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Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch in the 160s, when it was ruled by Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, was criticized for his doctrine of Christ and his worldly lifestyle. A synod decided that he be removed from office, but he had enthusiastic support from many people in Antioch. The fall of Zenobia changed the political situation, and emperor Aurelian ruled in favour of Roman doctrine.

This chapter reflects on the British fishing industry that boomed in 1913 and in the years preceding the outbreak of the Great War. It refers to the Grimsby steam trawler Zenobia that was detained for several hours in Heligoland after being stopped by a German gunboat on 4 August 1914, but then was eventually allowed to proceed. It also recalls the German trawler Else Kunkel and fishing smack Hammil Warden that were detained after sailing into Aberdeen, unaware that war had been declared the previous night. The chapter mentions the Admiralty that had been keen to get fishing vessels off the North Sea as the waters were likely to be on the front line of the maritime war, providing no place for civilian fishing vessels. It elaborates how substantial numbers of fishermen and fishing vessels became required for wartime naval security duties.

Gives a history of the volume’s publication and circulation within the context of the early non-official press and book publishing sector in Egypt, followed by a discussion of the book’s themes as illustrated by its biographies of individual women. These themes include the importance for girl readers of learning history, or history reading as moral pedagogy; the importance and ideal content of girls’ education; marriage as supportive and destructive to women, and the new ideal of ‘companionate marriage’; women and political power; women and scholarship; and women and waged work. These were all addressed in Fawwaz’s essays as well, some of which feature here. Discussion of individual biographies offers a sense of the wide-ranging geographical and temporal scope of Fawwaz’s achievement.

This chapter examines the representation of the women rulers Tomyris, Zenobia, and Artemisia II in the gallery books and dramas produced during Anne of Austria’s regency in seventeenth-century France. It examines the ways in which the dynamic of gender and sovereign virtue is varyingly cast, and the construction of exemplarity diversely negotiated, in the reception of the three rulers. While Artemisia is aligned with a gendered female virtue, Zenobia is cast as the morally androgynous ‘complete prince’, and Du Bosc’s Tomyris subverts the very concept of a binary sexual ethics. Furthermore, their reception demonstrates the ways in which the rhetoric of exemplarity at the time hinges on the erosion of distance and difference, as ancient and modern examples are merged in the instruction and glorification of contemporary women, not least the rulers Anne of Austria and Christina of France, duchess of Savoy.

Paul of Samosata succeeded Demetrianus as bishop of Antioch. He held a government post as ducenarius (i.e., a procurator with a salary of 200,000 sesterces per annum) in the service of Palmyra's queen, Zenobia. This chapter examines the belief and practice of Paul in the context of cultural and political relationships in Roman Syria. It discusses Paul's procuratorship, Zenobia's patronage to Paul, and the events leading up to the deposition of Paul. Zenobia's leanings to Judaism combined with the resemblance between Paul's view of Christ and Jewish belief may explain how the story of their connection arose. Paul was later accused of heresy but refused to leave the church. His opponents successfully appealed to Aurelian and Paul was condemned at the second synod held in 268/9.

Chapter seven begins with Piranesi, the artist who rendered Rome’s ruined stage visible in the new age of exploration and conquest. The author draws out the similarity between Piranesi’s staging of Rome’s ruins and the form that ruin gazer scenarios take in texts by François de Volney and Johann Gottfried Herder, who centered their scenes on the ruins of Rome and Carthage (Herder) and those of Palmyra and London (Volney). She introduces these two authors, who wrote in the wake of eighteenth-century British and French voyages of discovery, as anti-imperial, anticolonial theorists of empire and mimesis. She explores their reflections on barbarians, ancient and modern.

Palmyra stood caught between two opposing empires—Rome, to the West, and Parthia, to the East. This chapter offers new insights into the ties that connected Palmyra with these empires, the networks that drew them together, and the fractures that developed between Rome and Palmyra and led to Zenobia’s failed rebellion. The chapter draws on historical sources to offer an overview of Roman and Parthian interactions in the region and the tensions that arose between them, but it also draws on material finds to explore the role played by Palmyrenes outside the city, tracing Palmyrene evidence from Egypt and the Indian Ocean to Rome and the shores of Great Britain. Finally, Zenobia’s rise to power and her bid to control a large swathe of the region is examined. Evidence for her leadership, such as coinage and inscriptions are assessed, followed by a discussion of her failed coup, and the sacking of Palmyra by Aurelian.

In many respects, Zenobia’s fame is a paradox. She has captured the medieval and modern imagination, but ancient sources actually say very little about her. The introductory chapter thus explores the textual, epigraphic, and material sources for Zenobia and outlines the challenges of writing a book about her. The overlying aim of the book is to create a likeness of Zenobia, a most elusive task because the sources are so scanty. But by using various later Roman and Byzantine texts, Jewish and Arab tales, and visual sources and inscriptions, the book may bring parts of her life to light. The introduction also communicates how the book narrates Zenobia’s various lived experiences at ancient Palmyra and the key role that Palmyra’s material culture plays in this task.

