The Provinces of the Roman Empire 55

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 55

The best account is furnished by Syncellus, p. 683 and Zonaras,

xii. 18, drawing from the same source. With this accord the individual

statements of Ammianus, xxiii. 5, 7, 17, and nearly so the forged

letter of Gordian to the Senate in the Biography, c. 27, from which the

narrative, c. 26, is ignorantly prepared; Antioch was in danger, but

not in the hands of the Persians.

 

[82] So Zonaras, xii. 19, represents the course of affairs; with this

Zosimus, iii. 33, agrees, and the later course of things shows that

Armenia was not quite in Persian possession. If, according to Euagrius,

v. 7, at that time merely Lesser Armenia remained Roman, this may not

be incorrect, in so far as the dependence of the vassal-king of Great

Armenia after the peace was doubtless merely nominal.

 

[83] The Biblical account (1 Kings, ix. 18) as to the building of the

town Thamar in Idumaea by king Solomon has only been transferred to

Tadmor by a misunderstanding doubtless old; at all events the erroneous

reference of it to this town among the later Jews (2 Chron. viii.

4, and the Greek translation of 1 Kings, ix. 18) form the oldest

testimony for its existence (Hitzig, _Zeitschr. der deutschen morgenl.

Gesellschaft_, viii. 222).

 

[84] This is nowhere expressly stated; but all the circumstances tell

in favour of it. That the Romano-Parthian frontier, before the Romans

established themselves on the left bank of the Euphrates, was on the

right a little below Sura, is most distinctly said by Pliny (_H. N._ v.

26, 89: _a Sura proxime est Philiscum_--comp. p. 95, note 1--_oppidum

Parthorum ad Euphratem; ab eo Seleuciam dierum decem navigatio_), and

there it remained till the erection of the province of Mesopotamia

under Severus. The Palmyrene of Ptolemy (v. 15, 24, 25) is a district

of Coele-Syria, which seems to embrace a good part of the territory to

the south of Palmyra, but certainly reaches as far as the Euphrates

and includes Sura; other urban centres besides Palmyra seem not to be

mentioned, and there is nothing to stand in the way of our taking this

large district as civic territory. So long in particular as Mesopotamia

was Parthian, but subsequently also with reference to the adjoining

desert, a permanent protection of the frontier could not here be

dispensed with; as indeed in the fourth century, according to the tenor

of the Notitia, Palmyrene was strongly occupied, the northern portion

by the troops of the Dux of Syria, Palmyra itself and the southern half

by those of the Dux of Phoenice. That in the earlier imperial period

no Roman troops were stationed here, is vouched for by the silence of

authors and the absence of inscriptions, which in Palmyra itself are

numerous. If in the Tabula Peutingeriana it is remarked under Sura:

_fines exercitus Syriatici et commercium barbarorum_, that is, “here

end the Roman garrisons and here is the place of exchange for the

traffic of the barbarians,” this is only saying, what at a later time

is repeated by Ammianus (xxiii. 3, 7: _Callinicum munimentum robustum

et commercandi opimitate gratissimum_) and further by the emperor

Honorius (_Cod. Just._ iv. 63, 4), that Callinicon was one of the few

entrepôts devoted to the Romano-barbarian frontier-traffic; but it

does not at all follow from this as regards the time when the Tabula

originated, that these imperial troops were stationed there, since in

fact the Palmyrenes in general belonged to the Syrian army and might

be thought of in using the __EXPRESSION__ _exercitus Syriaticus_. The

city must have furnished a force of its own in a way similar to that

of the princes of Numidia and of Panticapaeum. By this means alone we

come to understand as well the rejection of the troops of Antonius as

the attitude of the Palmyrenes in the troubles of the third century,

and not less the emergence of the _numeri Palmyrenorum_ among the

military novelties of this epoch.

 

[85] Ammianus, xxiii. 5, 2: _Cercusium ... Diocletianus exiguum

ante hoc et suspectum muris turribusque circumdedit celsis, ... ne

vagarentur per Syriam Persae ita ut paucis ante annis cum magnis

provinciarum contigerat damnis_. Comp. Procopius _de aed._ ii. 6.

Perhaps this place is not different from the Φάλγα or Φάλιγα of

Isidorus of Charax (_mans. Parth._ 1; Stephanus Byz. _s. v._) and the

_Philiscum_ of Pliny (p. 94, note).

