra. We know about court histories, though, don't we? Yes, we do indeed. But again, the fact is that there were terrible problem of piracy going on. The Romans were spending all their time in the Mediterranean worried about pirates of Libya. They had their eye off the ball. Yes, she was an opportunist. But I think it was a combination of pragmatic necessity

and self-protectiveness. And yes, in the case of Egypt, I think she wanted to get back the old Syrian-Egyptian, historic association between so cellucid and tolerance. She wanted to be in nuclear patria, perhaps. Yeah, definitely. Kay Cooper, can, how big was her empire?

We're talking about two or three years here, aren't we? How big was it at its greatest extent? Given how short its duration was, it's amazing how large it was. It goes basically from the Nile, up through Egypt, all the way around what's now the Sinai Peninsula, ancient Arabia, up through Syria, what's now Lebanon, the Holy Land, and then up into Turkey. As far as the Black Sea, I'm not sure. she held the Black Sea, but there was certainly, and then all the way west to Ankara.

So there's a real sense of probably, you know, the whole eastern end of the Mediterranean, kind of halfway Turkey all the way to all the way over to the Euphrates. But what does conquering mean at this stage? Does it mean she left garrisons there to hold the territory? Does it mean she march into the places with an effective army and they caved it and said, we'll come back in Eurato's time? What does the conquering actually mean? It's a really important question,

and I think possibly one where you'll get different answers. My answer is that it's about loyalty. We know that she had been cultivating relationships with generals and merchants all over this region. We also know, and I think those caravan protectors that Richard was talking about before, actually are potentially quite important. One of the things about Palmyra that was so important,

was it was seen as a place that could, where you could organize protection in the desert for a large and immensely valuable caravan. So there's an idea of these incredibly agile horsemen that are able to command large kind of private armies. And if you think about a network of merchants all around the eastern Mediterranean, Alexandria, Antioch, and then up into Asia Minor, modern Turkey. If you think about a network of merchants who are looking for protection for the transport of their wares, I think you'll find that there was a lot of cooperation.

And then we have a new emperor, excuse me, partly Zenobe's bad fortune, isn't it? After these 19 men in about 30 years, scrapping all over the place and losing bits of Britain and gold, we have a tough guy turns up, really. Sorry about this. be in Hollywood at the moment. But I excise that.

A tough, efficient emperor who deals with stuff in the West and then turns his weapons on her. Orillian. Can you tell us something about him and why he was so effective? Orillian really turned the Roman Empire around

in the 270s. He became emperor in 271. As I think has been said, he originated from the Danubian provinces as so many of these tough military leaders who became emperor did. He didn't last for very long. It was only four or five years, but he really, really made a big difference. And he had not only the, excuse me, the Gallic revolt to put down, but much more importantly, the revolt of Zenobia. Now, when he set out to...

He did other things, well, he tackled inflation, he built a wall around Rome. Well, that really comes after the reduction of Palmyra, because he... gains strength and stability from that. And as you say, he reforms the coinage, suppresses some mysterious revolt among the moniers in Rome, and he built the Aurelian walls, as they are still called, and as they still stand around most of the centre of Rome. He did do that before he went to Palmyra.

That's really important because he made sure that his back door was shut before he went east. So did he just, he took... Certain forces there and took her on. Now, there was, as I understand, at least two, battles of some significant, three, but the last one. Anyway, you have three, Edith. We'll start with number one. What happened in the first battle? The first battle took place at Antioch, and this is the really major battle when the two...

And is Zanobia present at this battle? Zonobia is present, yes. and it's a battle between two or three Roman legions which have the reputation of having gone very soft in the preceding centuries because they've been enjoying themselves in the luxurious warm climate of the East and not having too much to do, but Aurelian doesn't have any of that, and he toughens them up very fast

and brings into play all the formidable skills of a Roman fighting force, which is very different from the forces that would have faced him on the other side. The Palmarine army like Arab, or like the Persian army rather, relied very much on heavily armored cavalry, horse archers and very fast camel riders. The heavily armored troops, who both the Persians and the Palmarines deployed, were known by the Romans as Clibonarii, which means oven men. So the iron helmets and breastplates and so on that they wore were like ovens in the desert heat.

