So mighty was in warfare, and so keen,
That no man her surpassed in hardiness.—Chaucer
The Roman Empire reached its greatest size in about 117, when it stretched from Morocco in the west to Persia in the east. Under the Pax Romana—the peace of Rome—inhabitants of this vast empire enjoyed a long period of relative stability and prosperity.
However, the peace began to fray with a series of civil wars and rebellions after the second century. One of the most famous was led by Zenobia (c. 240–c. 274), the queen of the Roman province of Palmyra (in Syria), who declared her land independent in 269 and led a five-year war against the Romans.
Zenobia’s uprising was eventually suppressed by the emperor Aurelian (c. 215–275), and the captive queen was paraded through the streets of Rome in golden chains. But the rebellion dramatically exposed the teetering state of Rome’s imperial authority; within two centuries, the empire would collapse completely.
Born in Palmyra, in what is now Syria, Zenobia married Septimius Odaenathus, the king of the city, in 258. After Odaenathus was assassinated in about 267—in a plot that may have involved Zenobia—she inherited the throne.
Well educated in the Greek classics, Zenobia spoke three languages and was an avid hunter. Historical accounts by Roman authors often portray Zenobia as conspicuously “manly”: She rode a horse into battle and trudged through the desert alongside her soldiers. (And, according to English historian Edward Gibbon [1737–1794], she “never admitted to her husband’s embraces but for the sake of posterity.”) In 269, she invaded the Roman province of Egypt and beheaded the Roman governor. Aurelian, determined to recover Syria and Egypt, launched a counterattack against Zenobia in 272, and he eventually cornered her in the city of Emesa. She attempted to flee on the back of a dromedary—an Arabian camel—but was captured.
While many of her supporters were executed, Zenobia was spared the normal fate of rebels against Roman authority. Impressed by her bravery, Aurelian granted her a villa in Tivoli, near Rome, where she spent the remainder of her life.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- Zenobia appears in “The Monk’s Prologue and Tale,” one of the Canterbury Tales, by English writer Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343–1400).
- Palmyra, one of the ancient world’s greatest cities, was virtually destroyed by the Romans in revenge for Zenobia’s uprising. What little of the city remained was mostly abandoned after an earthquake in 1089. The ruins of Palmyra were declared a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage site in 1980.
- Zenobia is also the scientific name of a genus of white-flowered plants that grow in the southeastern United States; they are commonly known as honeycups.