 

[86] Of the seven dedications, hitherto found outside of Palmyra, to

the Palmyrene Malach Belos the three brought to light in Rome (_C. I.

L._ vi. 51, 710; _C. I. Gr._ 6015) have along with a Greek or Latin

also a Palmyrene text, two African (_C. I. L._ viii. 2497, 8795 add.)

and two Dacian (_Arch. epig. Mitth. aus Oesterreich_, vi. 109, 111)

merely Latin. One of the latter was set up by P. Aelius Theimes, a

_duoviralis_ of Sarmizegetusa, evidently a native of Palmyra, _diis

patriis Malagbel et Bebellahamon et Benefal et Manavat_.

 

[87] Whence these names of the months come, is not clear; they first

appear in the Assyrian cuneiform writing, but are not of Assyrian

origin. In consequence of the Assyrian rule they then remained in use

within the sphere of the Syrian language. Variations are found; the

second month, the Dios of the Greek-speaking Syrians, our November,

is called among the Jews Markeshvan, among the Palmyrenes Kanun

(Waddington, n. 2574_b_). We may add that these names of the months,

so far as they came to be applied within the Roman empire, are

adapted, like the Macedonian, to the Julian calendar, so that only the

designation of the month differs; the year-beginning (1 Oct.) of the

Syro-Roman year finds uniformly application to the Greek as to the

Aramaean appellations.

 

[88] _E.g._ Archon, Grammateus, Proedros, Syndikos, Dekaprotoi.

 

[89] This is shown by the inscription of Palmyra (_C. I. Gr._ 4491,

4492 = Waddington 2600 = Vogué, _Insc. sém. Palm._ 22) set up to

this Hairanes in the year 251 by a soldier of the legion stationed

in Arabia. His title is in Greek ὁ λαμπρότατος συγκλητικός, ἔξα[ρχος

(= _princeps_) Παλμυ]ρηνῶν, in Palmyrene “illustrious senator, head

of Tadmor.” The epitaph (_C. I. Gr._ 4507 = Waddington 2621 = Vogué,

21) of the father of Hairanes, Septimios Odaenathos, son of Hairanes,

grandson of Vaballathos, great-grandson of Nassoros, gives to him also

senatorial rank.

 

[90] Certainly the father of this Odaenathus is nowhere named; but it

is as good as certain that he was the son of the Hairanes just named,

and bore the name of his grandfather. Zosimus, too, i. 39, terms him

a Palmyrene distinguished from the days of his forefathers by the

government (ἄνδρα Παλμυρηνὸν καὶ ἐκ προγόνων τῆς παρὰ τῶν βασιλέων

ἀξιωθέντα τίμης).

 

[91] In the inscription Waddington 2603 = Vogué 23, which the guild of

gold and silver workers of Palmyra set up in the year 257 to Odaenathus

he is called ὁ λαμπρότατος ὑπατικός, and so _vir consularis_, and in

Greek δεσπότης, in Syriac _mâran_. The former designation is not a

title of office, but a statement of the class in which he ranked; so

_vir consularis_ stands not unfrequently after the name quite like _vir

clarissimus_ (_C. I. L._ x. p. 1117 and elsewhere), and ὁ λαμπρότατος

ὑπατικός is found alongside of and before official titles of various

kinds, _e.g._ that of the proconsul of Africa (_C. I. Gr._ 2979, where

λαμπρότατος is absent), of the imperial legate of Pontus and Bithynia

(_C. I. Gr._ 3747, 3748, 3771) and of Palestine (_C. I. Gr._ 4151), of

the governor of Lycia and Pamphylia (_C. I. Gr._ 4272); it is only in

the age after Constantine that it is in combination with the name of

the province employed as an official title (_e.g._ _C. I. Gr._ 2596,

4266_e_). From this, therefore, no inference is to be drawn as to the

legal position of Odaenathus. Likewise, in the Syriac designation

of “lord,” we may not find exactly the ruler; it is also given to a

procurator (Waddington 2606 = Vogué 25).

 

[92] Syria in the imperial period formed an imperial customs-district

of its own, and the imperial dues were levied not merely on the coast

but also at the Euphrates-frontier, in particular at Zeugma. Hence it

necessarily follows that farther to the south, where the Euphrates

was no longer in the Roman power, similar dues were established on

the Roman eastern frontier. Now a decree of the council of Palmyra

of the year 137 informs us that the city and its territory formed a

special customs-district, and the dues were levied for the benefit of

the town upon all goods imported or exported. That this territory lay

beyond the imperial dues, is probable--first, because, if there had

existed an imperial customs-line enclosing the Palmyrene territory, the

mention of it could not well be omitted in that detailed enactment;

secondly, because a community of the empire enclosed by the imperial

customs-lines would hardly have had the right of levying dues at the

boundary of its territory to this extent. We shall thus have to discern

in the levying of dues by the community of Palmyra the same distinctive

position which must be attributed to it in a military point of view.

