[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).
[94] According to the Greek account (Zonaras, xii. 21) king Tiridates takes refuge with the Romans, but his sons take the side of the Persians; according to the Armenian, king Chosro is murdered by his brethren, and Chosro’s son, Tiridates, fled to the Romans (Gutschmid, Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenl. Gesellsch. xxxi. 48). Perhaps the latter is to be preferred.
[95] The only fixed chronological basis is furnished by the Alexandrian coins, according to which Valerian was captured between 29th August 259 and 28th August 260. That after his capture he was no longer regarded as emperor, is easily explained, seeing that the Persians compelled him in their interest to issue orders to his former subjects (continuation of Dio, fr. 3).