The Provinces of the Roman Empire 56

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 56

He is called Callistus in the one tradition, doubtless traceable

to Dexippus, in Syncellus, p. 716, and Zonaras, xii. 23, on the other

hand, Ballista in the biographies of the emperors and in Zonaras, xii.

24.

 

[99] He was, according to the most trustworthy account, _procurator

summarum_ (ἐπὶ τῶν καθόλου λόγων βασιλέως: Dionysius in Eusebius, _H.

E._ vii. 10, 5), and so finance-minister with equestrian rank; the

continuator of Dio (_fr._ 3 Müll.) expresses this in the language of

the later age by κόμης τῶν θησαυρῶν καὶ ἐφεστὼς τῇ ἀγορᾷ τοῦ σίτου.

 

[100] At least according to the report, which forms the basis of the

imperial biographies (_vita Gallieni_, 3, and elsewhere). According

to Zonaras, xii. 24, the only author who mentions besides the end of

Callistus, Odaenathus caused him to be put to death.

 

[101] That Odaenathus, as well as after him his son Vaballathus (apart,

of course, from the time after the rupture with Aurelian), were by

no means Augusti (as the _vit. Gallieni_, 12, erroneously states),

is shown both by the absence of the name of Augustus on the coins

and by the title possible only for a subject, _v(ir) c(onsularis)_

= ὑ(πατικός), which, like the father (p. 97, note 3), the son still

bears. The position of governor is designated on the coins of the son

by _im(perator) d(ux) R(omanorum)_ = αὐτ(οκράτωρ) σ(τρατηγός); in

agreement therewith Zonaras (xii. 23, and again xii. 24) and Syncellus

(p. 716) state that Gallienus appointed Odaenathus, on account of his

victory over the Persians and Ballista, as στρατηγὸς τῆς ἐῴας, or

πάσης ἀνατολῆς; and the biographer of Gallienus, 10, that he _obtinuit

totius Orientis imperium_. By this is meant all the Asiatic provinces

and Egypt; the added _imperator_ = αὐτοκράτωρ (comp. _Trig. tyr._ 15,

6, _post reditum de Perside_--Herodes son of Odaenathus--_cum patre

imperator est appellatus_) is intended beyond doubt to express the

freer handling of power, different from the usual authority of the

governor.--To this was added further the now formally assumed title of

a king of Palmyra (_Trig. tyr._ 15, 2: _adsumpto nomine regali_), which

also the son bears, not on the Egyptian, but on the Syrian coins. The

circumstance that Odaenathus is probably called _melekh malke_, “king

of kings,” on an inscription set up in August 271, and so after his

death and during the war of his adherents with Aurelian (Vogué, n. 28),

belongs to the revolutionary demonstrations of this period and forms no

proof for the earlier time.

 

[102] The numerous inscriptions of Septimius Vorodes, set up in the

years 262 to 267 (Waddington, 2606-2610), and so in the lifetime of

Odaenathus, all designate him as imperial procurator of the second

class (_ducenarius_), but at the same time partly by the title

ἀργαπέτης, which Persian word, current also among the Jews, signifies

“lord of a castle,” “viceroy” (Levy, _Zeitsch. der deutschen morgenl.

Gesellschaft_, xviii. 90; Nöldeke, _ib._ xxiv. 107), partly as

δικαιοδότης τῆς μητροκολωνίας, which, beyond doubt, is in substance

at any rate, if not in language, the same office. Presumably we

must understand by it that office on account of which the father of

Odaenathus is called the “head of Tadmor” (p. 97, note 2); the one

chief of Palmyra competent for martial law and for the administration

of justice; only that, since extended powers were given to the

position of Odaenathus, this post as a subordinate office is filled

by a man of equestrian rank. The conjecture of Sachau (_Zeitschr. der

d. morgenl. Gesellsch._ xxxv. 738) that this Vorodes is the “Wurud”

