The Project Gutenberg eBook of the Provinces of the Roman Empire, Vol. II., by Theodor Mommsen.

47 That Axidares (or Exedares) was a son of Pacorus and king of Armenia before Parthomasiris, but had been deposed by Chosroes, is shown by the remnants of Dio’s account, lxviii. 17; and to this point also the two fragments of Arrian (16 Müller), the first, probably from an address of a supporter of the interests of Axidares to Trajan: Ἀξιδάρην δὲ ὅτι ἄρχειν χρὴ Ἀρμενίας, οὔ μοι δοκεῖ εἶναί σε ἀμφίλογον, whereupon doubtless the complaints brought against Parthomasiris followed; and the answer, evidently of the emperor, that it is not the business of Axidares, but his, to judge as to Parthomasiris, because he—apparently Axidares—had first broken the treaty and suffered for it. What fault the emperor imputes to Axidares is not clear; but in Dio also Chosroes says that he has not satisfied either the Romans or the Parthians.

48 The remnants of Dio’s account in Xiphilinus and Zonaras show clearly that the Parthian expedition falls into two campaigns, the first (Dio, lvi. 17, 1, 18, 2, 23–25), which is fixed at 115 A.D. by the consulate of Pedo (the date also of Malalas, p. 275, for the earthquake of Antioch, 13 Dec. 164 of the Antiochene era = 115 A.D. agrees therewith), and the second (Dio, c. 26–32, 3), which is fixed at 116 A.D. by the conferring of the title Parthicus (c. 28, 2), took place between April and August of that year (see my notice in Droysen, Hellenismus, iii. 2, 361). That at c. 23 the titles Optimus (conferred in the course of 114 A.D.) and Parthicus are mentioned out of the order of time, is shown as well by their juxtaposition as by the later recurrence of the second honour. Of the fragments most belong to the first campaign; c. 22, 3 and probably also 22, 1, 2 to the second.—The acclamations of imperator do not stand in the way. Trajan was demonstrably in the year 113 imp. VI. (C. I. L. vi. 960); in the year 114 imp. VII. (C. I. L. ix. 1558 et al.); in the year 115 imp. IX. (C. I. L. ix. 5894 et al.), and imp. XI. (Fabretti, 398, 289 et al.); in the year 116 imp. XII. (C. I. L. viii. 621, x. 1634), and XIII. (C. I. L. iii. D. xxvii.). Dio attests an acclamation from the year 115 (lxviii. 19), and one from the year 116 (lxviii. 28); there is ample room for both, and there is no reason to refer imp. VII. precisely, as has been attempted, to the subjugation of Armenia.

49 The pungent description of the Syrian army of Trajan in Fronto (p. 206 f. Naber) agrees almost literally with that of the army of Corbulo in Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 35. “The Roman troops generally had sadly degenerated (ad ignaviam redactus) through being long disused to military service; but the most wretched of the soldiers were the Syrian, insubordinate, refractory, unpunctual at the call to arms, not to be found at their post, drunk from midday onward; unaccustomed even to carry arms and incapable of fatigue, ridding themselves of one piece of armour after another, half naked like the light troops and the archers. Besides they were so demoralised by the defeats they had suffered that they turned their backs at the first sight of the Parthians, and the trumpets were regarded by them, as it were, as giving the signal to run away.” In the contrasting description of Trajan it is said among other things: “He did not pass through the tents without closely concerning himself as to the soldiers, but showed his contempt for the Syrian luxury, and looked closely into the rough doings of the Pannonians (sed contemnere—so we must read—Syrorum munditias, introspicere Pannoniorum inscitias); so he judged of the serviceableness (ingenium) of the man according to his bearing (cultus).” In the Oriental army of Severus also the “European” and the Syrian soldiers are distinguished (Dio, lxxv. 12).

50 This is shown by the mala proelia in the passage of Fronto quoted, and by Dio’s statement, lxviii. 19, that Trajan took Samosata without a struggle; thus the 16th legion stationed there had lost it.

