[Previous][Contents][Next]

myra was garrisoned by Roman troops, since the IId century A.D., it certainly had its own militia needed for making the caravan routes safe.71a The Bedouin tribes of the territory of Palmyra or dependent on this city, under their tribal sheikhs, were in fact military units well armed and well trained. It was an easy thing to mobilize in addition the village peasants who were used to serving as soldiers in the Roman army, in the Palmyrene cohorts, alae and numeri. If Roman authority was on its decline and a Roman garrison no more present in Palmyra, it was easy for the de facto heads of the rich state to form a strong, well trained and well armed military force at the disposal of the city. This is what apparently happened in the troubled times just before the first invasion of Syria by Shapuhr.72

No wonder, that probably during his advance up the Euphrates or perhaps even earlier, Shapuhr entered into negotiations with Odenath in order to make safe his rear and probably to safeguard for himself abundant supplies of horses, camels, sheep, grain, and dates. In a stray undated fragment of Petrus Patricius (fr. 10; FHG, IV, p. 174) we read a report on gifts sent to Shapuhr by Odenath and scornfully rejected by Shapuhr. The story in all probability reflects some negotiations between the two and some concessions made by Odenath to Shapuhr, concessions which did not satisfy Shapuhr and were rejected by him. 'Nevertheless on his way to Syria Shapuhr did not attack Odenath though he probably was angry with him. He was in a hurry and he knew how strong Odenath was. Perhaps the same thing may have happened at the same time to Hemesa, which was not attacked by Shapuhr on his way to Antioch.

But Shapuhr may have intended to take revenge on both Sampsiceramus and Ode

be found in my Caravan Cities, 1932, pp. 224 f., cf my St. Ec. e Soc. d. Imp. Rom., ch. 111, note 15; ch. V, notes 20 and 33 ; ch. VII, note 27, and Soc. and Ec. Hist. of the Hell. World, p. 1540, note 15 2 and Add., p. 1648. See also the recent important articles of H. Seyrig on his excavations of the Agora of Palmyra in CRAI, 1940, pp. 237 ff. and in Syria, 1941 ; cf. likewise his article "Le statut de Palmyre" in Syria, 1941 or 1942. The two last articles I have read in manuscript form. On Odenath see the bibliography by Alföldi in Berytus, V, 1939, p. 74, n. 3, and CAH, XII, pp. 174 f. and 724.
71a. Detachments of this militia were stationed at Anath in A.D. 132 and 225, at Hirtha in A.D. 132, and at Dura in A.D. 168 and 170, cf. above, p. 25, n. 25.
72. Such a character the army of Odenath still retained after the capture of Valerian when Odenath repeated his campaign of A.D. 253, that is to say attacked the rear of Shapuhr. His army in this last expedition is described by Ruf. Fest. XXIII as consisting of Syri agrestes (perhaps Bedouins), and by Jornandes, p. 290; Oros. VII, 22, and Hier. Chr. p. 183 as rusticorum or agrestium manus (residents of villages) (J. G. Février, Essai sur l'Histoire de Palmyre, 193 1, p. 82, n. 2). It must be taken into con-

   

sideration that at that time Odenath was for the Romans a private citizen of Palmyra, not yet in command of the Roman military forces in Syria as dux Romanorum, a title which he received from Gallienus before he started on his great expedition against Shapuhr after the elimination of Quietus. See A. Alföldi, Berytus, V, 1938, pp. 74 ff. Cumont's suggestion derived from the existence of a XXth Palmyrene cohort stationed at Dura (Byzantion, 11, 1926, pp. 181 ff., cf. Fouilles de Doura-Europos, p. liv) that the territory of Palmyra was garrisoned by 20 Palmyrene cohorts, a large and wellorganized army which Odenath naturally would have used, has been disproved by later discoveries and study. It is certain that the XXth Palmyrene cohort of Dura was a regular unit of the Roman army and not a part of a special Palmyrene army. If its existence proves that there were at least twenty cohorts recruited by the Romans in the territory of Palmyra, all of them were regular Roman units like the XXth and were certainly stationed outside of Palmyra, in which perhaps from the time of Hadrian, but certainly in the times of Septimius Severus and later was stationed a regular Roman garrison. We possess several inscriptions which attest the existence of this garrison. None of these inscriptions mentions a Palmyrene military

[Previous][Contents][Next]
Created by the Digital Documentation Center at AUB in collaboration with Al Mashriq of Høgskolen i Østfold, Norway.

990201 MB - Email: hseeden@aub.edu.lb