Judith Weingarten Zenobia in History and Legend The symposium “Palmyra: Mirage in the Desert” was held in honor of Dr. Khaled al-Asa‘ad, who was Director of Archaeology at Palmyra and Director of its Museum for almost his entire lifetime. When I first went to Palmyra in the late 1990s, Dr. al-Asa‘ad very kindly allowed me and my traveling companion, the Dutch artist Gerti Bierenbroodspot, to live and work in the archaeological dig house within the grounds of the Temple of Bel. The dig house had once been the home of the village chief and was a handsome building surrounding a courtyard planted with date palms and terebinth trees; from the terrace, on one side, we looked out over the remains of the oasis, and on the other, the ruins spread out in front of us. Three long seasons followed. Khaled alAsa‘ad entrusted us with the keys to the perfect little Temple of Baalshamin and gave us the run of the museum when it was closed to the public, so that we could study, sketch, and photograph its amazing collection. While I spent my days mapping an invisible city, Gerti painted in and around the Temple of Bel and the columns, decorations, and adornments of the ancient town. We never imagined that her paintings, so beautiful themselves, would one day become monuments that testify to what has now disappeared forever (figs. 1a and b). We owe Dr. al-Asa‘ad a huge debt of gratitude, Fig. 1a. Ceiling of the north adyton of the Temple of Bel at Palmyra Fig. 1b. Temple of Bel, North Cella, Gerti Bierenbroodspot, 1995. Aquarelle on Chinese rice paper. Private Collection, The Netherlands 130 and I hope, with this essay, to repay one small part of that debt. I sometimes think that if it were not for her coins, Queen Zenobia would be taken as a legendary figure (figs. 2a and b). There could be a kernel of truth in the story, but it is a tale so fantastical, so gendered, with sources so unreliable, that it simply could not have historical value. Yet Zenobia did exist, and she did go to war against the Romans. And, as Empress of the East, she came within a hair’s breath of victory. What do we really know about her?1 Her story can only be understood as part of Palmyra’s history, so that is where we start.2 Palmyra’s lifeblood was its commerce with India. Its prosperity followed the ups and downs of this crucial trade across the desert to the Euphrates River (as the crow flies, over 150 miles of rough stony desert) and down river to Charax, near modern Basra. This was the western end of the fabled Silk Road. Palmyrene caravans of thousands of camels brought the fabulous goods of the East, especially silks and spices, to the great cities bordering the Mediterranean and, above all, on to Rome. The Euphrates also marked Rome’s border with the Parthian empire; the Parthians were the only opponent who could withstand the power of Rome’s legions.3 The elder Pliny noted in the first century a.d. that Palmyra had “a destiny of its own between the two mighty empires of Rome and Parthia.”4 In other words, it was an autonomous buffer state, though from an early date, it was also a Roman ally. Palmyra’s geographical position midway between the Graeco-Roman cities of western Syria and the Parthian Near East has always been the most important force in the city’s brief history. Almost every feature of life at Palmyra— artistic, cultural, architectural, and military— reflects this geographical fact: a place midway between east and west, where two ways of life mingle and interact, sometimes with the most extraordinary results. By the year 32 a.d., the city already had the wealth and will to build the magnificent Fig. 2a. Antoninianus coin, Antioch mint (workshop H), March-May 272 a.d. Obverse: S ZЄNOBIA AVG, diademed, draped, resting on crescent. Reverse: IVNO RЄGINA, Juno holding plate and scepter, peacock at feet Fig. 2b. Tetradrachm, Alexandria mint (Year 5), March-June 272 a.d. Obverse: CЄΠΤIΜ ΖΗΝΟΒIΑ CЄΒ Reverse: Homonoia, goddess of order and unity, holding double cornucopia sanctuary of Bel, all of polished stone, of marble and porphyry (see essay in this volume by Michal Gawlikowski). This was the first of the city’s architectural glories and, until 2015, the Temple of Bel remained its most impressive monument. Eastern Roman in its details, it was probably built with the help of Greek master masons and sculptors (fig. 3). The temple is nonetheless entirely Semitic in its general conception. Within the house of the god, to left and right, stand symmetrical roofed shrines (fig. 1a), a layout such as may be recognized throughout Syria. At the end of the first century a.d., Palmyra was well on its way to becoming one of the ancient world’s most magnificent and wealthiest cities. Palmyrene merchants and caravan chiefs channeled the profits of trade into temples, theaters, and colonnades, all 131 Fig. 3. Detail of the exterior wall of the north adyton of the Temple of Bel at Palmyra the municipal paraphernalia of Hellenism and the so-called Roman arts of peace. In return for these benefactions, the local senate erected bronze statues in their honor and placed them on columns, where they