51 It may be that at the same time Armenia also revolted. But when Gutschmid (quoted by Dierauer in Büdinger’s Untersuchungen, i. 179), makes Meherdotes and Sanatrukios, whom Malalas adduces as kings of Persia in the Trajanic war, into kings of Armenia again in revolt, this result is attained by a series of daring conjectures, which shift the names of persons and peoples as much as they transform the causal nexus of events. There are certainly found in the confused coil of legends of Malalas some historical facts, e.g. the installation of Parthamaspates (who is here son of king Chosroes of Armenia) as king of Parthia by Trajan; and so, too, the dates of Trajan’s departure from Rome in October (114), of his landing in Seleucia in December, and of his entrance into Antioch on the 7th Jan. (115) may be correct. But, as this report stands, the historian can only decline to accept it; he cannot rectify it.

52 Fronto, Princ. hist. p. 209 Naber: cum praesens Traianus Euphratis et Tigridis portoria equorum et camelorum trib[utaque ordinaret, Ma]cer (?) caesus est. This applies to the moment when Babylonia and Mesopotamia revolted, while Trajan was tarrying at the mouth of the Tigris.

53 Nearly with equal warrant, Julian (Caes. p. 328) makes the emperor say that he had not taken up arms against the Parthians before they had violated right, and Dio (lxviii. 17) reproaches him with having waged the war from ambition.

54 Hadrian cannot possibly have released Armenia from the position of a Roman dependency. The notice of his biographer, c. 21: Armeniis regem habere permisit, cum sub Traiano legatum habuissent points rather to the contrary, and we find at the end of Hadrian’s reign a contingent of Armenians in the army of the governor of Cappadocia (Arrian, c. Alan. 29). Pius did not merely induce the Parthians by his representations to desist from the intended invasion of Armenia (vita, 9), but also in fact invested them with Armenia (coins from the years 140–144, Eckhel, vii. p. 15). The fact also that Iberia certainly stood in the relation of dependence under Pius, because otherwise the Parthians could not have brought complaints as to its king in Rome (Dio, lxix. 15), presupposes a like dependent relation for Armenia. The names of the Armenian kings of this period are not known. If the proximae gentes, with the rule of which Hadrian compensated the Parthian prince nominated as Parthian king by Trajan (vita, c. 5), were in fact Armenians, which is not improbable, there lies in it a confirmation as well of the lasting dependence of Armenia on Rome as of the continuous rule of the Arsacids there. Even the Ἀυρήλιος Πάκορος βασιλεὺς μεγάλης Ἀρμενίας, who erected a monument in Rome to his brother Aurelius Merithates who died there (C. I. Gr. 6559), belongs from his name to the house of the Arsacids. But he was hardly the king of Armenia installed by Vologasus IV. and deposed by the Romans (p. 74); if the latter had come to Rome as a captive, we should know it, and even he would hardly have been allowed to call himself king of Great Armenia in a Roman inscription.

55 As vassals holding from Trajan or Hadrian, Arrian (Peripl. c. 15) adduces the Heniochi and Machelones (comp. Dio, lxviii. 18; lxxi. 14); the Lazi (comp. Suidas, s. v. Δομετιανός), over whom also Pius put a king (vita, 9); the Apsilae; the Abasgi; the Sanigae, these all within the imperial frontier reaching as far as Dioscurias = Sebastopolis; beyond it, in the region of the Bosporan vassal-state, the Zichi or Zinchi (ib. c. 27).

56 This is confirmed not only by Arrian, Peripl. c. 7, but by the officer of Hadrian’s time praepositus numerorum tendentium in Ponto Absaro (C. I. L. x. 1202).

57 Comp. p. 75 note 2. The detachment probably of 1000 men (because under a tribune) doing garrison duty in the year 185 in Valarshapat (Etshmiazin) not far from Artaxata, belonged to one of the Cappadocian legions (C. I. L. iii. 6052).

