Septimia Zenobia (Palmyrene Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; 240 – c. 274) was a third-century queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Syria. Many legends surround her ancestry; she was probably not a commoner and she married the ruler of the city, Odaenathus. Her husband became king in 260, elevating Palmyra to supreme power in the Near East by defeating the Sasanian Empire of Persia and stabilizing the Roman East. After Odaenathus' assassination, Zenobia became the regent of her son Vaballathus and held de facto power throughout his reign.
In 270, Zenobia launched an invasion that brought most of the Roman East under her sway and culminated with the annexation of Egypt. By mid-271 her realm extended from Ancyra, central Anatolia, to Upper Egypt, although she remained nominally subordinate to Rome. However, in reaction to the campaign of the Roman emperor Aurelian in 272, Zenobia declared her son emperor and assumed the title of empress, thus declaring Palmyra's secession from Rome. The Romans were victorious after heavy fighting; the empress was besieged in her capital and captured by Aurelian, who exiled her to Rome, where she spent the remainder of her life.
Zenobia was a cultured monarch and fostered an intellectual environment in her court, which was open to scholars and philosophers. She was tolerant toward her subjects and protected religious minorities. The empress maintained a stable administration, which governed a multicultural, multiethnic empire. Zenobia died after 274, and many tales have been recorded about her fate. Her rise and fall have inspired historians, artists and novelists, and she is a patriotic symbol in Syria.
Name, appearance and sources
Zenobia was born c. 240–241, and bore the gentilicium (surname) Septimia. Her native Palmyrene name was Bat-Zabbai (written "Btzby" in the Palmyrene alphabet), an Aramaic name meaning "daughter of Zabbai". Such compound names for women were common in Palmyra, where the element "bt" means daughter, but the personal name that follows does not necessarily denote the immediate father, rather referring to the ancestor of the family. In Greek—Palmyra's diplomatic and second language, used in many Palmyrene inscriptions—she used the name Zenobia. In Palmyra, when written in Greek, names such as Zabeida, Zabdila, Zabbai or Zabda were often transformed into "Zenobios" (masculine) and "Zenobia" (feminine). The element "Zabbai" from Zenobia's native name means "gift of N.N. [god]", and the name Zenobia translates to "one whose life derives from Zeus". The historian Victor Duruy believed that the queen used the Greek name as a translation of her native name, in deference to her Greek subjects. The philologist Wilhelm Dittenberger argued that the name Bat-Zabbai underwent a detortum (twist), thus resulting in the name Zenobia.
The ninth-century historian al-Tabari, in his highly fictionalized account, wrote that the queen's name was Na'ila al-Zabba'. Manichaean sources, reporting the visit of the apostle Addai to the region during the time of Odaenathus, called Zenobia "Queen Tadi", wife of kysr (caesar). The name given to Zenobia in those Manichaean writings seems to derive from Tadmor, Palmyra's native name, and this is supported by the Coptic Acts Codex, where Zenobia is named Queen Thadmor.
No contemporary statues of Zenobia have been found in Palmyra or elsewhere, only inscriptions on statues bases survive, indicating that a statue of the queen once stood in the place; most known representations of Zenobia are the idealized portraits of her found on her coins. Sculptures of Palmyrene style were normally impersonal, unlike Greek and Roman ones: a statue of Zenobia in this style would have given an idea of her general style in dress and jewelry but would not have revealed her true appearance. British scholar William Wright visited Palmyra toward the end of the nineteenth century in a vain search for a sculpture of the queen.
In addition to archaeological evidence, Zenobia's life was recorded in different ancient sources but many are flawed or fabricated; the Historia Augusta, a late-Roman collection of biographies, is the most notable (albeit unreliable) source for the era. The author (or authors) of the Historia Augusta invented many events and letters attributed to Zenobia in the absence of contemporary sources. Some Historia Augusta accounts are corroborated from other sources, and are more credible. The Byzantine chronicler Joannes Zonaras is considered an important source for the life of Zenobia.