UNEARTHING PALMYRA.

Matamata Record, Volume VI, Issue 457, 26 July 1923, Page 1

UNEARTHING PALMYRA.

STRANGE STORY RECALLED The Beautiful Queen Zenobia. French scientists are now uncovering the ruins of the once gorgeous palace on the edge of the Syrian Desert from which Zenobia, the beautiful and ambitious Queen of Palmyra, burnished in armour, sallied forth to fight the Emperor Aurelian for the control of Egypt, Syria and' Asia Minor. Here they expect to fathom the mystery of Zenobia’s court and to reconstruct the life of this woman organiser and warrior who came very near breaking up the Roman Empire. Another quest, of the archaeologists will be to discover how it was possible that the far African colonies fell away from Rome and acknowledged Zenobia as their queen. This makes one of history’s most, striking pages of a beautiful wopian’s energy and ambition which raised, ' practically within a single generation, Palmyra •from a caravan trading centre to a powerful capital with confederated states so strong that she defied the ascendancy of Rome. The situation of Palmyra had much to do with its rise to power. Since early times, however, it was a stopping place for travelling caravans, and when Rome began to rise, in power and to import silks, jewels, pearls, perfume and incense from India, China and Southern Arabia, merchants of Palmyra got their tithe of this vast- wealth because of the protection they afforded the caravans passing... from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean Sea. SEIZING REINS OF GOVERNMENT Even from the time of the first Roman Emperors the city was under the suzerainty of the Romans. When Valerian became Emperor of the Romans the Empire'was breaking up, so that he placed Ivn r.«n Gallianos in ;charge of the Western Empire to tight its enemies, who were pressing down from the Danube and from Spain, while he went to the East, where , Shapur 1., King of the Parthians, was rapidly acquiring the Eastern Roman colonies. Valerian was defeated and dragged into slavery, by Shapin'. His son Gallicnus succeeded him, and after hesitating a long time, Odcnathus, • then King of Palmyra, and husband of Zenobia, cast his fortunes with the Roman Emperor, attacked and defeated the soldiers of Shapur 1., returning with their loot from- Antioch,,-aiul,won the. favour of, GaUienys, by whom lie was raised to the 'title;; of;,*, hereditary Prince ! of Palmyra, T and appointed assort of vice-emperor for the East. ■ * • ; On his assassination in 267, his consort, Zenobia, seized the reins of government and declared herself Queen Regent in place of her minor son. Dissembling an attachment to Romo while secretly cherishing Imperial designs for’ herself and her son, she hastened to attack Egypt, claiming that she would hold it for Rome. In 270 she succeeded. and. her son then ruled Egypt under joint ru.lership with Claudius, as shown on the coins of the time. • TAKEN TO ROME. Zenobia was busy intensifying her control of Syria and Asia Minor, and to that end planted Palmyrene garrisons in various cities even as far west as Chalcedon, opposite Byzantium (Constantinople). Soon Zenobia dropped the pretence, and Rome could not long brook this ignoring of her right to rule, and first Egypt was conquered and restored to Roman dominion. Then the Roman army was marched into Asia Minor and Syria (171), and at Antioch the Palmyrene army under her .general, Zadba, and Zenobia herself, was defeated. Zenobia’s movements were betrayed by some of her own men. She was captured under the banks of the Euphrates by the Romans and was taken to Rome to grace Aurelian’s triumph. At Palmyra for the first time in history the achievements of the ordinary wan in the street were recognised, and public squares and streets were named after him ■ and monuments raised in his honour. Originally sandstone columns were placed at the intersections of streets, and on them were raised carved statues of local heroes. Soon' these heroes became so numerous that brackets were added to each column (which were 55ft high) and other statues placed on these brackets. Then the advantage of joining all the columns together on the main thoroughfare was conceived, and these upstanding weather-bruised columns are all that is left of Palmyra’s main street. ' ~ Aprelian took pity upop Zenobia, and having deprived her of all power assigned her a home at Tibur, where she passed , the rest of her days in quiet. The city of Palmyra was put to the sword and torch, until now its heaving mounds, burying the riches and secrets of a past civilisation, give place to the desolate huts of a few nomadic Arabs. \