58 Hadrian’s efforts after the friendship of the Oriental vassal-princes are often brought into prominence, not without a hint that he was more than fairly indulgent to them (vita, c. 13, 17, 21). Pharasmanes of Iberia did not come to Rome on his invitation, but complied with that of Pius (vita Hadr. 13, 21; vita Pii, 9; Dio, lxix. 15, 2, which excerpt belongs to Pius).

59 We still possess the remarkable report of the governor of Cappadocia under Hadrian, Flavius Arrianus, upon the mobilising of the Cappadocian army against the “Scythians” among his minor writings; he was himself at the Caucasus and visited the passes there (Lydus, de Mag. iii. 53).

60 This we learn from the fragments of Dio’s account in Xiphilinus, Zonaras, and in the Excerpts; Zonaras has preserved the correct reading Ἀλανοί instead of Ἀλβανοί; that the Alani pillaged also the territory of the Albani, is shown by the setting of the exc. Ursin. lxxii.

61 So he is named in Lucian, Hist. conscr. 21; if the same calls him (Alex. 27) Othryades, he is drawing here from a historian of the stamp of those whom he ridicules in that treatise, and of whom another Hellenised the same man as Oxyroes (Hist. conscr. c. 18).

62 Syria was administered when the war broke out by L. Attidius Cornelianus (C. I. Gr. 4661 of the year 160; vita Marci, 8; C. I. L. iii. 129 of the year 162), after him by Julius Verus (C. I. L. iii. 199, probably of the year 163) and then by Avidius Cassius presumably from the year 164. The statement that the other provinces of the East were assigned to Cassius’s command (Philostratus, vit. Soph. i. 13; Dio, lxxi. 3), similarly to what was done to Corbulo as legate of Cappadocia, can only relate to the time after the departure of the emperor Verus; so long as the latter held the nominal chief command there was no room for it.

63 A fragment probably of Dio (in Suidas s. v. Μάρτιος), tells that Priscus in Armenia laid out the Καινὴ πόλις and furnished it with a Roman garrison, his successor Martius Verus silenced the national movement that had arisen there, and declared this city the first of Armenia. This was Valarshapat (Οὐαλαρσαπάτ or Οὐαλεροκτίστη in Agathangelos), thenceforth the capital of Armenia. Καινὴ πόλις was, as Kiepert informs me, already recognised by Stilting as translation of the Armenian Nôr-Khalakh, which second name Valarshapat constantly bears in Armenian authors of the fifth century alongside of the usual one. Moses of Chorene, following Bardesanes, makes the town originate from a Jewish colony brought thither under king Tigranes VI., who according to him reigned 150–188; he refers the enclosing of it with walls and the naming of it to his son Valarsch II. 188–208. That the town had a strong Roman garrison in 185 is shown by the inscription C. I. L. iii. 6052.

64 That Sohaemus was Achaemenid and Arsacid (or professed to be) and king’s son and king, as well as Roman senator and consul, before he became king of Great Armenia, is stated by his contemporary Jamblichus (c. 10 of the extract in Photius). Probably he belonged to the dynastic family of Hemesa (Josephus, Arch. xx. 8, 4, et al.) If Jamblichus the Babylonian wrote “under him,” this can doubtless only be understood to the effect that he composed his romance in Artaxata. That Sohaemus ruled over Armenia before Pacorus is nowhere stated, and is not probable, since neither Fronto’s words (p. 127 Naber), quod Sohaemo potius quam Vologaeso regnum Armeniae dedisset aut quod Pacorum regno privasset, or those of the fragment from Dio (?) lxxi. 1: Μάρτιος Οὐῆρος τὸν Θουκυδίδην ἐκπέμπει καταγαγεῖν Σόαιμον ἐς Ἀρμενίαν point to reinstatement, and the coins with rex Armeniis datus (Eckhel, vii. 91, comp. vita Veri, 7, 8) in fact exclude it. We do not know the predecessor of Pacorus, and are not even aware whether the throne which he took possession of was vacant or occupied.

65 This is shown by the Mesopotamian royal and urban coins. There are no accounts in our tradition as to the conditions of peace.