could be seen by all the people. The statues are all lost, but the consoles that held them survive on columns along the main thoroughfares of the city and before the chief buildings (fig. 4). Despite almost uninterrupted hostilities between Rome and Parthia, Palmyrene merchants not only continuously traded 132 Palmyra: Mirage in the Desert with the enemy but also established trading colonies within their empire. It is as if Palmyra was too remote to concern the Roman authorities very much. It may only have been with the rise of the Severan dynasty near the end of the second century a.d. that Palmyra seriously entered imperial consciousness (fig. 5).5 When, in the year 197 a.d., the emperor Septimius Severus led an army to the east and successfully invaded Mesopotamia, it is likely that troops from Palmyra joined in the campaign, for it must have been at this time that the triple monumental gateway was built, the so-called Arch of Triumph that ISIS blew up in 2015. The emperor Severus had a Syrian wife, Julia Domna — the first of a quartet of Syrian Julias — sister, daughters, and mothers of four emperors.6 The Julias were from the family of hereditary high priests of Emesa (modern Homs) and Palmyra’s nearest neighbor to the west. Surely, the four Julias were long remembered in Emesa, and their stories told and retold in Palmyra. One can well imagine that their remarkable rise to imperial power in Rome was in Zenobia’s mind when the time came for her to act. Julia Domna’s husband was the last emperor for a very long time to die in bed. He had come to power over the bodies of three emperors (all murdered in a single year!) and two bloody civil wars against rival generals to boot. For the next fifty years, emperor after emperor, twenty-six of them, fell to the assassin’s sword, with an average time at the top of less than two years. Legitimacy gave way to force and absolute despotism, in which the losers, their friends, and supporters were slaughtered, and their property was confiscated. Roman rule began to collapse. Northern Italy was invaded by Germanic tribes, and Rome itself was briefly threatened; tribes of Goths breached the Danube frontier and attacked the Balkans and Greece. And then, on top of that, came the Persians. In 228 a.d., a Persian vassal of the Parthian king overthrew his master in battle and proclaimed a new Persian empire. While the Parthians had often been content to defend themselves against attack, the Sasanian Persians, as they are known, were just as aggressive as the Romans. The first Persian king, Ardashir, soon drove the Romans out of Mesopotamia. Palmyra’s balancing act between east and west was over. The second Persian king, Shapur, one of the great warriors of history, invaded Syria. He vaunts his achievements on a rock inscription: “The fire-worshipping divine Shapur, King of Kings, partner with the Stars, brother of the Sun and Moon, of the race of the gods. . . . We attacked the Roman Empire and annihilated a Roman force of 60,000 and all Syria and the environs of Syria we burned, ruined and pillaged.”7 A Persian army advanced along the Orontes River, destroying one great city after another until finally reaching the gates of Emesa (modern Homs). The chief magistrate of the city was desperately trying to negotiate a surrender on terms when troops from Palmyra rode “like a hurricane onto the field, and with a loud battlecry, they plunged into the Persian horde. . . . Thinking that a Roman army had suddenly and miraculously come upon them, the Persians panicked and fled. . . . [The Palmyrenes], hot on the heels of the fleeing enemy, butchered everything in their way.”8 The troops were led by Odaenathus. Three inscriptions identify him as a senator and the ras tadmor, a new title meaning the chief or prince of Palmyra. Odaenathus followed up his victory at Emesa by chasing the Persians out of Syria and pushing them back across the Euphrates. Around this time, too, Odaenathus married Zenobia, thus uniting two great families into what would become a royal dynasty. We have our first look at the prince Odaenathus on a magnificent mosaic, dated around 260 a.d. (Kaizer essay, figs. 9a and b). On the left, we see a hero spearing a lion-goat-snaky monster, while eagles bearing wreaths of victory fly above him. On the right, a mounted archer slays Persian tigers. The men wear Fig. 4. Columns on the Great Colonnade at Palmyra, many with consoles that had held statues of important citizens Roman winged helmets, but they are in Palmyrene dress, wearing trousers and open long-sleeved brocaded jackets. Given the time and place, it is all but certain that the mosaics are in celebration of Odaenathus’s victories over the Persians. A year later, Palmyra’s nearest neighbor to the east, Dura Europos on the Euphrates, fell to the Persians, and Antioch, the Syrian capital, was captured and burned. The emperor Valerian turned to Odaenathus, the only warrior, it seemed, who won battles. He was appointed governor of Syria Zenobia in History and Legend 133 Fig. 5. Painted wood panel (tondo) depicting Julia Domna, Septimius Severus, Geta (erased as murdered by his brother), and Caracalla, future murderer who became sole emperor. Egyptian, ca. 200 a.d. