Zenobia

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This article is about the Queen of the Palmyrene Empire. For other uses, see Zenobia (disambiguation).

Zenobia (or Xenobia) is the name commonly used for the daughter of Zabaai ben Selim, an Arab chieftain. The widow of Septimius Odenathus, she reigned as Queen of Palmyra and the Palmyrene Empire from 267 to 272 as regent for her infant son Vaballathus.

1 History
2 References
- 2.1 Ancient sources
- 2.2 Modern fiction
3 External links

[edit] History

Image:Herbert Schmalz-Zenobia.jpg

Something of a militant, she embarked on a campaign of conquests that eventually saw her as the ruler of much of Syria and Asia Minor. Her professed goal was to defend the Eastern portion of the Empire from the Sassanid Empire, supposedly for the good of Rome, but really for her own power. By playing off Persia to the east against the Roman Empire to the west, she hoped to dominate them both.

In 269, she crushed an Egyptian who challenged Roman rule and proclaimed herself Queen of Egypt. She claimed to be descended from Cleopatra VII of Egypt and Mark Antony through Drusilla of Mauretania, as well as Dido (the supposed founding queen of Carthage, according to the Aeneid) and declared herself the political heiress of both.

The Roman emperor Aurelian, with his policy of re-uniting the Roman Empire and acutely aware of the danger Zenobia posed, led a military campaign that resulted in the conquest of her kingdom in 272. Zenobia and her son were captured as they fled to seek aid from Persia. Aurelian brought her to Rome and paraded her in his triumph in 274, bound in gold chains. Aurelian, impressed by her beauty and dignity, later freed her, and granted her a villa in Tibur (now Tivoli, Italy), where she spent the rest of her life as a philosopher and socialite. Some historians (ancient and modern) believe she married a Roman senator and that they had children, so the line continued at least into the 4th century.

[edit] References

[edit] Ancient sources

The "Tyranni Triginta", a book of the Augustan History written in the 4th century, contains an unreliable account of Zenobia's life.

[edit] Modern fiction

Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Monk's Prologue and Tale", in The Canterbury Tales, vv. 359-486
Beloved, by Bertrice Small, is a fictitious retelling (historical novel) of Zenobia's life. ISBN 0-345-32785-3
The Chronicle of Zenobia: the Rebel Queen, by Judith Weingarten (Pegasus 2006). Site: Zenobia.tv