66 The beginning of the Ursinian excerpt of Dio, lxxv. 1, 2, is confused. Οἱ Ὀρροηνοὶ, it is said, καὶ οἱ Ἀδιαβηνοὶ ἀποστάντες καὶ Νίσιβιν πολιορκοῦντες καὶ ἡττηθέντες ὑπὸ Σεουήρου ἐπρεσβεύσαντο πρὸς αὐτὸν μετὰ τὸν τοῦ Νίγρου θάνατον. Osrhoene was then Roman, Adiabene Parthian; from whom did the two districts revolt? and whose side did the Nisibenes take? That their opponents were defeated by Severus before the sending of the embassy is inconsistent with the course of the narrative; for the latter makes war upon them because their envoys make unsatisfactory offers to him. Probably the supporting of Niger by subjects of the Parthians and their concert with Niger’s Roman partisan are now strictly apprehended as a revolt from Severus; the circumstance that the people afterwards maintain that they had intended rather to support Severus, is clearly indicated as a makeshift. The Nisibenes may have refused to co-operate, and therefore have been attacked by the adherents of Niger. Thus is explained what is clear from the extract given by Xiphilinus from Dio, lxxv. 2, that the left bank of the Euphrates was for Severus an enemy’s land, but not Nisibis; therefore the town need not have been Roman at that time; on the contrary, according to all indications, it was only made Roman by Severus.

67 As the wars against the Arabians and the Adiabenians were in fact directed against the Parthians, it was natural that the titles Parthicus, Arabicus, and Parthicus Adiabenicus, should on that account be conferred on the emperor; they are also so found, but usually Parthicus is omitted, evidently because, as the biographer of Severus says (c. 9), excusavit Parthicum nomen, ne Parthos lacesseret. With this agrees the notice certainly belonging to the year 195 in Dio, lxxv. 9, 6, as to the peaceful agreement with the Parthians and the cession of a portion of Armenia to them.

68 That Armenia also fell into their power is indicated by Herodian, v. 9, 2; no doubt his representation is warped and defective.

69 When at the peace in 218 the old relation between Rome and Armenia was renewed, the king of Armenia gave himself the prospect of a renewal of the Roman annual moneys (Dio, lxxviii. 27: τοῦ Τιριδάτου τὸ ἀργύριον ὃ κατ' ἔτος παρὰ τῶν Ῥωμαίων εὑρίσκετο ἐλπίσαντος λήψεσθαι). Payment of tribute proper by the Romans to the Armenians is excluded for the period of Severus and the time before Severus, and by no means agrees with the words of Dio; the connection must be what we have indicated. In the fourth and fifth centuries the fortress of Biriparach in the Caucasus, which barred the Dariel pass, was maintained by the Persians, who played the part of masters here after the peace of 364, with a Roman contribution, and this was likewise conceived as payment of tribute (Lydus, de Mag. iii. 52, 53; Priscus, fr. 31, Mull.).

70 Artaxares names his father Papacus in the inscription, quoted at p. 83, note 1, king; how it is to be reconciled with this, that not merely does the native legend (in Agathias ii. 27) make Pabek a shoemaker, but also the contemporary Dio (if in reality Zonaras, xii. 15, has borrowed these words from him) names Artaxares ἐξ ἀφανῶν καὶ ἀδόξων, we do not know. Naturally the Roman authors take the side of the weak legitimate Arsacid against the dangerous usurper.

71 Strabo (under Tiberius) xv. 3, 24: νῦν δ' ἤδη καθ' αὐτοὺς συνεστῶτες οἱ Πέρσαι βασιλέας ἔχουσιν ὑπηκόους ἑτέροις βασιλεῦσι, πρότερον μὲν Μακεδόσι, νῦν δὲ Παρθυαίοις.