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. 31329 and Phoenicia, and in a Palmyrene inscription, he is saluted as king. With Syria under control, the emperor Valerian marched into Mesopotamia with an army of 70,000 men. Shapur’s gloating inscription recounts the destruction of the Roman army: “a great battle took place . . . between us and Caesar Valerian, and we took him prisoner with our own hands, as well as the other commanders of the army.”9 The capture of a Roman emperor was a cataclysm, the 134 Palmyra: Mirage in the Desert worst defeat the Romans had sustained in three hundred years (fig. 6). In the chaos after Valerian’s capture, Odaenathus was in Syria, and his army, it seems, was intact. He crushed the attempt of some Roman usurpers, keeping Syria loyal to Valerian’s son, the emperor Gallienus. Gallienus rewarded him with the titles dux romanorum (the highest military title), and Ruler of All the East. Odaenathus had become the second most powerful man in the entire empire. The east was in his hands. What would he do with it? Odaenathus wasted no time. He crossed the Euphrates with his heavy cavalry, reconquering some cities of Mesopotamia, and then turned southeast, devastating Persian lands in the area of the middle Euphrates. In 266/67 a.d., he took the fight deep into Persia, besieging the Sasanian capital, ravaging the countryside, and acquiring a great amount of booty. The Historia Augusta tells us that Zenobia was with him on this campaign. “For of a surety,” it says, “he, with his wife Zenobia, would have restored not only the East, . . . but also all parts of the whole world everywhere, since he was fierce in warfare. . . . His wife, too, was inured to hardship and in the opinion of many was held to be more brave than her husband, being, indeed, the noblest of all the women of the East, and . . . the most beautiful.”10 Odaenathus probably would have been able to restore the whole world, if, after his victorious campaign, he had not stopped in Emesa on his way home, where a cousin poured poison into his wine. He and his son by a previous marriage were dead. On hearing the news, Zenobia seized the regency on behalf of her own son Waballath, who was still a child, and she became the ruler of all the east. In a dedication of 268/270, Waballath assumed his father’s titles: “for the life and [victory] of Septimius Vaballathus Athendo[rus] [Waballath], the most illustrious King of Kings and Corrector of the entire Orient, son of Septimius [Odaenathus, King] of Kings; and for the life of Septimia Bathzabbai [Zenobia], the most illustrious queen, mother of the King of Kings.”11 This is the first statement of an official position for Zenobia, though she is clearly addressed as secondary to her son. The main literary source that treats these events, the Historia Augusta (History of the Emperors), expressed horror and shame at the rise of a woman to Fig. 6. Rock relief commemorating the victories of Shapur I over three Roman emperors: Gordian III (trampled by Shapur’s horse) killed in battle in 244 a.d.; his successor, Philip the Arab (kneeling before Shapur); and Valerian (behind the emperor’s horse), captured in 260 a.d. Bishapur, Iran Zenobia in History and Legend 135 136 power but then went on to describe her in most glowing terms: “Her eyes were black and powerful . . . , her spirit divinely great, and her beauty incredible. . . . Her voice was clear and like that of a man. Her sternness, when necessity demanded, was that of a tyrant, her clemency, when her sense of right called for it, that of a good emperor. . . . Generous with prudence, she conserved her treasures beyond the wont of women. She made use of a carriage, . . .but more often she rode a horse; . . . she hunted with the eagerness of a Spaniard. She often drank with her generals” and so on and so fantasizingly on.12 In truth, we know very little about her. She claimed descent from the Hellenistic kings of Syria, and Cleopatra Thea, daughter of Ptolemy VI, thus combining in her person the lineage of the old rulers of Syria and of Egypt from the time before the Romans had come and conquered. By stressing her Syrian-Egyptian descent, she may have intended to appeal to a still-living spark of hope that they could again be free of Rome. Certainly, many were willing to risk rebellion on her behalf, for she had far greater forces and wider support than any previous ruler of the east. Zenobia went out of her way to woo the Hellenic as well as the Semitic Syrians. She fostered Greek culture and won over many important cultural figures of the day. The celebrated Neo-Platonist philosopher Longinus was drawn to her court. Callinicus of Petra dedicated his ten-volume work on the history of Alexandria to the queen, calling her the New Cleopatra. In 268 a.d., the emperor Gallienus was murdered by a gang of Illyrian generals, and a deadly series of coups and counter-coups played out in Italy and on the Danube. Eventually, a tough Illyrian cavalry general, Claudius, emerged