For roughly the first thirty years of her life, the Syrian city of Palmyra was Zenobia’s home. Zenobia called Palmyra Tadmor; it shaped the terms of her very existence as well as many of her lived experiences. This chapter provides a basic introduction to Zenobia’s Palmyra and enables the reader to glimpse Zenobia as she crosses its terrain in religious procession. As the procession takes Zenobia among Palmyra’s main thoroughfares, civic spaces, and religious precincts, it introduces the reader to various key sites of the urban terrain that Zenobia inhabited and certain aspects of her religious world, including the famous precinct for Bel.

This chapter explores the kinship structures, civic ethos, agrarian production, and caravan trade of the Palmyrenes during the Roman imperial period. The social and economic landscape of Palmyra had an indelible impact on Zenobia’s experiences. It provided her with the resources that would one day enable her rule, and it defined her relationships with others for much of her life. As a Palmyrene, Zenobia belonged to a household, clan, and tribe. She was at once a Syrian, a Greek, and a Roman shaped by Arabian traditions. Altogether, she participated in Palmyra’s fully multicultural and multilingual world.

As a child and maiden at Palmyra, Zenobia had to weather various life transitions, including menstruation, marriage, pregnancy, and widowhood. This chapter gives us a glimpse of Zenobia’s formative years and examines various elements of Palmyrene domestic life in order to situate Zenobia within general patterns of lived experience. Particular attention is paid to household relations; amenities and consumption; the impact of gender, social status, and age; slavery and slave owning; and religious practices of women. As a young woman of wealth, Zenobia did not engage in manual work; this was done by either slaves or paid domestic servants. They also tended to her dress and jewelry, meal preparation, and other domestic labor. As for divine worship, Zenobia expressed her devotion to many gods and had an active religious life.

As a Palmyrene woman, Zenobia was expected to marry by members of her community. This chapter traces Zenobia’s life from childhood to maidenhood and then to marriage and maternity, which was considered the threshold of womanhood in Palmyra. A number of social factors affected her transition: her clothes, her hygiene, and her education. Zenobia wore tunics covered with a mantle or cloak, and at various stages of her life, she experimented with different styles of jewelry. As a young girl, her hair was uncovered; after marriage and childbirth, her hair was normally concealed from men outside her household. Little is known of Zenobia’s education as a child or young girl, but as a ruler, she could read and write both Palmyrenean and Greek. Also discussed in this chapter are norms affecting courtship and betrothal that brought Zenobia to Odainath’s household.

Zenobia’s marriage to Odainath, the Palmyrene dynast, had a huge impact on her life. Her rise to power would thereafter be closely linked to his political fortunes. This chapter examines the prominence of Odainath and the children that Zenobia bore to him. Historical sources present confusing accounts of the number of children they had. The only undisputed child is Wahballath, though she may have had other children in the late 250s and 260s. Zenobia also was a property owner, for in Palmyra women could own and manage property. This chapter also gives a detailed account of Odainath’s successful political and military career as Palmyra’s leader.

In late 267 or early 268, Zenobia’s husband Odainath was assassinated. Who killed him and why is controversial. Many theories have been proposed, but none can be said to be conclusive. Some sources implicate disgruntled Palmyrenes, often a relative. One even points the finger at Zenobia. Other sources suggest the involvement of the emperor Gallienus’s staff. Both Palmyrenes and Gallienus’s court were probably involved. What is more certain is that Zenobia had to ensure that her husband received a proper burial. This chapter also narrates the arrangements that Zenobia made for Odainath’s funeral. Zenobia had her husband’s corpse prepared, gave him a public burial involving processions and solemn rituals, and likely laid him to rest in a temple tomb.

After Odainath died, Zenobia assumed political authority over Palmyra on behalf of her son Wahballath, proclaiming him “king of kings” and governor of Odainath’s territories. Her reign was eventful. As queen, Zenobia emulated powerful women rulers, whether contemporary or from remote antiquity. She controlled a vast amount of Roman territory from Egypt to Anatolia and upper Mesopotamia. But rather than admitting to a breach with the Roman court, Zenobia insisted that she was governing Roman territory on its behalf. As ruler, she governed diverse subjects, including Jews, Christians, and Manichaeans.

In early 272, the emperor Aurelian, who deemed Zenobia’s authority to be illegitimate and her bid for power unsanctioned, invaded her territory. Zenobia responded by claiming the titles of Augusta and Augustus for herself and Wahballath. Suffering a series of defeats, Zenobia attempted to flee Palmyra as Aurelian’s forces invested the city. While the sources diverge in their treatment of Zenobia’s fate, the evidence indicates that Aurelian displayed her in his triumph and settled her with Wahballath and her other children at Tibur, near Rome. There she spent the rest of her life.

For nearly two millennia after she lived, people have remembered Zenobia. In Europe, numerous writers and artists over the ages, including Edward Gibbon, have celebrated her as a figure of womanly virtue and an eastern queen. In the Middle East, she has been seen as a focal point for ideals of liberation and autonomy. Indeed, for the Arab world, she is a liberator from Western imperialism. Her varied likenesses have outlived all these figurations. They have even outlived the Assad regime’s politicizing of Zenobia and her Palmyra as well as the Islamic State’s destruction of its monuments and portraits. It is through all these narratives that Zenobia will continue to live and to die.