The Ancients - Palmyra: Pearl of the Desert

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

Palmyra features in headlines today as a casualty of IS destruction, but during its heyday it was a monumental city set on an oasis in the Syrian desert. First mentioned in the second millennium BC, it gained wealth from the caravan trade which moved goods across the desert. What makes it unique, however, is not its wealth but its multicultural, multilingual nature. Buildings in Palmyra featured inscriptions in Greek and Palmyrene and, after becoming a subject of the Roman Empire in the first century AD, Latin. To find out more about this beautiful site, Tristan spoke to Ted Kaizer from Durham University. Ted is Senior Lecturer in Roman Culture and History, and takes us through the growth of Palmyra, its position on the crossroads of cultures and whether or not it was really subject to Roman rule.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's The Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And in today's podcast, we are talking about one of the most remarkable cities of the ancient Near East, Palmyra. Situated in the Syrian desert near an oasis, Palmyra was an ancient trading city. It was immensely wealthy. In more recent

times, it was infamously damaged by ISIS a few years back. Now, to talk through the extraordinary history of Palmyra, I was delighted to get on the show Dr. Ted Kaiser from the University of Durham. Ted is a lecturer in Roman culture and history. He has written extensively about the ancient Near East and on the city of Palmyra, including also on the nearby city of Dura-Europos, which we've done a podcast on also. Without further ado, here is Ted to talk through all things Palmyra. Ted, it's great to have you on the show. Thank you for having me. Ted, it's great to have you on the show.

Thank you for having me. Now, Palmyra, this was one of the great jewels of the Near East. It is, yes, a very famous caravan city in the heart of the Syrian desert. So perhaps we should start by saying that the location of Palmyra is really key to everything. It is a city whose ruins are situated in the middle of the Syrian desert, more or less between the big cities in the west of the modern country Syria, Damascus and Homs, ancient Emesa on the one hand, and then on the other hand, towards the east, the river Euphrates and Palmyra is more or less 200 kilometers in either direction. It is located as an oasis in the middle of the steppe area, the desert area, the oasis of Tadmor, which is the

city's indigenous name and indeed still the modern name. So is it this location between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean? Is that what leads to its building whenever it was founded? Well, we don't know when it was founded as such. It's an important point, but there's nothing, interestingly, to suggest an actual foundation as such. So the origins of Palmyra are hidden in the mists of history in a way. It seems very likely that there had been some sort of settlement at the oasis of Tadmor as early as the late third, settlement at the oasis of Tadmor as early as the late third early second millennium BC that is not the same as to say that there was continuous habitation throughout these thousands of years but there is enough evidence to suggest that

there was something very early on at Palmyra the formation of the layer so that stratification of the hill below the Great Temple of Baal, the Great Temple which was blown up in 2015, the stratification of the hill on which that temple was built seems to go back to the 3rd millennium BC. And the name Tathmore, the indigenous name of Palmyra, is mentioned in cuneiform tablets from elsewhere in the ancient Near East, from the ancient city of Mari on the Euphrates, cuneiform tablets from around 1800 BC. So there is something that early on, but there's nothing to suggest an actual foundation of Palmyra as such. And that's important to emphasize because it's very different from many other cities in the Near East, which have a moment of foundation,

usually in the Hellenistic period, the great city of Antioch in northwest Syria, capital of Syria, so to speak. Many of the Decapolis cities are all supposed to have been founded at a given moment in the Hellenistic period. There is one very interesting literary source which talks about the foundation of Palmyra. So because we have very few literary sources on Palmyra, this seems to be a wonderful source. And it is, but it gets it completely wrong. So this is the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who writes under the Flavians in the second half of the first century AD, and in his Jewish Antiquities he states that the Jewish King Solomon, the son of King David, during the 10th century founds Palmyra because of the provision of water in what is otherwise a relatively arid zone of course, and he surrounds it with strong walls.