72 When Nöldeke says (Tabari, p. 449), “The subjection of the chief lands of the monarchy directly to the crown formed the chief distinction of the Sassanid kingdom from the Arsacid, which had real kings in its various provinces,” the power of the great-kingdom beyond doubt is thoroughly dependent on the personality of the possessor, and under the first Sassanids must have been much stronger than under the last decayed Arsacids. But a contrast in principle is not discoverable. From Mithradates I., the proper founder of the dynasty, onward the Arsacid ruler names himself “king of kings,” just as did subsequently the Sassanid, while Alexander the Great and the Seleucids never bore this title. Even under them individual vassal-kings ruled, e.g. in Persis (p. 81, note 2); but the vassal-kingdom was not then the regular form of imperial administration, and the Greek rulers did not name themselves according to it, any more than the Caesars assumed the title of great-king on account of Cappadocia or Numidia. The satraps of the Arsacid state were essentially the Marzbans of the Sassanids. Perhaps rather the great imperial offices, which in the Sassanid polity correspond to the supreme administrative posts of the Diocletiano-Constantinian constitution, and probably were the model for the latter, were wanting to the Arsacid state; then certainly the two would be related to each other much as the imperial organisation of Augustus to that of Constantine. But we know too little of the Arsacid organisation to affirm this with certainty.

73 According to the Persian records of the last Sassanid period preserved in the Arabic chronicle of Tabari Ardashir, after he has cut off with his own hand the head of Ardawan and has assumed the title Shahan-shah, king of kings, conquers first Hamadhan (Ecbatana) in Great Media, then Aderbijan (Atropatene), Armenia, Mosul (Adiabene); and further Suristan or Sawad (Babylonia). Thence he returns to Istachr unto his Persian home, and then starting afresh conquers Sagistan, Gurgan (Hyrcania), Abrashahr (Nisapur in the Parthian land), Merv (Margiane), Balkh (Bactra), and Charizm (Khiva) up to the extreme limits of Chorasan. “After he had killed many people and had sent their heads to the fire-temple of Anahedh (in Istachr), he returned from Merv to Pars and settled in Gor” (Feruzabad). How much of this is legend, we do not know (comp. Nöldeke, Tabari, p. 17, 116).

74 The title runs in Greek (C. I. Gr. 4675), Μάσδασνος (Mazda-servant, treated as a proper name) θεὸς Ἀρταξάρης βασιλεὺς βασιλέων Ἀριανῶν ἐκ γένους θεῶν; with which closely agrees the title of his son Sapor I. (ib. 4676), only that after Ἀριανῶν there is inserted καὶ Ἀναριανῶν, and so the extension of the rule to foreign lands is brought into prominence. In the title of the Arsacids, so far as it is clear from the Greek and Persian legends of coins, θεός, βασιλεὺς βασιλέων, θεοπάτωρ (= ἐκ γένους θεῶν) recur, whereas there is no prominence given to the Arians and, significantly, to the "Mazda-servant"; by their side appear numerous other titles borrowed from the Syrian kings, such as ἐπιφάνης, δίκαιος, νικάτωρ, also the Roman αὐτοκράτωρ.

75 Frawardin, Ardhbehesht, etc. (Ideler, Chronologie, ii. 515). It is remarkable that essentially the same names of the months have maintained themselves in the provincial calendar of the Roman province Cappadocia (Ideler, i. 443); they must proceed from the time when it was a Persian satrapy.

76 Such is the account of the trustworthy Dio, lxxviii. 1; the version of Herodian, iv. 11, that Artabanus promised his daughter, and at the celebration of the betrothal allowed Antoninus to cut down the Parthians present, is unauthenticated.

77 If there is any truth in the mention of the Cadusians in the biography, c. 6, the Romans induced this wild tribe, not subject to the government in the south-west of the Caspian Sea, to fall at the same time upon the Parthians.

78 The subsequently received chronology puts the beginning of the Sassanid dynasty in the Seleucid year 538 = 1st Oct. 226–7 A.D., or the fourth (full) year of Severus Alexander, reigning since spring 222 (Agathias, iv. 24). According to other data king Ardashir numbered the year from the autumn 223–4 A.D. as his first, and so doubtless assumed in this the title of great-king (Nöldeke, Tabari, p. 410). The last dated coin as yet known of the older system is of the year 539. When Dio wrote between 230 and 234, Artabanus was dead and his adherents were overpowered, and the advance of Artaxares into Armenia and Mesopotamia was expected.

