Two hundred kilometers from the nearest coast, in the Syrian desert, a warm spring bubbled up through the rock. Date palms grew around it. Then an oasis. Then, against all logic, one of the richest cities the ancient world ever saw. The Arabs called it Tadmor — “city of date palms.” The Greeks named it Palmyra. The Bible says King Solomon built it. He almost certainly didn’t — but the place was so wealthy that only the wisest king in history seemed like a believable founder.
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Builders & Wonders·1/5·1′
The place
Palmyra
The Bride of the Desert
How a warm spring in the Syrian desert gave birth to the richest caravan city on the Silk Road -- and why a five-meter tax law carved in stone tells the story of a civilization
c. 2nd millennium BC (earliest mention) – 3rd century AD (golden age); 137 AD (the Palmyra Tariff)Palmyra
Moral of the Story
“The greatest fortunes are built not by those who conquer territory but by those who translate between worlds -- and the most enduring power belongs not to the empire that commands obedience but to the crossroads that makes itself indispensable to everyone.”
Characters
T
The Palmyrene merchant caravaneers (synodiarchs)B
Bel, Yarhibol, and Aglibol (the divine triad)P
Pliny the Elder (Roman naturalist)K
King Solomon (legendary builder of Tadmor)M
Male son of Yarhai (caravan leader, honored 135 AD)Source
Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia V.88; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews VIII.6.1; The Palmyra Tariff inscription (CIS II 3913), 137 AD, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; Starcky, Jean, 'Palmyre,' Supplement au Dictionnaire de la Bible, 1966; Browning, Iain, Palmyra, 1979; Smith, Andrew M. II, Roman Palmyra: Identity, Community, and State Formation, 2013; Stoneman, Richard, Palmyra and Its Empire, 1994