That is wrong because the walls as they stand at Palmyra are from much, much later, from the 3rd century AD, certainly not from the time of King Solomon. And Josephus gets one bit of information correct, so clearly not the foundation by King Solomon, but the fact that the city is known under two names, Tadamora, Tadmor as the Syrians call it, while the Greeks call it Palmyra. So this is the only source that talks about the foundation and it is based on an error, well it is an error which is based on Confucian in the Hebrew scripture, so in the books of what we would call the Old Testament. The first book of Kings, biblical scholars which I'm not, date this late 7th, early 6th century BC, the Book of Kings

refers among Solomon's foundations to a place called Tamar in the desert, not Tatmor, Tamar in the desert. And when centuries later, the story is retold in the second book of Chronicles, interprets this Tamar in the desert as Tatmor in the desert. And Josephus picks up on this confusion. I mean, that's absolutely fascinating what you were saying right there, because there are so many of these ancient cities like Rome or Thebes or Athens, where there is a mythological founding and then a true historical founding, as it were. Yet, as you've just mentioned for Palmyra, we don't know much about the true historical founding, but there is a sort of mythical founding from Josephus. Yes, but it's a foundation story that probably wasn't widespread

in Palmyra itself. Ah, fascinating. So with the origins of Palmyra and down, say, over the millennia to just before the arrival of Alexander the Great, how was society structured in the city? just before the arrival of Alexander the Great, how was society structured in the city? Well, ancient Palmyra was very much a tribal society, but the evidence we have for that is not from the pre-Hellenistic period, nor indeed really from the Hellenistic period. But the study of prosopography, the study of patterns of familial relation and other relationships, has revealed a good number of large tribal groupings at Palmyra. Scholars have argued between 14 and 17 large tribes, which are then subdivided in clans and families. And well into the Roman period, certainly the first half of the historical record of Palmyra.

And I should say the historical record of the Palmyra, as we know, it's really from the halfway, the first century BC until the 270s AD. And Palmyra continues in a very different way. We'll talk about that later. But at least in the first half of that period, up until well into the second century AD, the people responsible for setting up the inscriptions from which we get the information about the structures of Pomeranian society nearly always present a very long genealogy, always along the paternal line, X, son of Y, son of Z, and sometimes this goes up to seven generations. So it is assumed that these different tribal groupings arrived at the oasis at different

points in pre-history, pre-Roman, pre-Hellenistic history, but this is guesswork. We have nothing to say which tribe arrived when. Of course, sorry, quite a difficult question to ask as you say if there's not much evidence there. But although our knowledge of the Hellenistic Palmyra is we don't know too much about it, is this really though when Palmyra starts to ascend? Yes, I think you can argue that Palmyra starts to really ascend in the Hellenistic period, especially in the second half of the Hellenistic period, so let's say from about 150 BC. Or perhaps it would be even better to say that the acceleration of that development of Palmyra into a society, into a city, has already happened by the time that our evidence, our epigraphic and other evidence, starts to appear. earliest dated palmerane inscription which is 44 BC, an important date for palmerane scholarship,

a structured palmerane society is already there. This first inscription refers to activities from the main priesthood of the main god Baal which means that there was an organized priesthood already active at the city and a priesthood of Baal implies some sort of sanctuary of Baal even though not the sanctuary which was destroyed in 2015, but an earlier predecessor. And who was the god Baal? Well, the god Baal is a Mesopotamian version of an indigenous Pomeranian god known as Baal. both Bol and Baal, and Baal all means Lord, under influence from the east, so east of Palmyra, from Babylonia, from Mesopotamia. At some point before our historical records start, this indigenous god Bol, whose name is preserved in Palmyra in the names of other deities, this god Bol changed his name, or his name was changed under priestly influence,

who knows, in Baal. And there is more Mesopotamian influence, so the son of the great Mesopotamian Babylonian god Marduk, Baal, his son Nabu in ancient Mesopotamia, is worshipped as Nabu in Palmyra. But that element Baal does not get lost completely and is preserved in the names of gods such as Aglibol and Yaghibol, which are the most typical Pomeranian deities, which are only worshipped in Pomeranian context. Whereas the name, the divine name Baal also appears elsewhere in the Near East, of course. But Yaghibol and Agribald, or indeed Malach, Baal, are names of gods only appear in Palmyra in context. That's very interesting. You mentioned these gods, which are just from Palmyra. And it seems like if you're saying this inscription was from 44 BC,

they last throughout the whole of the Hellenistic period and into the Roman period. Yes, until the very end. The priesthood of Baal is still active according to the final inscriptions from Palmyra, from the great Palmyra as we know it before, then turns into something very different. As I said, a bit of this is guesswork, the earliest Hellenistic period, but there is now enough evidence to say that trade goods from quite far away, so for example, stamped amphorae from Rhodes, So, for example, stamped amphorae from roads, trade goods from quite far away did reach the oasis of Tadmor as early as the 3rd century BC.