of a copper coin of the Berlin cabinet, and that both are identical

with the elder son of Odaenathus, Herodes, who was killed at the same

time with his father, is liable to serious difficulties. Herodes and

Orodes are different names (in the Palmyrene inscription, Waddington,

2610, the two stand side by side); the son of a senator cannot well

fill an equestrian office; a procurator coining money with his image

is not conceivable even for this exceptional state of things. Probably

the coin is not Palmyrene at all. “It is,” von Sallet writes to me,

“probably older than Odaenathus, and belongs perhaps to an Arsacid

of the second century A.D.; it shows a head with a headdress similar

to the Sassanid; the reverse, S C in a chaplet of laurel, appears

imitated from the coins of Antioch.”--If subsequently, after the breach

with Rome in 271, on an inscription of Palmyra (Waddington, 2611) two

generals of the Palmyrenes are distinguished, ὁ μέγας στρατηλάτης, the

historically known Zabdas, and ὁ ἐνθάδε στρατηλάτης, Zabbaeos, the

latter is, it may be presumed, just the Argapetes.

 

[103] The state of the case speaks in favour of this; evidence is

wanting. In the imperial biographies of this epoch the Armenians

are wont to be adduced among the border peoples independent of Rome

(_Valer._ 6; _Trig. tyr._ 30, 7, 18; _Aurel._ 11, 27, 28, 41); but this

is one of their quite untrustworthy elements of embellishment.

 

[104] This more modest account (Eutropius, ix. 10; _vita Gallieni_, 10;

_Trig. tyr._ 15, 4; Zos. i. 39, who alone attests the two expeditions)

must be preferred to that which mentions the capture of the city

(Syncellus, p. 716).

 

[105] This is shown by the accounts as to Carinus (cont. of Dio, p. 8)

and as to Rufinus (p. 106, note 2). That after the death of Odaenathus

Heraclianus, a general acting on Gallienus’s orders against the

Persians, was attacked and conquered by Zenobia (_vita Gallieni_, 13,

5), is in itself not impossible, seeing that the princes of Palmyra

possessed _de iure_ the chief command in all the East, and such an

action, even if it were suggested by Gallienus, might be treated as

offending against this right, and this would clearly indicate the

strained relation; but the authority vouching it is so bad that little

stress can be laid on it.

 

[106] This we learn from the characteristic narrative of Petrus, _fr._

10, which is to be placed before _fr._ 11.

 

[107] The account of the continuator of Dio, _fr._ 7, that the

old Odaenathus was put to death, as suspected of treason, by one

(not elsewhere mentioned) Rufinus, and that the younger, when he

had impeached this person at the bar of the emperor Gallienus, was

dismissed on the declaration of Rufinus that the accuser deserved the

same fate, cannot be correct as it stands. But Waddington’s proposal

to substitute Gallus for Gallienus, and to recognise in the accuser

the husband of Zenobia, is not admissible, since the father of this

Odaenathus was Hairanes, in whose case there existed no ground at

all for such an execution, and the excerpt in its whole character

undoubtedly applies to Gallienus. Rather must the old Odaenathus have

been the husband of Zenobia, and the author have erroneously assigned

to Vaballathus, in whose name the charge was brought, his father’s name.

 

[108] All the details which are current in our accounts of Zenobia

originate from the imperial biographies; and they will only be repeated

by such as do not know this source.

 

[109] The name Vaballathus is given, in addition to the coins and

inscriptions, by Polemius Silvius, p. 243 of my edition, and the

biographer of Aurelian, c. 38, while he describes as incorrect the

statement that Odaenathus had left two sons, Timolaus and Herennianus.

In reality these two persons emerging simply in the imperial

biographies appear along with all that is connected with them as

invented by the writer, to whom the thorough falsification of these

biographies is to be referred. Zosimus too, i. 59, knows only of one

son, who went into captivity with his mother.

 

[110] Whether Zenobia claimed for herself formal joint-rule, cannot

be certainly determined. In Palmyra she names herself still after the

rupture with Rome merely βασιλίσση (Waddington, 2611, 2628), in the

rest of the empire she may have laid claim to the title _Augusta_,

Σεβαστή; for, though there are no coins of Zenobia from the period

prior to the breach with Rome, yet on the one hand the Alexandrian

inscription with βασιλισσης καὶ βασιλέως προσταξάντων (_Eph. epigr._

iv. p. 25, p. 33) cannot lay any claim to official redaction, and

on the other hand the inscription of Byblos, _C. I. Gr._ 4503 b =

Waddington, n. 2611, gives in fact to Zenobia the title Σεβαστή

alongside of Claudius or Aurelian, while it refuses it to Vaballathus.