79 The emperor remained probably in Palmyra; at least a Palmyrene inscription, C. I. Gr. 4483, mentions the ἐπιδημία θεοῦ Ἀλεξάνδρου.

80 The incomparably wretched accounts of this war (relatively the best is that drawn from a common source in Herodian, Zonaras, and Syncellus, p. 674) do not even decide the question who remained victor in these conflicts. While Herodian speaks of an unexampled defeat of the Romans, the Latin authorities, the Biography as well as Victor, Eutropius, and Rufius Festus, celebrate Alexander as the conqueror of Artaxerxes or Xerxes, and according to these latter the further course of things was favourable. Herodian vi. 6, 5, offers the means of adjustment. According to the Armenian accounts (Gutschmid, Zeitschr. der deutschen morgenländ. Gesellschaft, xxxi. 47) the Arsacids with the support of the tribes of the Caucasus held their ground in Armenia down to the year 237 against Ardashir; this diversion may be correct and may have tended to the advantage of the Romans.

81 The best account is furnished by Syncellus, p. 683 and Zonaras, xii. 18, drawing from the same source. With this accord the individual statements of Ammianus, xxiii. 5, 7, 17, and nearly so the forged letter of Gordian to the Senate in the Biography, c. 27, from which the narrative, c. 26, is ignorantly prepared; Antioch was in danger, but not in the hands of the Persians.

82 So Zonaras, xii. 19, represents the course of affairs; with this Zosimus, iii. 33, agrees, and the later course of things shows that Armenia was not quite in Persian possession. If, according to Euagrius, v. 7, at that time merely Lesser Armenia remained Roman, this may not be incorrect, in so far as the dependence of the vassal-king of Great Armenia after the peace was doubtless merely nominal.

83 The Biblical account (1 Kings ix. 18) as to the building of the town Thamar in Idumaea by king Solomon has only been transferred to Tadmor by a misunderstanding doubtless old; at all events the erroneous reference of it to this town among the later Jews (2 Chron. viii. 4, and the Greek translation of 1 Kings, ix. 18) form the oldest testimony for its existence (Hitzig, Zeitschr. der deutschen morgenl. Gesellschaft, viii. 222).

84 This is nowhere expressly stated; but all the circumstances tell in favour of it. That the Romano-Parthian frontier, before the Romans established themselves on the left bank of the Euphrates, was on the right a little below Sura, is most distinctly said by Pliny (H. N. v. 26, 89: a Sura proxime est Philiscum—comp. p. 95, note 1—oppidum Parthorum ad Euphratem; ab eo Seleuciam dierum decem navigatio), and there it remained till the erection of the province of Mesopotamia under Severus. The Palmyrene of Ptolemy (v. 15, 24, 25) is a district of Coele-Syria, which seems to embrace a good part of the territory to the south of Palmyra, but certainly reaches as far as the Euphrates and includes Sura; other urban centres besides Palmyra seem not to be mentioned, and there is nothing to stand in the way of our taking this large district as civic territory. So long in particular as Mesopotamia was Parthian, but subsequently also with reference to the adjoining desert, a permanent protection of the frontier could not here be dispensed with; as indeed in the fourth century, according to the tenor of the Notitia, Palmyrene was strongly occupied, the northern portion by the troops of the Dux of Syria, Palmyra itself and the southern half by those of the Dux of Phoenice. That in the earlier imperial period no Roman troops were stationed here, is vouched for by the silence of authors and the absence of inscriptions, which in Palmyra itself are numerous. If in the Tabula Peutingeriana it is remarked under Sura: fines exercitus Syriatici et commercium barbarorum, that is, “here end the Roman garrisons and here is the place of exchange for the traffic of the barbarians,” this is only saying, what at a later time is repeated by Ammianus (xxiii. 3, 7: Callinicum munimentum robustum et commercandi opimitate gratissimum) and further by the emperor Honorius (Cod. Just. iv. 63, 4), that Callinicon was one of the few entrepôts devoted to the Romano-barbarian frontier-traffic; but it does not at all follow from this as regards the time when the Tabula originated, that these imperial troops were stationed there, since in fact the Palmyrenes in general belonged to the Syrian army and might be thought of in using the expression exercitus Syriaticus. The city must have furnished a force of its own in a way similar to that of the princes of Numidia and of Panticapaeum. By this means alone we come to understand as well the rejection of the troops of Antonius as the attitude of the Palmyrenes in the troubles of the third century, and not less the emergence of the numeri Palmyrenorum among the military novelties of this epoch.