And that, of course, is not surprising in itself. That fact, however, does not mean that Palmyra is already then a major caravan city, which it only becomes later. Palmyra genuinely developed into a major hub in that large Near Eastern trade network only in the Roman period. Well, let's get on to that now. You mentioned the date earlier, 44 BC. Why is the date 44 BC so significant in Palmyrene history? Simply because it's the oldest dated inscription. There may be older inscriptions, but they're not dated. So this is the cutoff point of the epigraphic record. And it also coincides very neatly, three years difference, with an episode which is recorded in a later source on an attack on Palmyra by the triumvir Mark Antony, which has also been much discussed in Pomeranian scholarship.

So what is this episode with Mark Antony, which has also been much discussed in Pomeranian scholarship. So what is this episode with Mark Antony? It is a story of Mark Antony, the triumvir, the rival of the later Emperor Augustus, when Augustus was still Octavian. Mark Antony sending his troops, his horsemen, to raid Palmyra because we have very little evidence from the middle of the first century BC, which only starts with that inscription from 44, that epigraphic record, this episode has received a lot of attention for

what it can tell us about Palmyra in that period before it becomes a Roman city. I think it is an important question. I also think it is very much a source-related question, and Palmyraian scholars are divided on what to do with this passage. I should lay my cards open on the table and say that I'm amongst those who think that the passage doesn't tell us very much about Palmyra in 41 BC at all. So this is a passage written by a Greek historian of the Roman Empire who wrote in the second century AD, Appian.

And I think that what Appian writes about Palmyra in 41 BC actually tells us more about Palmyra and Appian's own time than in 41 BC. It's a wonderful passage. I'll have it here. If I may quote a few lines from it. It's full of contradictions. It's full of anachronisms, there's lots to discuss on it. So it starts by saying that Anthony sent his horsemen to the

polis Palmyra, that's quite a statement to say that Palmyra was a polis by this stage, not far from the Euphrates, that is debatable as well, 200 kilometers, to plunder, accusing them, the Pomeranians, of something insignificant, that they, being on the frontier between the Romans and the Persians, show checks to both sides. Being merchants, they carry, and then Appian switches to the present tense, they carry Indian and Arabian goods from the Persians and they dispose of them in the territory of the Romans. Arabian goods from the Persians and they dispose of them in the territory of the Romans. But in fact, he, Antony, had in his mind to enrich his horsemen. As the Pomeranes learned about this beforehand and carried their essentials to the other side of the river and to the riverbank,

meaning the Euphrates, I guess, preparing themselves with bows with which they are by nature excellent in case anyone would attack them. Antony's horsemen seizing the city empty, turned around, not having met anyone, not having taken anything. So it is a very weird passage, a lot to do about nothing, because in the end, the horsemen arrive at an empty city and turn back. So Palmyra is labeled as a polis, which it surely was by the time of Appian, already earlier, but perhaps not in 41 BC. But the

description of the Palmyrenes is a description of nomads. They quickly put their essentials with them and fled away to the other side of the river where they stand with their bows. That means that Appian is also geographically challenged because there's a 200 kilometers gap to the Euphrates. The notion of the Palmyraeans being good archers is certainly well known in the second century AD. Palmyraean archers had fought on the Roman flag as part of Trajan's army in the Dacian Wars in modern Romania. And perhaps one of the most, most telling aspects of that passage is when he switches

to the present tense, saying that the Palmyraans carry Indian and Arabian goods from the Persians and dispose of them in the territory of the Romans. Because the age of Appian, the middle of the second century AD, is the high day of Palmyra's caravan trade. The so-called caravan inscriptions of Palmyra, the inscriptions which refer to the trade which Palmyra brings back from the Persian Gulf to the desert, they're heavily concentrated in the 2nd century AD, mostly between the Persian Wars of Trajan and the Persian Wars of Lucius Pyrrhus, that's Marcus Aurelius' co-emperor. So really this 30-year gap of so, the first half of the 2nd century AD is when the caravan inscriptions concentrate. So this is all much more telling about, or in any case, fits better with what we know about Appian's own time than about 41 BC.

case fits better with what we know about Appian's own time than about 41 BC. So you're saying with Appian's passage, it's quite difficult to say what is about Palmyra in the 1st century BC and what is about Palmyra in the 3rd, 2nd century AD? Yes, I would almost go as far to say that it's a pretty useless passage for 41 BC. I have to say, not everybody agrees with me on this, but there are too many consistencies. You can't take a few essentials on horseback flat away, which then results in a city being totally empty when horsemen arrive. It's a description of nomadic behavior.