victorious. Claudius was immediately faced with a massive Goth invasion into the Balkan provinces. Zenobia saw her chance. In 269, she sent her army under her general Saba southwest into Egypt, seizing Alexandria. Nothing could have been more provocative, for the port was vital to Rome’s grain supply. Without Egyptian grain, Rome would starve. By March 270, Palmyra ruled all Egypt. During the course of that year, another Palmyrene general, Zabdi, extended control across most of Anatolia, settling on Ankara as their border. Claudius meanwhile succeeded in defeating the Goths, but he died of plague soon after. Six months later, after the usual proclamations and slaughter of rivals, another Illyrian cavalry general became emperor. That was Aurelian.13 Fig. 7a. Antoninianus coin, Antioch mint (workshop A) November/December 270–March 272 a.d. Obverse: VABALATHVS V C R IM D R, diademed, laurel wreath, draped and cuirassed Reverse: IMP C AVRELIANVS AVG, radiate crown, cuirassed Fig. 7b. Tetradrachm, Alexandria mint, August 29, 271–March 272 a.d. Obverse: AVT K Λ Δ AVPHΛIANOC CЄB (Year 1), radiate crown, cuirassed Reverse: I A C OVABAΛΛAΘOC AΘHNO V AVT C Pω (Year 4), diademed, laurel wreath, draped and cuirassed Palmyra: Mirage in the Desert Fig. 8a. Tetradrachm, Alexandria mint (Year 5) 272 a.d. Obverse: AUT K OUABALLAQHNOC CEB, laureate and draped Reverse: Homonoia (goddess of order and unity) holding cornucopia Fig. 8b. Antoninianus coin, Antioch mint (workshop Δ) March-May 272 a.d. Obverse: IM C VHABALATHVS AVG, radiate crown, draped and cuirassed Reverse: IVЄNVS AVG, Herakles, nude but for chlamys, leaning on club and holding three apples Almost simultaneously, the mints of Alexandria and Antioch began producing coins with, on the one side, Aurelian’s image, and, on the other, Zenobia’s son Waballath with the titles inherited from his father: king, consul, and dux romanorum (figs. 7a and b).14 Although the coinage reserved the most important imperial title of Augustus for Aurelian, there could be no clearer statement that Zenobia had set herself up as equal to Rome. The generals Zabdi and Saba were both back in Palmyra by the summer. In August 271, two statues were raised in the Great Colonnade, one posthumously to Odaenathus and the other on an adjacent column, to Zenobia, one of the very few honorary statues ever dedicated to a woman. The surviving inscription reads: “Statue of Septimia Zenobia, most illustrious and pious queen; Septimius Zabda [Zabdi], commander in chief and Septimius Zabbai [Saba], commander of Palmyra, . . . raised it to their sovereign lady.”15 The final and decisive change came about in April 272. From this date, the Alexandria and Antioch mints began to issue coins in the name of Waballath with no mention of Aurelian, together with some in the name of Zenobia. In both cases, they are accorded the titles of Augustus and Augusta respectively (figs. 8a and b; 2a and b). These titles are unequivocally imperial. This outright defiance was almost certainly a direct response to the launch of Aurelian’s long-awaited counteroffensive. Early in March 271, Aurelian crossed into Anatolia and meeting little or no resistance, recovered control of the province with comparative ease, but before him lay an altogether different prospect, the reconquest of Syria, the heartland of Palmyra’s power.16 Zenobia and her generals, knowing that Antioch would be Aurelian’s first objective, had determined to defend it in force. The battle took place in late May or early June. Zenobia, it was said, was present on the battlefield riding on horseback and encouraging her troops (fig. 9). Despite the summer heat, the battle went on all day. Large numbers of Romans were killed as they caught the full force of the charges of the Palmyrene heavy cavalry. There was even a rumor that Aurelian was dead. The Roman lines began to give way; the Palmyrene horsemen gave chase but pressed their advantage with undue haste. Their own line broke, and the Roman infantry was able to wheel around and crash through their flank. Zenobia had no option but to abandon Antioch. Leaving the city the next day, the army beat an orderly retreat to Emesa. The season was now high summer. The queen and her advisers decided on further retreat to Palmyra, where, protected by the desert, they could raise their desert kinsmen and wait for Egyptian reinforcements, while the Zenobia in History and Legend 137 Fig. 9. Queen Zenobia Addressing Her Soldiers, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1725/1730. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Samuel H. Kress Collection (1961.9.42) Romans died off from heat and fever. Aurelian did not hesitate but immediately crossed the desert after her. He reached Palmyra and besieged the city. As the siege wore on and the Egyptian relief army did not appear, the plight of the Palmyrenes became desperate. Zenobia decided to seek Persian help, to throw herself at the Persian king’s feet if that was what it would take to save her city. Her legendary courage was put to the test. One dark night, mounted on a camel, with a small escort, she raced across the desert, heading for the Euphrates. A Roman cavalry detachment followed in hot pursuit. Perhaps the river was too high to ford, or boats could not immediately be found to ferry her across. The Romans 138 Palmyra: Mirage in the Desert caught up with her, and after a brief fight, they took the queen captive and headed back with her in chains to Palmyra. As for Zenobia’s fate, like all good postmodern novels, we have three different endings. The Historia Augusta reports that she was displayed in Aurelian’s triumph in Rome and then beheaded, but it says elsewhere that he spared her life and married her off to a senator (a good way to dispose of a stroppy woman). An Early Byzantine historian, however, gives a different account, that she starved herself to death on shipboard on the way to Rome.17 And thus, the new Cleopatra, like the old Cleopatra, may have committed suicide rather than face the humiliation of being led in an emperor’s triumph. Zenobia and her city now faded from history, virtually forgotten for over a thousand years. It was only in the early Renaissance, when scholars were again reading secular Latin history that the Historia Augusta became a prized source and was taken as true, tall tales and all. Boccaccio of Florence led the way. In 1374, he published On Famous Women, somewhat fanciful biographies of historical and mythological females, Zenobia among them (fig. 10).18 He wrote positively about the extraordinary male spirit that allowed Zenobia to act on the world stage. As a young girl, he fantasized, she had “such hard masculine vigor that sheer strength enabled her to subdue her young male contemporaries in wrestling and gymnastic contests.”19 Quite the Amazon, she was as good as any man but also a paragon of chastity. In addition to that single monthly coupling with her husband, Boccaccio enthuses, in widowhood, all her male servants were aged eunuchs. In every way, she represented the highest refinement of female existence. There was, of course, a catch, and that was Aurelian. He, the Roman archetype of masculine virtue, “moved against her for the purpose of redeeming the dishonored Roman name and acquiring immense glory.”20 Naturally, a man will best even an exceptional woman at what is by rights a man’s game. In Boccaccio’s story, Aurelian allows her to live out her life in a villa in Tivoli near Rome, an ending that would become the standard version of her fate. So, when all is said and done, the story leads to a kind of rhetorical dead end. Zenobia is back where she belongs, “with her children amidst the women of Rome,” in an exclusively female role as widow and mother.21 Boccaccio’s Zenobia soon reached England, where the story was picked up by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales and told by his pleasure-loving Monk. His Zenobia is powerful and successful, because of her physical strength combined with personal discipline but above all, her superior intellect. “She spared nothing, even taking into account all of her hunting, to gain full knowledge of various languages when she had leisure, and the study of books was all her delight, and how she might spend her life in virtue.” High praise indeed, yet he still gloats at her downfall. “Alas! She that was helmeted in steel in stern onslaughts, and defeated mighty towns and towers by force, shall now, as it were, have a helmet of glass upon her head. She who bore a splendid scepter shall, in turn, bear a distaff.”22 Thus, spinning wool, Zenobia ended her Fig. 10. Page from De Claris mulieribus, traduction anonyme en français, Livre des femmes nobles et renommees by Giovanni Boccaccio, 1403. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Français 598 Zenobia in History and Legend 139 Fig. 11. View of the Ruins of Palmyra, G. Hofstede van Essen, 1693. Oil on canvas. 33.8 x 169 in. (86 x 430 cm). Allard Pierson Museum, University of Amsterdam, 000.049. Courtesy of the University of Amsterdam, Special Collection Fig. 12. Zenobia Captive. Sir Edward John Poynter, 1878. Oil on canvas. Present location unknown 140 Palmyra: Mirage in the Desert life, fulfilling her proper womanly role at last. Neither Boccaccio nor Chaucer regards Zenobia as any kind of role model. For Christine de Pizan, however, an Italian-born noblewoman who spent most of her life at the French royal court, rather than being exceptional, Zenobia displays women’s natural abilities when these are allowed to develop.23 Pizan is often described as the first feminist writer. In 1405, she produced The Book of the City of Ladies, about a symbolic city in which women are appreciated and defended. Her Zenobia did not have to “overcome feminine softness,” as Boccaccio purported she did, for women are not “naturally fearful”; in fact, they have a “natural aptitude for politics and government” as Zenobia’s story demonstrates. For when Odaenathus gave her command of one flank of his army, she won several battles and conquered Mesopotamia for him. After his murder, “She crowned herself empress and governed with skill and discernment. She reigned so wisely and supplied her soldiers so well that the