Zenobia and the Palmyrene Empire (270-273): Revolt in the East

Zenobia was the queen of Palmyra, a wealthy caravan city in the Syrian desert, who in AD 270–272 led the most serious challenge to Roman rule in the east during the Crisis of the Third Century. Ruling in the name of her young son, she conquered Egypt and much of Anatolia and finally claimed imperial titles. The emperor Aurelian defeated her in 272 and destroyed Palmyra after a second revolt in 273, but Zenobia became one of the most famous women of antiquity.

Palmyra before Zenobia

Palmyra, known locally as Tadmor, lay at an oasis between the Roman province of Syria and the Euphrates. It grew rich on caravan trade linking the Mediterranean with Mesopotamia, the Persian Gulf and India. Its people spoke Aramaic, its elite also used Greek, and its monuments combined Greek, Roman and Near Eastern styles. The city had been part of the Roman Empire since the 1st century AD.

Wealth from trade paid for grand public monuments. The Temple of Bel, dedicated in AD 32, a colonnaded main street more than a kilometre long, a theatre, an agora and elaborate tower tombs and underground family tombs filled with carved funerary portraits made Palmyra one of the most spectacular cities of the Roman east. Its merchants maintained trading posts on the Euphrates and at Charax near the head of the Persian Gulf, and its archers and camel troops served in the Roman army.

In the 3rd century the rise of the Sasanian Persians threatened both Rome’s eastern provinces and Palmyra’s trade. After Shapur I captured the emperor Valerian at the Battle of Edessa in 260, Septimius Odaenathus, Palmyra’s leading man, attacked the retreating Persians. He then crushed Roman usurpers in the east on behalf of Valerian’s son Gallienus and led campaigns deep into Persian territory, reaching the region of the Persian capital Ctesiphon.

Gallienus rewarded him with wide authority over the east, and Odaenathus took the title “king of kings”. In about 267 he and his eldest son Hairan were murdered, perhaps at Emesa (Homs). The killer and motive remain uncertain.

Zenobia’s rise

Zenobia, known in Palmyrene inscriptions as Septimia Bat-Zabbai, became regent for her son Vaballathus, who was still a child. Little is known reliably about her early life. Ancient writers describe her as beautiful, learned and energetic, a woman who hunted, rode with her troops and spoke several languages, but much of this comes from the Historia Augusta, a late collection of imperial biographies that mixes fact and invention.

Her court attracted intellectuals, notably the Greek rhetorician and philosopher Cassius Longinus, who became her adviser. At first Palmyra continued to act as a Roman ally, but the death of Gallienus in 268 and the weakness of the central government gave Zenobia an opening.

Conquests (270–271)

In 270 Palmyrene forces under the general Zabdas invaded Egypt, the empire’s richest province and the main source of grain for Rome. The Roman prefect Tenagino Probus was defeated and killed. Palmyrene armies also took the province of Arabia, where an inscription records the destruction of a temple at Bostra, and pushed into Anatolia, reaching Ancyra (Ankara) and, according to Zosimus, approaching Chalcedon opposite Byzantium.

At first Zenobia avoided an open break with Rome. Coins minted at Antioch and Alexandria in 270–271 show Vaballathus on one side and the new emperor Aurelian on the other, presenting Palmyra as a partner. In 272, however, coins and inscriptions began to call Vaballathus Augustus and Zenobia Augusta, the titles of a Roman emperor and empress. This was a direct claim to imperial power. Historians still debate whether Zenobia intended to replace Aurelian as ruler of the whole empire or to secure a separate eastern realm, and whether she was pushed into the break by Aurelian’s refusal to recognise her son’s position.

Aurelian’s campaign (272)

Aurelian, who had driven invaders from Italy and begun the Aurelian Walls of Rome, marched east in 272. Most cities of Anatolia opened their gates to him; Tyana, which resisted, was spared after it fell. Near Antioch, at a place called Immae, his cavalry drew the heavily armoured Palmyrene horsemen into a long pursuit in the heat and then turned on them.

A second, larger battle was fought near Emesa, where the Palmyrenes were again defeated. Aurelian then crossed the desert to besiege Palmyra. Zenobia fled toward the Euphrates, perhaps hoping for Persian help, but Roman cavalry captured her. The city surrendered. Longinus and other advisers were executed, while Zenobia herself was spared. According to Zosimus, she blamed her advisers for the war, which cost Longinus his life.

Aurelian’s treatment of Palmyra after this first victory was relatively mild. He left a garrison under a governor and moved on to deal with the Carpi on the Danube, apparently believing the city had been pacified.

The second revolt and the fall of Palmyra (273)

In 273, after Aurelian had left, the Palmyrenes rebelled again, killed the Roman garrison and proclaimed a new ruler, Septimius Antiochus. Aurelian returned rapidly. This time Palmyra was sacked and its walls destroyed, and the city never regained its former wealth. A revolt in Egypt linked to Palmyra was also suppressed.

In 274, after also defeating the Gallic Empire in the west, Aurelian celebrated a magnificent triumph in Rome. According to the Historia Augusta, Zenobia walked in it bound in golden chains and was then given an estate near Tibur (Tivoli). Zosimus, however, reports that she died on the journey to Rome. Her later fate is unknown. Her son Vaballathus also disappears from the historical record after 272, and nothing certain is known of his fate.

Legend and legacy

Zenobia became a figure of legend in Europe and the Middle East. Medieval and Renaissance writers such as Boccaccio and Chaucer told her story as an example of a heroic woman brought low by fortune. Painters and playwrights of the 18th and 19th centuries portrayed her as a proud queen in defeat. In modern Syria she has been treated as a national heroine and appeared on banknotes.

Palmyra itself survived as a Roman military base and later a small town. Its ruins, among the best preserved of the ancient Near East, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980. During the Syrian civil war, militants of the Islamic State group destroyed the Temple of Bel and other monuments in 2015 and damaged the theatre and tetrapylon in 2017, and murdered the site’s retired chief archaeologist, Khaled al-Asaad.

Timeline

• 260: Valerian captured by the Persians; Odaenathus attacks the retreating Persian army.
• c. 267: Odaenathus and his son Hairan are murdered; Zenobia becomes regent.
• 270: Palmyrene forces conquer Egypt and Arabia.
• 270–271: Coins pair Vaballathus with Aurelian.
• 272: Vaballathus and Zenobia take imperial titles; Aurelian defeats them at Immae and Emesa and captures Palmyra.
• 273: A second revolt ends in the sack of Palmyra.
• 274: Aurelian’s triumph in Rome.
• 2015–2017: Major monuments of Palmyra destroyed during the Syrian civil war.

Why it matters

Zenobia’s revolt showed both how fragile the Roman Empire had become and how quickly a determined emperor could restore it. The rise and fall of the Palmyrene Empire marked the high point and the end of Palmyra’s power, and Zenobia herself remains one of the few women from antiquity remembered as a ruler and military leader in her own right.