It all plays on stereotypes. The Pomeranians as nomads, the Pomeranians as archers, the Pomeranians as traders. Fascinating. Well, you mentioned them earlier across the euphrates the parthians and the romans of course not the best of neighbors and palmyra's location being as it were a border area between them how significant a role does palmyra play in these diplomatic and the military encounters between Rome and Parthia? Yeah, that's a very important question, Palmyra's location between the two empires. The passage I just cited from Appian makes that point. And the point is made in a

passage that is written earlier, that would then be the third of the major literary accounts on Palmyra. You'll see this on Solomon, which is wrong, Appian, on Mark Antony, which I've just told you is useless for Mark Antony's period. And the third passage is written by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History. This is the Pliny who dies during the eruption of the Vesuvius in AD 79. Pliny gives a very brief sketch of Palmyra, again problematic and anachronistic, but it makes a very important point. He presents a picture of what seems to be a very stereotypical oasis, saying that the fields are surrounded by sands on either side.

There's nothing to suggest, by the way, that Pliny ever made it as far as Palmyra, so this is not an eyewitness account. But he adds something that is certainly not true by the time he is writing himself, around the same time as Eusebius, Flavian period. Though placed between the two great empires of Persia and Rome, Palmyra still maintains its independence, never failing at the very first moment that the rupture between them is threatened to attract the careful attention of both. Now this is not true by the time Appian writes, because Palmyra has been integrated in the Roman Empire probably from the Julio-Claudian

period, most likely from the early years of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. That is maybe something which deserves a bit of attention here as well. There are three inscriptions from Palmyra which mention Germanicus, the Roman general who was Tiberius's crown prince, also Tiberius's nephew and adopted son, who travels to Syria where he dies, is poisoned perhaps in around 1819. There are three inscriptions from Palmyra which mention Germanicus, suggesting, without proving it, that Germanicus did visit Palmyra. But the evidence seems to build up a convincing picture of a Palmyra that becomes part of the Roman province of Syria around that time, around the time of Germanicus. The province of Syria itself, of course, exists longer. It's founded by the Roman general Pompey the Great around 63 BC out of the remnants of the Seleucid

Empire. But that, of course, takes place 20 years before the Mark Antony episode. And there's nothing to suggest that when Pompey found the province of Syria, that Palmyra was already part of it. That province extends over time more land inwards and probably incorporates Palmyra only around 1819. So in that regard, you say how it becomes integrated into the Roman Empire. When do we start to see evidence of Roman religion in Palmyra what religious changes do the Romans bring? Not very many there are no typical Roman gods introduced in Palmyra but Roman gods we would recognize by their Latin names and there's hardly any Latin in Palmyra, and certainly not of gods. There are no typical Roman priesthoods. The divine world of Palmyra, which seems to be there

the moment the first inscriptions start to appear, that doesn't change. So there is very little Roman evidence. Also, if we ask what did the Romans introduce to Palmyra, we have to ask ourselves, who are these Romans? There are, of course, many Palmyrenes with Roman citizenship, but not many actual Romans or even Italians at Palmyra. So what is the religious status of Palmyra during the Roman Empire? What religions do the Palmyrenes worship? Is it like other Near Eastern cities? Do they mainly worship the gods that they've been worshipping, as it seems, for hundreds of years? You mentioned Baal earlier. There seems to be a limited Roman influence on the religious aspect of Palmyra during the

imperial period. Well, on a deeper level, we don't actually know what sort of gods were worshipped at Palmyra. And it sounds strange out of the mouth of someone who's written a book about the religion of Palmyra. But we have to emphasize that we have no mythology. We have no descriptions of these gods. So we can't say anything about their nature. We have their names. We have some imagery. We can say that according to the names,

that some gods come from the Babylonian sphere of influence, like Baal and Nebu, that some of these gods come from the northwest Semitic sphere of influence, like Baal-Shamin, another lord god, the lord of the heavens. Some deities, like the goddess Allat, the goddess comes from the Arab zone towards the south. But we have no literary mythological framework in the way that we have it for ancient Greek religion, for example. We can say a lot about Greek religion thanks to Homer and Hesiod and all these literary descriptions about these gods. But we don't have that about Palmyra. We can talk about the way worshippers worship their gods, sacrificial patterns, etc., dining societies.