emperors Gallienus and Claudius never dared to undertake anything against her.” So how did Pizan treat Zenobia’s downfall? Well, she didn’t. Her story breaks off while Zenobia is still at the height of her power. The Englishman Thomas Elyot, writing a century later, developed another aspect of Zenobia’s story.24 He did not focus on her political role but on her education. In the Defence of Good Women, Elyot praised her for inviting philosophers to her court and extolled her wide learning. He portrayed her as an independent and philosophical woman who successfully governed both herself and her country. Elyot, of course, was not interested in producing autonomous, let alone liberated women but rather good wives who would be able to provide intellectual companionship for their husbands. Still, it was a step in the right direction. We now enter the season of seventeenthcentury Italian opera, when Zenobia became a tragic heroine, and the stories get sillier. Opera, of course, can hardly exist without a love story. So, starting in Albinoni’s Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, in 1694, the brutal and cruel Aurelian of history was transformed, for love of Zenobia, into a chivalrous hero. The queen of Palmyra was defeated because of the treachery of an entirely fictitious governor of the city, Ormonte, who hoped to wed his daughter to the emperor. But Aurelian was in love with Zenobia. Zenobia resisted his advances. He threatened her with death. Inevitably, Aurelian came around, pardoned the rebels and restored Zenobia to her throne, thus regaining the heartfelt loyalty of the east. Impossible love is the theme in Leonardo Leo’s Zenobia in Palmira of 1725. Zenobia and Decio, a nonexistent Roman general, fall in love. That is not so strange, but for some reason, Decio’s part was sung by a castrato. It must have been decidedly odd, even in Naples in 1725, for a rough Roman soldier to be played by an androgynous eunuch. Yet it happens again in Rossini’s Aureliano in Palmira of 1813, when the part of Zenobia’s lover is also sung by a castrato. Aurelian is again in love with Zenobia, but she is in love with a fictional Persian prince who also has been taken prisoner by Aurelian, who eventually releases the prince, blesses their marriage, and puts both of them on the throne of Palmyra. Rossini’s prince may have been the last castrato ever to appear on the Italian stage. But why eunuchs at all? Is this gender confusion evoked by Zenobia’s masculine virtues? Must any man who marries Zenobia be lacking in his nether parts? It was more than time for a reality check. This began in 1691, when a small group of English merchants based in Aleppo made Fig. 13. Louise (Fredericke Auguste), Duchess of Devonshire, as Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, photographed by the firm of J. Lafayette, 179 New Bond Street, London, July 2, 1897. National Portrait Gallery, London, photographs collection, NPG AX 41001 the perilous journey to Palmyra and published the first description of the ruins, with a panoramic painting in 1693 (fig. 11) by the Dutch artist G. Hofstede van Essen, who had accompanied their expedition. This news was received rapturously in European scholarly circles, but it was only in 1751, when two intrepid British travelers, Robert Wood and James Dawkins, “rediscovered” Palmyra, that the city really entered public consciousness (Raja essay, fig. 5).25 Their timing was perfect; the publication of the magnificent folio volume The Ruins of Palmyra contained templates for a new Zenobia in History and Legend 141 classicism in architecture, with buildings in many parts of Europe being adorned with motifs copied from its monuments. A mini Palmyra-boom followed. Though the route was still difficult and dangerous, many travelers came to Palmyra over the next century. A British visitor remarked in 1889: “Illicit digging continues, and almost every traveller buys and removes a few busts and mortuary inscriptions.”26 In fact, hundreds of Palmyrene funerary sculptures then entered European museums or were sold at auction. The many portraits of beautiful women wearing opulent jewelry struck a chord with the European elite. Artists were quick to respond. Sir Edward Poynter’s Victorianneoclassical Zenobia Captive, for example, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1878 (fig. 12), had critics rhapsodizing over it, even if his Zenobia looked more ready for five o’clock tea than for hard battle. The British upper crust felt at ease with her. In July 1897, the Duchess and Duke of Devonshire gave a ball at Devonshire House on Piccadilly to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The seven hundred invited guests were requested to wear allegorical or Fig. 14. Illustration from Heroes of the Arabs (‘Abt․âl al-Arab’). Anonymous, vol. 14, Zenûbyâ. Beirut 1975 142 Palmyra: Mirage in the Desert historical costume. All eyes were on the Duchess, who entered the ballroom perched atop a palanquin borne by her aristocratic slaves. She was dressed as Zenobia (fig. 13). I like to think that the Duchess felt some affinity with the character