85 Ammianus, xxiii. 5, 2: Cercusium ... Diocletianus exiguum ante hoc et suspectum muris turribusque circumdedit celsis, ... ne vagarentur per Syriam Persae ita ut paucis ante annis cum magnis provinciarum contigerat damnis. Comp. Procopius de aed. ii. 6. Perhaps this place is not different from the Φάλγα or Φάλιγα of Isidorus of Charax (mans. Parth. 1; Stephanus Byz. s. v.) and the Philiscum of Pliny (p. 94, note).

86 Of the seven dedications, hitherto found outside of Palmyra, to the Palmyrene Malach Belos the three brought to light in Rome (C. I. L. vi. 51, 710; C. I. Gr. 6015) have along with a Greek or Latin also a Palmyrene text, two African (C. I. L. viii. 2497, 8795 add.) and two Dacian (Arch. epig. Mitth. aus Oesterreich, vi. 109, 111) merely Latin. One of the latter was set up by P. Aelius Theimes a duoviralis of Sarmizegetusa, evidently a native of Palmyra, diis patriis Malagbel et Bebellahamon et Benefal et Manavat.

87 Whence these names of the months come, is not clear; they first appear in the Assyrian cuneiform writing, but are not of Assyrian origin. In consequence of the Assyrian rule they then remained in use within the sphere of the Syrian language. Variations are found; the second month, the Dios of the Greek-speaking Syrians, our November, is called among the Jews Markeshvan, among the Palmyrenes Kanun (Waddington, n. 2574b). We may add that these names of the months, so far as they came to be applied within the Roman empire, are adapted, like the Macedonian, to the Julian calendar, so that only the designation of the month differs, the year-beginning (1 Oct.) of the Syro-Roman year finds uniformly application to the Greek as to the Aramaean appellations.

88 E.g. Archon, Grammateus, Proedros, Syndikos, Dekaprotoi.

89 This is shown by the inscription of Palmyra (C. I. Gr. 4491, 4492 = Waddington 2600 = Vogué, Insc. sém. Palm. 22) set up to this Hairanes in the year 251 by a soldier of the legion stationed in Arabia. His title is in Greek ὁ λαμπρότατος συγκλητικός, ἔξα[ρχος (= princeps) Παλμυ]ρηνῶν, in Palmyrene “illustrious senator, head of Tadmor.” The epitaph (C. I. Gr. 4507 = Waddington 2621 = Vogué, 21) of the father of Hairanes, Septimios Odaenathos, son of Hairanes, grandson of Vaballathos, great-grandson of Nassoros, gives to him also senatorial rank.

90 Certainly the father of this Odaenathus is nowhere named; but it is as good as certain that he was the son of the Hairanes just named, and bore the name of his grandfather. Zosimus, too, i. 39, terms him a Palmyrene distinguished from the days of his forefathers by the government (ἄνδρα Παλμυρηνὸν καὶ ἐκ προγόνων τῆς παρὰ τῶν βασιλέων ἀξιωθέντα τίμης).