But we can't really say much about the nature of the gods. The main element I have on purpose not mentioned, one key element that can only be part of Pomeranian religion in the Roman period, it's the presence of the imperial cult or of the so-called imperial cult in Palmyra. Imperial cult is, of course course a rather perhaps over simplistic label which covers a wide variety of religious practice, of religious activity, all related to emperor worship, honoring emperors and their families. It is a test that Palmyra, perhaps less ubiquitous than in the cities of Asia Minor, Western Turkey.

We do know from an inscription that there was a sanctuary of the imperial cult at Palmyra, a so-called Caesareum, or according to the Greek inscription, Caesareum, because the inscriptions in Palmyra are not in Latin, but in Greek and in Aramaic, often bilingual, sometimes only in Greek, sometimes only in Aramaic. Scholars have tried to identify one building or the ruins of one building in the center of Palmyra near the theater as this Kaiserion, but we don't know. There is just one inscription from the time time of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, which is very important, though, because it really shows that the imperial cult is not just an empty facade of Romanus, but really becomes integrated in Pomeranian society.

So there's this one inscription which records how one of the leading citizens, probably the most powerful citizen at that time, is occupying not only the main priesthood of the cult of Baal, so he's an archiarous, the high priest of Baal, and a symposiarhos, the leader of the symposium, the cult group of Baal, and then he is also priest of the imperial cult. So this is the one moment that the leading citizen of Palmyra at the time combines the main priesthood of the main local god of Palmyra with the priesthood of the imperial cult. That's an extraordinary connection. also what you mentioned earlier what was so fascinating when you said it was the inscriptions how you say that most of them are either Greek or Aramaic, or they have both languages shown upon them.

Yes, Palmyra is, as has often been emphasised in scholarship, it's the only city in the Near East in the Roman period which is bilingual on a public level. The public inscriptions, the inscriptions set up by the civic council and by the civic assembly recording their activities or their honoring of benefactors in Greek and in Aramaic, Palmyrenian Aramaic, the local dialect of Aramaic, which is similar to but not identical with the local Aramaic dialects in other cities in the Near East. So for example, Nabataean Aramaic is similar but not identical, also a different script. Hatrian Aramaic, the Aramaic of Hatra in the north of Iraq, south of Mosul, is another

key example. And do you think this bilingualism, this unique bilingual nature of Palmyra, do you think it reflects a Greco-Aramaic hybrid society during the Roman period? Yes, that is one way of phrasing it, one way of formulating it, that as I said the location of Palmyra between east and west even if it's part of the Roman Empire, is key because Palmyra continues to loop eastwards and westwards throughout the first 300 years AD. Most obvious in the public bilingualism, it's not the only bilingual city, but it's the only publicly bilingual city. And not just the inscriptions, also the countermarks on coins show both an Aramaic character for the Tau of the T of Tadmor and the Greek P in Palmyra. Again, it's the only city that has bilingual countermarks on the coinage, which fits very well with the public bilingualism of the inscriptions.

But what you just call a Greco-Aramaic hybrid culture, it's visible on so many levels. a Greek or Aramaic hybrid culture. It's visible on so many levels. Citizens who depict themselves on one and the same monument, both in classical dress, Roman toga, and on the same monument, but in a different scene,

wearing trousers, the oriental or so-called Parthian trousers. Romans and Greeks, of course, don't wear trousers. So you have the same person depicted twice, one with trousers, one's in toga. And the temple architecture, it looks very classical at first glance, but there are lots of oriental, non-classical elements preserved, niches within the sanctuary, inner chapels, parapets, stepped parapets, decorating the roofs. So there's a

mixture between East and West on many levels. That's remarkable. So in the inscriptions in the epigraphy, but also in the art and the architecture, you can see this public bilingualism. Yes, a bilingualism of culture in many ways, yes. I mentioned the caravan inscriptions earlier on. So these are inscriptions in which local citizens, leading citizens, members of the Pomeranian elite are honored with a statue for their services to caravans. They organize the caravans, they finance the caravans, they protect the caravans against robbers.

And the formulas used to honor these citizens are very similar or identical to the formulaic language with which elsewhere in the Greco-Roman world, members of the local elites are honored for less oriental business, for building temples, for making benefactions to the city, for providing oil to the citizens. for making benefactions to the city, for providing oil to the citizens. That also happens at Palmyra, but the oriental business of looking after and protecting the caravan trade is integrated into these very classical inscriptions honouring your benefactors. So even on that level, Palmyra looks both eastwards and westwards. They're on the consoles, on the columns which line up the colonnades. That's remarkable.