of the queen, but alas, nothing in her life story suggests the slightest rebellious urge. But she did know what she liked. Her Zenobia gown, created by the House of Worth in Paris, was delicately embroidered in silver, gold, and pearls, and sprinkled all over with diamonds. While Zenobia mingled with high society in Europe, interest in her story began to revive in her homeland. The book Zenobia, Queen of Tadmur (Tadmur [Tadmor] being the Arabic name for Palmyra) appeared in 1870, written by Salim al-Bustani, the father of the modern Arabic novel.27 Al-Bustani was not so much interested in historical facts as in inculcating moral virtues. He admitted to leaving out the depressing bits of her story in order not to sadden his readers. Zenobia and her (nonexistent) daughter Julia are captured by Aurelian and taken to Rome. That is sad, so the story concentrated instead on the Palmyrene conquest of Egypt and a love affair between Julia and Piso, a fictitious Roman prince. Although Aurelian also wants to marry Julia, he nobly steps aside when he hears of her pure love for Piso. This allows al-Bustani to stress the importance of love as a basis for marriage and to comment (twice) that people should be free to marry the person of their choice, a radical idea in Arab society at the time that is still not entirely accepted today. Three years later, Ilyas Matar wrote his groundbreaking work on the origins of Syria.28 His history glorified Syria’s past as the cradle of the civilized world. Zenobia was a glowing example of the grandeur of ancient Syria, a queen “who carved for herself an immortal name in the annals of nations.” For Matar, she ignited the hope of a renewal for Syria under another such queen. In Beirut in 1975, a series of books appeared on Arab heroes that treats Zenobia, although Zenobia was not an Arab and Fig. 15. Album cover of Zenobia, A Historical Epic Musical Play by Mansour Rahbani she lived long before the Arab invasion of Syria (fig. 14).29 In this story, freedom for the Arab nation and the liberation of women from traditional gender roles come together for the first time. She is introduced as “Zenobia, the warrior who battled against the enemies of the Arabs before the coming of Islam, and who demonstrated that a woman is capable of nobly engaging in combat, and of taking up position in the centre of power with firmness and the strength of her resolve and self- discipline.” With her army mustered behind her, she tells her broken-nosed commanding general, Zabdi, “Yes, the empire needs to have a strong army, but we also need knowledge . . . provided this knowledge is related to work.” This is Zenobia as a Gramscian Marxist, a quite common Arab ideology of the time. That is why the villains in this book are not so much the Romans as the Palmyrene merchants and sheikhs who refuse to give Zenobia horses, and thus are to blame for making her rebellion a hopeless endeavor. While the people and the army rally around her, the capitalist bourgeoisie (the merchants), and the ancien régime of the sheikhs betray her. The book ends with the Senators of Rome insisting that Aurelian put Zenobia to death so that Roman women will not be corrupted by her uppity example. “No,” he says, “it’s better to make her marry and be a proper woman — wife, mother, and cook!” Thus, the Roman imperialists are not only political oppressors but also tyrants in male-female relationships. After centuries of having been part of the Ottoman-Turkish empire, Syria was handed over against its will to the French after the First World War. Zenobia’s struggle for liberation from Rome became a symbol for the national aspirations of the Arabs and for Syrian anticolonialism. Propaganda for the Baathist Assad regime portrayed her as a fearless anticolonialist warrior fighting the Roman occupier, which is why her portrait appears on Syrian banknotes. Syria’s Zenobia in History and Legend 143 Fig. 16. Still from a video showing the statue of Zenobia erected in Damascus on September 6, 2015 long-serving defense minister and the elder Asa‘ad’s right-hand man, General Mustafa Tlass, turned her into a symbol of Arab nationalism and resistance. In Zenobia: Queen of Tadmur, which the general wrote in 1985 (English edition 2000), her rebellion becomes a war of Arab liberation against the Roman “barbarians and colonisers,” with Zenobia establishing Syria’s claim to leadership in the anti-imperialist struggle.30 Zenobia enters the twenty-first century with a thoroughly modern all-star, allsinging, all- dancing Zenobia: A Historical Epic Musical Play, written by Lebanese composer and poet Mansour Rahbani (fig. 15) and starring pop singer and actress Carole Samaha as Zenobia.31 The storyline is simple: “The rich and sparkling city-state of Palmyra has been under Roman influence for over a hundred years. But the Palmyrenes, including their newly crowned queen Zenobia, have had enough. ‘She’s the first lady who said no to Rome.’ ‘She was the 144 Palmyra: Mirage in the Desert first Arab voice in history to say no against a superpower.’”32 This is not history, but that hardly matters. There were tears in all eyes as Zenobia was taken away in captivity, and she sang her final words: I am the first cry of freedom, the first cry from an Arab land. I am to give my blood for freedom. The anti-imperialist message is clear and the emotion powerful: we are but a few years away from the start of the Arab Spring. Alas, that spring soon turned into winter, and Syria descended into civil war. And so, we come to the calamitous events of 2015. On May 20, the city of Palmyra fell to ISIS. Zenobia’s name was suddenly on everyone’s lips. She appeared in the world media as a symbol of the rights of women so viciously denied by the Islamicists. Yet western media entirely missed an event that took place in Damascus in September and that had wallto-wall coverage on Syrian TV (fig. 16): an over-life-sized gilded statue of Zenobia was raised in the city’s main square.33 She is now the historical queen who grants legitimacy to the regime. You may hold Palmyra, the government is saying, but, as long as we have Zenobia, we are the rightful rulers of Syria. That was about the time, too, that ISIS murdered the eighty-three-year old Khaled al-Asa‘ad in the most brutal of circumstances. His daughter, who had escaped with her husband to Damascus, gave an interview to a Dutch journalist.34 She told of her father’s death. When the executioner ordered him to get on his knees, al-Asa‘ad remained standing. “I kneel before no man,” he said, “but only before god.” And then they killed him. His daughter who reports his last words is, of course, named Zenobia. And so we come full circle, from the Zenobia of history, to the many Zenobias of history, to a Zenobia of today. 1. The best scholarly book in English on Zenobia is Southern 2008; more popular is Winsbury 2010. The main source for the life and times of Zenobia and her husband, Odaenathus, is the extremely unreliable and sometimes entirely fictitious collection of biographies in the Historia Augusta (HA), especially “The Thirty Pretenders,” and biographies from Valerian to Aurelian. HA purports to be written by six (otherwise unknown) authors, but in all likelihood, it is the work of a single author writing between 390 – 98 a.d., thus, more than one hundred years after the events. The English translation of the HA, Historia Augusta 1921 – 32, can be found online at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman /texts/historia_augusta/home.html. 2. The best general introduction is still Stoneman 1992. 3. There is still no easy introduction to Persia in the Parthian and Sasanian periods. A general survey is Wiesehöfer 1996; on relations between Rome and Persia, see Dignas and Winter 2007 and Edwell 2008. 4. Pliny the Elder 1950, 22.88. 5. On Septimius Severus, see Birley 1988. 6. On the Julias of Emesa, see Levick 2007. 7. Dodgeon and Lieu 1991, 3.1.4. 8. Ibid., 3.2.2. 9. Ibid., 3.2.6. 10. Historia Augusta 1921 – 32, vol. 3, “The Thirty Pretenders,” 15.6. 11. Dodgeon and Lieu 1991, 4.5.5. 12. Historia Augusta 1921 – 32, vol. 3, “The Thirty Pretenders,” 30.13 – 19. 13. On Aurelian, see Watson 1999. 14. Bland 2011 thoroughly reviews the coins minted for Zenobia and Waballath, discussing their chronological and political implications. See also Carson 1978. 15. Dodgeon and Lieu 1991, 4.7.2. 16. The battles near Antioch and Emesa are recorded with some believable details by Zosimus; see ibid., 4.8.2. 17. Zosimus; see ibid., 4.9.4. 18. While Petrarch revived the story of Zenobia earlier in his Triumph of Fame, his short text described a generic woman warrior, whereas Boccaccio’s long poem On Famous Women (English translation in Boccaccio 2003) was richer and followed the storyline of HA, which thus became the template for Zenobia’s story. See also Jansen 2008, pp. 63–114. 19. As quoted in Jansen 2008, pp. 68 – 69. 20. Boccaccio 2003, p. 435. 21. Ibid., p. 437. 22. Chaucer 2011, ll. 2306 – 10, 2369 – 74. 23. For the discussion of Pizan, see Jansen 2008, pp. 115–53; for the quotations, see ibid., pp. 123 – 24. 24. See ibid., pp. 63–114. 25. Without doubt, the expedition of Dawkins and Wood was the more renowned and influential “rediscovery” of Palmyra. For the story of the English merchants’ visit sixty years earlier, see Weingarten 2007– “The Mystery of the First Drawings of Palmyra,” posted November 26, 2016, http://judithweingarten.blogspot.it/2016/11 /the-mystery- of-first- drawings- of-palmyra.html. 26. Peters 1904, pp. 31 – 32. 27. See Moosa 1997, pp. 157 – 84; Woltering 2014, pp. 30 – 32. 28. Tarikh al-mamlaka al-Suriyya; see Choueiri 2003, pp. 48 – 53. 29. Abtal al-‘Arab 1975, vol. 14, Zenubya; for discussion and quotations see Woltering 2008 and Woltering 2014, pp. 32 – 34. 30. Tlass 2000. 31. “Mansour Rahbani — Zenobia (Trailer).” Youtube, posted March 11, 2015, https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=Egp9C-mI05k. 32. Marwan Rahbani, [interview by Kate McAuley], Dubai TimeOut, April 2007. 33. “‘Warrior Queen’ Zenobia Statue Erected in Defiance of Isis,” Youtube, posted September 6, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= d0xp2ltvb14. 34. Dulmers 2015. Zenobia in History and Legend 145