[96] The better accounts simply know the fact that Valerian died in Persian captivity. That Sapor used him as a footstool in mounting his horse (Lactantius, de Mort. persec. 5; Orosius, vii. 22, 4; Victor, Ep. 33), and finally caused him to be flayed (Lactantius, l. c.; Agathias, iv. 23; Cedrenus, p. 454) is a Christian invention—a requital for the persecution of the Christians ordered by Valerian.
[97] The tradition according to which Mareades (so Ammianus, xxiii. 5, 3; Mariades in Malalas, 12, p. 295; Mariadnes in contin. of Dio, fr. 1), or, as he is here called, Cyriades, had himself proclaimed as Augustus (Vit. trig. tyr. 1) is weakly attested; otherwise there might doubtless be found in it the occasion why Sapor caused him to be put to death.
[98] He is called Callistus in the one tradition, doubtless traceable to Dexippus, in Syncellus, p. 716, and Zonaras, xii. 23, on the other hand, Ballista in the biographies of the emperors and in Zonaras, xii. 24.
[99] He was, according to the most trustworthy account, procurator summarum (ἐπὶ τῶν καθόλου λόγων βασιλέως: Dionysius in Eusebius, H. E. vii. 10, 5), and so finance-minister with equestrian rank; the continuator of Dio (fr. 3 Müll.) expresses this in the language of the later age by κόμης τῶν θησαυρῶν καὶ ἐφεστὼς τῇ ἀγορᾷ τοῦ σίτου.
[100] At least according to the report, which forms the basis of the imperial biographies (vita Gallieni, 3, and elsewhere). According to Zonaras, xii. 24, the only author who mentions besides the end of Callistus, Odaenathus caused him to be put to death.
[101] That Odaenathus, as well as after him his son Vaballathus (apart, of course, from the time after the rupture with Aurelian), were by no means Augusti (as the vit. Gallieni, 12, erroneously states), is shown both by the absence of the name of Augustus on the coins and by the title possible only for a subject, v(ir) c(onsularis) = ὑ(πατικός), which, like the father ([p. 97], note 3), the son still bears. The position of governor is designated on the coins of the son by im(perator) d(ux) R(omanorum) = αὐτ(οκράτωρ) σ(τρατηγός); in agreement therewith Zonaras (xii. 23, and again xii. 24) and Syncellus (p. 716) state that Gallienus appointed Odaenathus, on account of his victory over the Persians and Ballista, as στρατηγὸς τῆς ἑῴας, or πάσης ἀνατολῆς; and the biographer of Gallienus, 10, that he obtinuit totius Orientis imperium. By this is meant all the Asiatic provinces and Egypt; the added imperator = αὐτοκράτωρ (comp. Trig. tyr. 15, 6, post reditum de Perside—Herodes son of Odaenathus—cum patre imperator est appellatus) is intended beyond doubt to express the freer handling of power, different from the usual authority of the governor.—To this was added further the now formally assumed title of a king of Palmyra (Trig. tyr. 15, 2: adsumpto nomine regali), which also the son bears, not on the Egyptian, but on the Syrian coins. The circumstance that Odaenathus is probably called melekh malke, “king of kings,” on an inscription set up in August 271, and so after his death and during the war of his adherents with Aurelian (Vogué, n. 28), belongs to the revolutionary demonstrations of this period and forms no proof for the earlier time.
[102] The numerous inscriptions of Septimius Vorodes, set up in the years 262 to 267 (Waddington, 2606–2610), and so in the lifetime of Odaenathus, all designate him as imperial procurator of the second class (ducenarius), but at the same time partly by the title ἀργαπέτης, which Persian word, current also among the Jews, signifies "lord of a castle," “viceroy” (Levy, Zeitsch. der deutschen morgenl. Gesellschaft, xviii. 90; Nöldeke, ib. xxiv. 107), partly as δικαιοδότης τῆς μητροκολωνίας, which, beyond doubt, is in substance at any rate, if not in language, the same office. Presumably we must understand by it that office on account of which the father of Odaenathus is called the “head of Tadmor” ([p. 97], note 2); the one chief of Palmyra competent for martial law and for the administration of justice; only that, since extended powers were given to the position of Odaenathus, this post as a subordinate office is filled by a man of equestrian rank. The conjecture of Sachau (Zeitschr. der d. morgenl. Gesellsch. xxxv. 738) that this Vorodes is the “Wurud” of a copper coin of the Berlin cabinet, and that both are identical with the elder son of Odaenathus, Herodes, who was killed at the same time with his father, is liable to serious difficulties. Herodes and Orodes are different names (in the Palmyrene inscription, Waddington, 2610, the two stand side by side); the son of a senator cannot well fill an equestrian office; a procurator coining money with his image is not conceivable even for this exceptional state of things. Probably the coin is not Palmyrene at all. “It is,” von Sallet writes to me, "probably older than Odaenathus, and belongs perhaps to an Arsacid of the second century A.D.; it shows a head with a headdress similar to the Sassanid; the reverse, S C in a chaplet of laurel, appears imitated from the coins of Antioch."—If subsequently, after the breach with Rome in 271, on an inscription of Palmyra (Waddington, 2611) two generals of the Palmyrenes are distinguished, ὁ μέγας στρατηλάτης, the historically known Zabdas, and ὁ ἐνθάδε στρατηλάτης, Zabbaeos, the latter is, it may be presumed, just the Argapetes.
[103] The state of the case speaks in favour of this; evidence is wanting. In the imperial biographies of this epoch the Armenians are wont to be adduced among the border peoples independent of Rome (Valer. 6; Trig. tyr. 30, 7, 18; Aurel. 11, 27, 28, 41); but this is one of their quite untrustworthy elements of embellishment.
[104] This more modest account (Eutropius, ix. 10; vita Gallieni, 10; Trig. tyr. 15, 4; Zos. i. 39, who alone attests the two expeditions) must be preferred to that which mentions the capture of the city (Syncellus, p. 716).
[105] This is shown by the accounts as to Carinus (cont. of Dio, p. 8) and as to Rufinus ([P. 106], note 2). That after the death of Odaenathus Heraclianus, a general acting on Gallienus’s orders against the Persians, was attacked and conquered by Zenobia (vita Gallieni, 13, 5), is in itself not impossible, seeing that the princes of Palmyra possessed de iure the chief command in all the East, and such an action, even if it were suggested by Gallienus, might be treated as offending against this right, and this would clearly indicate the strained relation; but the authority vouching it is so bad that little stress can be laid on it.