And talking about being this midway station, as it were, between East and West, how do you think, does the archaeology show us how Palmyra rises as this great trading city? The richer Palmyra gets, the more monumental their buildings become. The central colonnade, which is still standing mostly mostly was built during the Roman period in different sections, so extended all the time. The sanctuaries are all rebuilt and extended in more classical fashion, despite the oriental elements here and there that I mentioned. But nearly all Palmyrene sanctuaries seem to have started their existence in a more indigenous format, as indigenous chapels, which are either rebuilt in more classical format, or extended in a classical version, or in one case,

the indigenous chapel is left in place, and a Greco-Roman, a classical building is literally built around it. So you go into the first building and then enter the second building, which is just kept inside. But yes, this is clearly the result of Palmyra doing very well out of the caravan trade. Fascinating. As you just said, so as Palmyra gets richer and richer, you see the more monumental and the bigger and the more ornate buildings starting to appear in the city. The agora gets extended with openings on either side, theatre is built, bath complexes, yes. And I must ask, one of the most famous chapters in Palmyra's history, of course, is in the third century with Odenathus, Zenobia, Aurelian. And do you think it's this trading power, this immense wealth of

Palmyra that leads it to becoming so powerful during the third century? The caravan trade is what has made Palmyra rich earlier on. To what degree there is still a lot of caravan trade by the time of Odenathus and Zenobia is a different matter. I'm not saying there was no caravan trade anymore, but it is a fact that the number of caravan inscriptions dips in the third century, and the rise of Palmyra, the growth of the so-called Palmyrene kingdom, or the episode of Ordonatus and Zenobia, must really be positioned within the context of the so-called crisis of the third century, the age of the soldier emperors, and it has very much to do, I would say, with the growing power vacuum in the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Rome at that time becomes less and less a strong centralized power. It is only the Emperor

Aurelian, the one who makes an end to the Palmyrene adventure, who manages to centralize power again. Other parts of the Roman Empire have fallen away as well. In the far west of the Roman world, there's an independent Gallic Empire. Now in the east, the crisis really comes to the fore in AD 260, when the Roman emperor Valerian is captured alive by the Persian king of King Shapur, the king of the Sassanians, the great king of the Sassanians. This is the first time that a Roman emperor is captured alive. Valerian ends his life as a footstool with his skin fleeced in Persian captivity. And Valerian's successor and son Gallienus allows Odenatus to occupy a position that in Palmyra in terms is unprecedented really. But this had already started this process

10 years earlier because Odenatus appears in our epigraphic record in Palmyra in the 250s as the head of Tadmor, Resh Tadmor, the Aramaic Cesar Resh, head, the chief of Tadmor. Now, such a position had never existed, so it is a previously unknown position at Palmyra. It is not an isolated process because we know that elsewhere in the Near East, for example in Emesa, Palmyra's nearest neighbor towards the west, there was a major usurpation attempt against Rome in the early 250s by a certain Uranius, possibly from the traditional priestly family of Emesa. So this suggests that not only in Palmyra an individual member of the civic elite could grow his head suddenly above the grass. But Odonatus, together with his son Hiran or Herodian, depending on which language we read,

they become very powerful, very successful. They defeat the Persian forces of Shapur at the river Orontes. As a result, they are crowned, probably crowned themselves as the king of kings, because if you beat the Persian King of Kings, you can call yourself the King of Kings. They follow the Persians to the gates of the Persian capital Ctesiphon in the east. But at the same time, Palmyra remains a city loyal to Rome. It remains a Roman colony, which it had been since the very beginning of the third century AD. So there are inscriptions where the king of kings, Herodian, the son of Ordonatus, is receiving a statue set up by the two main magistrates from the Roman colonia. And this

can only happen in Palmyra, the leading citizen of a Roman colonia being a king of kings. This is the greatest contradiction in terms that you can think of, but it happens at Palmyra. When Odenartes dies together with his son Herodian, Hyran, he is then succeeded by his younger son, Vaballatus. He's still a little boy. So that's when Zenobia, Odenartes' widow, steps in and rules as a queen regent on behalf of the underage boy. Now, this would be another very long story, but I'll cut it short.