So this Battle of Antioch, was it a close-forward battle, did you lose by an inch or by a mile? What do you say, did it? A mile, yes, yes. Isn't that the one where the armour was really important because Aurelian, he keeps stalling as the sun gets higher and higher. That's right. So that they're cooked in their armour. So that the palmarine soldiers can toast nicely

and they will be much easier to put for the light more like yard. So that's the Battle of Antioch. She is defeated. What happens next to either? Well, then it moves south. She basically gets away to Emerson, Homs, which is southeast. And there's another battle outside the walls of Emerson. There is conflicting evidence in the sources, but basically that is what happened.

Again, it's the cavalry. The Romans are very clever and managed to get the cavalry to turn on itself and trample itself. There's some kind of problem with, it's supposed to be 70,000 strong, this Pan-Lyrene cavalry. And the Palestinian slingers seem to have been particularly effective in this. Okay, their slings really got these guys on their horses and their horses. That is what the sources do all say.

She managed to escape from Emissa on a camel and got to Palmyra. And then there is, or is not, depending on which source you, a big violent siege. But she's beaten. We don't know how bad the siege was before they surrendered. Some people say it went home for months and they were starved out. Others say actually they know that we capitulate it quite quickly. And she is, either she flees and is captured. before she gets to the Euphrates

or anyway she's captured. She's captured. What happens after she's captured? Kate Cooper. Well, she's brought back to Rome in chains. That again, of course, the sources vary. Some sources say that she dies crossing, I think, the Bosphorus on the way.

But at least two sources talk about her arriving in Rome. One talks about her arriving in Rome in a golden chariot that she had originally commissioned in order to ride in triumph into Rome. The historian Augusta, our main source,

talks about her arriving bound in golden chains, which are really, I think, partly just an expression of her wealth and kind of bigging up the triumph of Aurelian capturing this woman. There are alternatives readings about the end. Do you hold her that one, Richard Sterman? Do you have another one?

Well, the alternative story is that she reached Rome safely. She managed to avoid being executed on the capital in the way that captured prisoners normally were and instead was allowed to retire gracefully to a villa at Tivoli. I don't think, well, you're the historian, but I think O'Reeling was too tough to let anybody retire if he'd beaten them. But that's my, that's an amateur. But Edith, there's a third possibility, isn't that? Well, those four. That, yes, she was either led in a triumph in Roman executed.

She was led in triumph in Rome and then allowed to get hold in a villa on the Tivoli, or she died. in some kind of illness near the Bosporus, or she committed suicide, and I am absolutely sure that she committed suicide rather than be displayed at Rome. Cliopatra had committed suicide. Mithridates, the great rebel against Rome, had committed suicide rather than be displayed at Rome.

I do not believe she was going to give Orillian that pleasure. I'm sure he had the triumph in 274, which is the probably most impressive Roman triumph ever held. I mean, we are talking 800 gladiators, the entire populus Romanus, the entire Roman military and an awful lot of captives from every barbarian tribe he had reduced, but I don't think she was there. Can you, and this was a turning point in the fortunes of Rome for that time.

Can you just, though, moving rather more quickly in that, what about Palmyra? He went, he just, you tell me what I really did to Palmyra, Edith. Well, I'm sorry that yet again there are conflicting versions. Some sources say he was absolutely barbaric in, his reduction of Palmyra and that it was virtually wiped out. Others say that although it lost a lot of its wealth, in fact there was a little rebellion, maybe in fact Zinobi's own father is sometimes alleged

to have become governor of Palmyra. It certainly lost its massive privileged status and its wealth, but it didn't die out at that point in antiquity. And the legacy, very briefly, Kate. I think one of the really interesting things about Zinobia is if you think about her by comparison, Parasant to Cleopatra, why doesn't she get the same afterlife? She does in the Middle Ages.

Chaucer in the Middle Ages. Chaucer, exactly. Chis Moksdale talks about her. But I think the big problem is that Shakespeare doesn't pick up on her. I was going to say that. For years, it was a lot longer than most of those Roman emperors survived. Your defendant, our first celebrity last year. But she didn't.

Trouble his Shakespeare didn't write about it. And he did write about Cleopatra. Well, that's not the three. That's a flip ending for a very good discussion. Thank you very much indeed. Next week, thank you very much to Edith Hall, Kate Cooper and Richard Sternman. And next week we'll be talking about Einstein's two theories of relativity.

Thank you. There are many more Radio 4 arts and discussion programs to download for free. Find these on the website at BBC.com.com.com. slash Radio 4.