This is so far intelligible, as Augusta was an honorary designation,

Augustus an official one, and thus that might well be conceded to the

woman which was refused to the man.

 

[111] So Zosimus, i. 44, narrates the course of events with which

Zonaras, xii. 27 and Syncellus, p. 721, in the main agree. The report

in the life of Claudius, c. 11, is more displaced than properly

contradictory; the first half is only indicated by the naming of Saba;

the narrative begins with the successful attempt of Timagenes to ward

off the attack of Probus (here Probatus). The view taken of this by me

in Sallet (_Palmyra_, p. 44) is not tenable.

 

[112] The determination of the date depends on the fact that the

usurpation-coins of Vaballathus cease already in the fifth year of his

Egyptian reign, _i.e._ 29th August 270-71; the fact that they are very

rare speaks for the beginning of the year. With this essentially agrees

the circumstance that the storming of the Prucheion (which, we may add,

was no part of the city, but a locality close by the city on the side

of the great oasis; Hieronymus, _vit. Hilarionis_, c. 33, 34, vol. ii.

p. 32 Vall.) is put by Eusebius in his Chronicle in the first year of

Claudius, by Ammianus, xxii. 16, 15, under Aurelian; the most exact

report in Eusebius, _H. Eccl._ vii. 32, is not dated. The reconquest

of Egypt by Probus stands only in his biography, c. 9; it may have

happened as it is told, but it is possible also that in this thoroughly

falsified source the history of Timagenes has been _mutatis mutandis_

transferred to the emperor.

 

[113] This is perhaps what the report on the battle of Hemesa,

extracted by Zosimus, i. 52, wished to bring out, when it enumerates

among the troops of Aurelian the Dalmatians, Moesians, Pannonians,

Noricans, Raetians, Mauretanians, and the guard. When he associates

with these the troops of Tyana and some divisions from Mesopotamia,

Syria, Phoenice, Palestine, this applies beyond doubt to the

Cappadocian garrisons, which had joined after the capture of Tyana,

and to some divisions of the armies of the East favourably disposed to

Rome, who went over to Aurelian upon his marching into Syria.

 

[114] By mistake Eutropius, ix. 13, places the decisive battle _haud

longe ab Antiochia_: the mistake is heightened in Rufius, c. 24 (on

whom Hieronymus, _chron. a. Abr._ 2289 depends), and in Syncellus,

p. 721, by the addition _apud Immas_, ἐν Ἴμμαις, which place, lying

33 Roman miles from Antioch on the road to Chalcis, is far away from

Hemesa. The two chief accounts, in Zosimus and the biographer of

Aurelian, agree in all essentials.

 

[115] This is the name given by Zosimus, i. 60, and Polemius Silvius,

p. 243; the Achilleus of the biographer of Aurelian, c. 31, seems a

confusion with the usurper of the time of Diocletian.--That at the same

time in Egypt a partisan of Zenobia and at the same time robber-chief,

by name Firmus, rose against the government, is doubtless possible, but

the statement rests only on the imperial biographies, and the details

added sound very suspicious.

 

[116] The chronology of these events is not quite settled. The rarity

of the Syrian coins of Vaballathus as Augustus shows that the rupture

with Aurelian (end of 270) was soon followed by the conquest. According

to the dated inscriptions of Odaenathus and Zenobia of August 271

(Waddington, 2611), the rule of the queen was at that time still

intact. As an expedition of this sort, from the conditions of the

climate, could not well take place otherwise than in spring, the first

capture of Palmyra must have ensued in the spring of 272. The most

recent (merely Palmyrene) inscription which we know from that quarter

(Vogué, n. 116) is of August 272. The insurrection probably falls at

this time; the second capture and the destruction somewhere in the

spring of the year 273 (in accordance with which, I. 166, note 1, is to be corrected).