Eventually, Zenobia slash Fabulatus claims the title of Augustus of Roman Emperor, challenges Aurelian directly. Aurelian then defeats the Palmyrenes, twice actually, after the first defeat, the Palmyrenes rise up again, and then Aurelian returns and makes a real end to it. But there's an important question related to this, which you posed at the beginning, how can Palmyra be so mighty? You asked the question of the caravan trade, which is the financial question, but equally important is the question of the military power, because under Zenobia,

Palmyra overruns the whole east. It has control over the great city of Antioch, that's the second city in the Roman world, the capital of Syria. It overruns Alexandria, the great city, the third great city of the Roman world, in Egypt. How can a city at a desert oasis control two of the three largest cities in the Roman world? And written sources from late antiquity, from the 5th, 6th century AD, so hundreds of years after this episode, refers to the soldiers of the Natas as a bunch of Syrian peasants. It's this throwaway remark, and obviously that cannot be the answer. Surely there were inhabitants in the rural zone around Palmyra, I said. It's located in the heart of the Syrian steppe, and that is true, but it is not a real desert area. There is still evidence for a large number of villages to the

northwest of Palmyra in the Palmyrena zone, evidence for villages with agriculture and horticulture. So there is a rural population. Palmyra may have made use of nomadic forces to fight for them. The nomads were controlled by the Pomeranians, by the Pomeranian elites, with a few to the caravan trades to get free transport through the desert. So it may be that they turned to the nomads to fight for them under Adonatus. They may have used mercenaries. Surely they will have used mercenaries, but there's not much evidence for it. Palmyra under Adonatus may also have called upon their own soldiers who fought on the Roman flag, Palmyraens who were members of the Roman army

in the form of so-called auxiliary units outside the legions. The best attested one comes from Dura Europos. This is a small town, very well archaeologically, very well preserved on the Euphrates, Palmyra's nearest neighbors to the east, where there is evidence for a large population of also. And the best attested auxiliary cohort of Pomeranes comes from Dura-Europos, but Dura-Europos' history ends in the mid-250s AD. So when Dura-Europos is destroyed by the Sassanians itself,

it's surely many of these soldiers died by the hands of the Persians, but perhaps some got out of it and fled to their hometown of Palmyra. And it is finally, it's a possibility, and this almost must have been the case that other Nazis and later Zenobia got control over some of the Roman

legions that were based elsewhere in the Near Eastern provinces. Because otherwise the collapse of the East and of Antioch and Alexandria is very hard indeed to explain. That's remarkable, as you say, how one city, as you say, situated in the Syrian steppe, rises to become the dominant force in the Eastern Mediterranean, conquering, you say, the great cities like Antioch and Alexandria, becoming this incredible military power. That's absolutely remarkable. But it doesn't last very long.

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Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. And then, perhaps not overnight, but very soon after the fall of Zenobia's Palmyra, the unique Palmyra civilization with its own language, with its own script, with its own deities, all the unique Palmyra elements disappear from our evidence. by the time that we are in the 4th century AD, when evidence starts to reappear, it is very different sorts of evidence. Churches are being built in the 4th century and again throughout the 5th, and the great Christian council at Nicaea in 325 is attended by a bishop of Palmyra, according to the list of bishops who attended Nicaea. Bishop Morinus of Palmyra attended the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. So suddenly we are faced with a very different Palmyra.

So I must ask, although it sounds like the inscriptions are getting less and less, what do we know about the end of Palmyra? Well, the end of Palmyra isn't an end, it's a change. All the unique aspects of Palmyra's local culture seem to be forgotten. Latin becomes the new language now that Palmyra is a military station in the strata Diocletiana, the line of fortresses built under the Tetrarchy. It becomes a Christian city. That is not to say that there wasn't pagan worship in Palmyra any longer, but there is hardly any evidence for that, and certainly not the riches of inscriptions from the earlier period. The unique Aramaic dialect is gone with the script, etc. So that really is the moment, late antique Palmyra, that finally, for the first time, Palmyra becomes a city like any other city. But even then, we have to realize that even in late antique Palmyra, which is now just a normal city, the inhabitants would still have been able to walk through the colonnade and would have been able to see bilingual inscriptions on the consoles, even if they couldn't read them anymore.

So they must have seen something that looked to them as exotic. And the unique tower tombs, which populated the cities of the death, the necropolis circling Palmyra, they're still there. They've now been blown up five years ago, the best reserved tomb towers. But they were still there at the horizon of Palmyra. So even at the time that Palmyra finally has become a normal city, its inhabitants must have realized by simply looking around them that once their city wasn't a city like any other city.