91 In the inscription Waddington 2603 = Vogué 23, which the guild of gold and silver workers of Palmyra set up in the year 257 to Odaenathus he is called ὁ λαμπρότατος ὑπατικός, and so vir consularis, and in Greek δεσπότης, in Syriac mâran. The former designation is not a title of office, but a statement of the class in which he ranked; so vir consularis stands not unfrequently after the name quite like vir clarissimus (C. I. L. x. p. 1117 and elsewhere), and ὁ λαμπρότατος ὑπατικός is found alongside of and before official titles of various kinds, e.g. that of the proconsul of Africa (C. I. Gr. 2979, where λαμπρότατος is absent), of the imperial legate of Pontus and Bithynia (C. I. Gr. 3747, 3748, 3771) and of Palestine (C. I. Gr. 4151), of the governor of Lycia and Pamphylia (C. I. Gr. 4272); it is only in the age after Constantine that it is in combination with the name of the province employed as an official title (e.g. C. I. Gr. 2596, 4266e). From this, therefore, no inference is to be drawn as to the legal position of Odaenathus. Likewise, in the Syriac designation of “lord,” we may not find exactly the ruler; it is also given to a procurator (Waddington 2606 = Vogué 25).

92 Syria in the imperial period formed an imperial customs-district of its own, and the imperial dues were levied not merely on the coast but also at the Euphrates-frontier, in particular at Zeugma. Hence it necessarily follows that farther to the south, where the Euphrates was no longer in the Roman power, similar dues were established on the Roman eastern frontier. Now a decree of the council of Palmyra of the year 137 informs us that the city and its territory formed a special customs-district, and the dues were levied for the benefit of the town upon all goods imported or exported. That this territory lay beyond the imperial dues, is probable—first, because, if there had existed an imperial customs-line enclosing the Palmyrene territory, the mention of it could not well be omitted in that detailed enactment; secondly, because a community of the empire enclosed by the imperial customs-lines would hardly have had the right of levying dues at the boundary of its territory to this extent. We shall thus have to discern in the levying of dues by the community of Palmyra the same distinctive position which must be attributed to it in a military point of view. Perhaps, on the other hand, there was an impost laid on it for the benefit of the imperial exchequer, possibly the delivering up of a quota of the produce of the dues or a heightened tribute. Arrangements similar to those for Palmyra may have existed also for Petra and Bostra; for goods were certainly not admitted here free of dues, and according to Pliny, H. N. xii. 14, 65, imperial dues from the Arabic frankincense exported by way of Gaza seem only to have been levied at Gaza on the coast. The indolence of Roman administration was stronger than its fiscal zeal; it may frequently have devolved the inconvenient tolls of the land-frontier away from itself on the communities.

93 These caravans (συνοδίαι) appear on the Palmyrene inscriptions as fixed companies, which undertake the same journeys beyond doubt at definite intervals under their foreman (συνοδιάρχης, Waddington, 2589, 2590, 2596); thus a statue is erected to such a one by “the merchants who went down with him to Vologasias” (οἱ σὺν αὐτῷ κατελθόντες εἰς Ὀλογεσιάδα ἔνποροι, Waddington 2599 of the year 247), or “up from Forath (comp. Pliny, H. N. vi. 28, 145) and Vologasias” (οἱ συναναβάντες μετ' αὐτοῦ ἔμποροι ἀπὸ Φοράθου κὲ Ὀλογασιάδος, Waddington, 2589 of the year 142), or “up from Spasinu Charax” (οἱ σὺν αὐτῷ ἀναβάντες ἀπὸ Σπασίνου Χάρακος, Waddington, 2596 of the year 193; similarly 2590 of the year 155). All these conductors are men of standing furnished with lists of ancestors; their honorary monuments stand in the great colonnade beside those of queen Zenobia and her family. Specially remarkable is one of them, Septimius Vorodes, of whom there exists a series of honorary monuments of the years 262–267 (Waddington, 2606–2610); he, too, was a caravan-head (ἀνακομίσαντα τὰς συνοδίας ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων καὶ μαρτυρηθέντα ὑπὸ τῶν ἀρχεμπόρων, Waddington, n. 2606 a; consequently he defrayed the costs of the journey back for the whole company, and was on account of this liberality publicly praised by the wholesale traders). But he filled not merely the civic offices of strategos and agoranomos, he was even imperial procurator of the second class (ducenarius) and argapetes (p. 104, note 1).