Perhaps, on the other hand, there was an impost laid on it for the

benefit of the imperial exchequer, possibly the delivering up of a

quota of the produce of the dues or a heightened tribute. Arrangements

similar to those for Palmyra may have existed also for Petra and

Bostra; for goods were certainly not admitted here free of dues, and

according to Pliny, _H. N._ xii. 14, 65, imperial dues from the Arabic

frankincense exported by way of Gaza seem only to have been levied at

Gaza on the coast. The indolence of Roman administration was stronger

than its fiscal zeal; it may frequently have devolved the inconvenient

tolls of the land-frontier away from itself on the communities.

 

[93] These caravans (συνοδίαι) appear on the Palmyrene inscriptions

as fixed companies, which undertake the same journeys beyond doubt

at definite intervals under their foreman (συνοδιάρχης, Waddington,

2589, 2590, 2596); thus a statue is erected to such a one by “the

merchants who went down with him to Vologasias” (οἱ σὺν αὐτῷ

κατελθόντες εἰς Ὀλογεσιάδα ἔνποροι, Waddington 2599 of the year 247),

or “up from Forath (comp. Pliny, _H. N._ vi. 28, 145) and Vologasias”

(οἱ συναναβάντες μετ’ αὐτοῦ ἔμποροι ἀπὸ Φοράθου κὲ Ὀλογασιάδος,

Waddington, 2589 of the year 142), or “up from Spasinu Charax” (οἱ

σὺν αὐτῷ ἀναβάντες ἀπὸ Σπασίνου Χάρακος, Waddington, 2596 of the year

193; similarly 2590 of the year 155). All these conductors are men of

standing furnished with lists of ancestors; their honorary monuments

stand in the great colonnade beside those of queen Zenobia and her

family. Specially remarkable is one of them, Septimius Vorodes, of

whom there exists a series of honorary monuments of the years 262-267

(Waddington, 2606-2610); he, too, was a caravan-head (ἀνακομίσαντα τὰς

συνοδίας ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων καὶ μαρτυρηθέντα ὑπὸ τῶν ἀρχεμπόρων, Waddington,

n. 2606 _a_; consequently he defrayed the costs of the journey back

for the whole company, and was on account of this liberality publicly

praised by the wholesale traders). But he filled not merely the

civic offices of _strategos_ and _agoranomos_, he was even imperial

procurator of the second class (_ducenarius_) and _argapetes_ (p. 104,

note 1).

 

[94] According to the Greek account (Zonaras, xii. 21) king Tiridates

takes refuge with the Romans, but his sons take the side of the

Persians; according to the Armenian, king Chosro is murdered by his

brethren, and Chosro’s son, Tiridates, fled to the Romans (Gutschmid,

_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenl. Gesellsch._ xxxi. 48). Perhaps the

latter is to be preferred.

 

[95] The only fixed chronological basis is furnished by the Alexandrian

coins, according to which Valerian was captured between 29th August 259

and 28th August 260. That after his capture he was no longer regarded

as emperor, is easily explained, seeing that the Persians compelled him

in their interest to issue orders to his former subjects (continuation

of Dio, _fr._ 3).

 

[96] The better accounts simply know the fact that Valerian died in

Persian captivity. That Sapor used him as a footstool in mounting his

horse (Lactantius, _de Mort. persec._ 5; Orosius, vii. 22, 4; Victor,

_Ep._ 33), and finally caused him to be flayed (Lactantius, _l. c._;

Agathias, iv. 23; Cedrenus, p. 454) is a Christian invention--a

requital for the persecution of the Christians ordered by Valerian.

 

[97] The tradition according to which Mareades (so Ammianus, xxiii.

5, 3; Mariades in Malalas, 12, p. 295; Mariadnes in contin. of Dio,

_fr._ 1), or, as he is here called, Cyriades, had himself proclaimed

as Augustus (_Vit. trig. tyr._ 1) is weakly attested; otherwise there

might doubtless be found in it the occasion why Sapor caused him to be put to death.