That's remarkable. So like echoes of the past, as it were, so before the Tetrarchy and Diocletian and all that. That's a very good point. Echoes of the past. A very good way of saying that echoes of the past continue to be there in late antique Palmyra. Yes. And you've mentioned this all throughout the last hour. It's absolutely fascinating. But Palmyra's unique status, its unique construction, its unique society. Is this why it's such a fascinating city to study in the ancient Near East? I think every city in the ancient Near East is fascinating to study, but it's a brilliant case study. When we look at the evidence from the different places in the Near East, what strikes us is the variety. Every place looks different, has different groups of gods, has different dialects, different peculiar histories, of course,

different local mythologies. But of all these local varieties, Palmyra is possibly the one that stands out most because of its, not just its bilingual languages, but its bilingual culture. Even when Palmyra is very much a part of the Roman world, it continues to look eastwards and westwards. Even when Palmyra is a Roman colonia with the Natis, it brings in a king of kings in the Roman colonia. It cannot happen, but it happens. And the strength of Palmyra's local culture throughout this Roman period perhaps also helps to explain why Palmyrene culture travels so well. Palmyrene culture, Palmyrene gods, Palmyrene language, Palmyrene script, is attested throughout the Roman world, in Rome, in Dacia, Romania,

Northern Africa, on the Euphrates, of course, to the east, even in Roman Britain, although there's only one Palmyrene attested in in roman britain some people say two but it's in that case it's two people with the same name i think it's one man i'm presuming this is the yeah the famous baratis the famous baratis near hadrian's wall fascinating and i know there's one theory about that baratis could be a flag seller who may have been selling silk from china which may have come through palmyra. That's absolutely fascinating. I love that connection is Palmyra being this link between maybe the distant East in China and India and all those exotic goods from there and the Roman Mediterranean.

Whether Baratas sold Chinese silk and traded that himself to Roman Britain remains to be seen. There are two inscriptions which mention this man, of course, the famous one on the relief of his wife and freedwoman who had died, Regina in South Shields, ancient Arbaia, where the Latin inscription identifies Barathas, the palmerine who set this up for Regina. That then adds uniquely a very brief sentence in palmerine in Aramaic, which Barathas may well have inscribed himself, or it looks perfectly written, Pomeranian Aramaic. And it uses a standard Pomeranian formula, Regina, freedwoman of Barathas, alas, Chabel. Now, this is remarkable because there was obviously no one else around at Arbaia or near Hadrian's Wall who would have been able to read Pomeranian Aramaic, but Barathas wanted to do the proper thing.

But there's a second inscription of what I believe is the same man. It's found at ancient Coria, now on displaying Corbridge in the Archaeological Site Museum there, which also refers to Barathas, the Pomeranus, and that identifies him as a vexillarius, which is probably a standard bearer, but there is no evidence for any Pomeranian military unit there or elsewhere in Britain, so he might have been the only Pomeranian in a non-Pomeranian unit. There is something very interesting about this second inscription, which seldom receives

attention because people always talk about the Regina inscription, but this second inscription, which seldom receives attention because people always talk about the Regina inscription, but this second inscription, which is the tombstone of Baratis himself, it doesn't have any image, it doesn't have any Aramaic, and it misspells the ethnicon Palmyrenus. So it says Palmyrenus instead of Palmyrenus. The combination of the fact that the ethnicon is now misspelled, now that Baratis is dead himself, and the fact that there is no longer Aramaic inscribed, I think is very good evidence that we talk about the same man, and that he really was the only Palmyrene around there, because by the time he dies, there's no one around who can write Aramaic, and his fellow soldiers who set up his tombstone knew that he came from a city in the east but they

weren't quite sure how to spell this name so they so they misspelled the ethnic on palmorenas instead of palmorenas i think that is good evidence for it being the same man yes definitely and as you say like you say they lost the art of being able to write aramaic when they lost the last palmyrene in roman britain as it were, on the frontier. I'm sure we could talk about Palmyra for absolutely ages. But finally, Ted, you have written a book on Palmyra, if I'm right? Yes, The Religious Life of Palmyra, published in 2002.

The Religious Life of Palmyra. Is there any future books on Palmyra or the Near East planned? I'm finishing a companion on the Hellenistic and Roman Near East, of which I'm the editor, and I'm working on a monograph on the religious life of Dura-Europos, which has a palmyra component because of the presence of palmyra in Dura-Europos, but not a monograph on Palmyra as such. Another fascinating city in the Near East, though.

Ted, thanks so much for coming on the show thank you very much for having me Thank you.