TADMOR
160
TADMOR
the northern barbarians, who now began their incur- sions into the llimian eiii|iirc, I'elt tlie force of his arms.
Otlenatlius beiiueatlieil his power to a worthy suc- cessor— Zenobia. his willow; and the names of Zenobia and Pahnyra will always be assowated so king as histo- ry remains. The virtue, the wisdom, and the heroic spirit of this extraordinary woman have seldom been equalled. At first she was content with the title of regent during tlie minority of lier son Vaballatiis, but unfortunately ambition prompted her to adopt the high- sounding title of "(.^ueen of the East." IShe soon add- ed Egyi)t to her possessions in Syria, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia, and ruled over it during a period of five years. lu A.D. 271 the emperor Aurelian turned his arms against her, and having defeated her in a pitched battle near Antioch and in another at Emesa, he drove her back upon her desert home. He then marched his vet- erans across the parclicd plain and invested Palmyra, which cajiitulated after a brief struggle. Zenobia at- tempted to escape, but was cajjtured on the banks of the Euphrates, and brought back to the presence of the con- queror. She was taken to Kome, and there, covered with her jewels and bound by fetters of gold, she was led along in front of the triumphant Aurelian. Zeno- bia deserved a better fate. If common humanity did not prevent the Koman citizens from exulting over an honorable, though fallen, foe, the memory of her bus- band's victories and of his services rendered to the State might have saved her from the indignitj' of appearing before a mob in chains.
Aurelian took Palmyra in A.D. 272, and left in it a small garrison, but soon after his departure the people rose and massacred them. On hearing of this tlie em- peror returned, pillaged the city, and ]nit the inhabi- tants to the sword. It was soon repaired by the orders of the conqueror, and the Tenifde of the Sun rebuilt; but it never recovered its former opulence. Tweirty years later, under the r^ign of Diocletian, the walls of ths city were rebuilt. It appears from an inscription to have assisted the emperor Alexander Severus in his wars against the Persians; and there are proofs of its having
continued to be inhabited until the downfall of tlie Ro- man empire. There is a fragment of a liuilding with a Latin inscription bearing tiie name of Didcletian ; and there are existing walls of the ciiy of the age of the em- peror Justinian, together with the remains of a costly aqueduct which he built. It eventually became the seat of a bishop, but never recovered any importance. When the successors of Mohammed extended their conquests beyond the confines of Arabia, I'ahnyra was one of the first places which became sulijcct to the cali|ihs. In the year 05".) a battle was here fought between the caliphs Ali and Moawiyah, and won by the former. In 744 it was still so strongly fortified that it took the caliph Merwan seven months to reduce it, the rebel Solyman having shut himself up in it.
From this period Palmyra seems to have gradually fallen into decay. Benjamin of Tndela, who was there towards the end of the 12th century, siieaks of it as '•Thailmor in the desert, biiiiL by Solomon of equally large stones [with Paalbec]. This city is surrounded by a wall, and stands in the desert, far from any inhab- ited place. It is four days' journey from Baalath [Baal- bec], and contains 2000 warlike Jews, who are at war with the Christians and with the Arabian subjects of Noureddin, and aid their neighljors the ]\Iohammedans." In connection with this statement, it may be remarked that the existing inscriptions of Palmyra attest the pres- ence of Jews there in its most flourishing period, and that they, in common with its other citizens, shared in the general trade, and were even objects of public honor. One inscription intimates the erection of a statue to Julius Schalmalat, a Jew, for having at his own ex- pense conducted a caravan to Palmyra. This was in A.D. 258, not long before the time of Zenobia, who, ac- cording to some writers, was of Jewish extraction. Irby and Mangles {Travels, p. 273) also noticed a Hebrew in- scription on the architrave of the great colonnade, but give no copy of it, nor say what it expressed. The latest historical notice of Tadmor which we have been able to find is, that it was plundered in 1400 by the army of Timur Beg (Tamerlane), when 200,000 sheep
•
^ -" ^';
'^.-:;.vli%
Plan of the Ruins of Palmyra.
TADMOR
161
TADMOR
were taken (Rankin, Wars of the Monrjnls). Abulfcda, at tlie beginning of the 14th century {Descript. A nib. p. ;i8), speaks of Tadmor as merely a village, but cele- brated for its ruins of old and magnificent edilices. These relics of ancient art and magnificence were scarcely known in Europe till towards the close of the 17th cen- tnr\\ In the j'ear 1678 some English merchants at Aleppo resolved to verifj' by actual inspection the re- p(jrts concerning these ruins which existed in that place. The expedition was unfortunate, for they were plun- dered of everything by the Arabs, and returned with their object unaccomplished. A second expedition, in 1091, had better success; but the accounts which were brought back received little credit, as it seemed unlike- ly that a city which, according to their report, must have been so magnificent, should have been erected in the midst of deserts. When, however, in the year 1753, Robert Wood published the views and plans which had been taken with great accuracy on the spot two years before by Dawkins, the truth of the earlier accounts could no longer be doubted ; and it appeared that nei- ther Greece nor Italy could exhibit antiipiities which, in point of splendor, could rival those of Palmyra. From that time it has frequently been visited by travellers, and it is now readilv accessible by an excursion on camels from Damascus. Its ruins have often been de- scribed and delineated.