In 267 AD, at a banquet in the Syrian city of Emesa, the most powerful man in the Roman East was murdered. Septimius Odaenathus — warrior-king, Rome’s strongman in the desert — was killed alongside his eldest son, struck down by his own nephew over what sources call a petty grudge. But the real story walked out of the bloodbath alive. His second wife. Her name was Zenobia, and she was about to become the most dangerous woman in the ancient world.
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Crowns & Conquests·5/5·1′
The place
Palmyra
The Queen Who Defied Rome
How a Palmyrene queen conquered a third of the Roman Empire, rode to war in armor, and forced even her conqueror to speak of her with awe
267-274 AD (Zenobia's regency, conquests, and defeat by Aurelian)Palmyra
Moral of the Story
“Empires are not only built by those born to the purple -- sometimes the most dangerous throne is the one seized by a woman the world underestimated, and the truest measure of defiance is not whether you win but whether your enemy is forced to admit you were worthy of the fight.”
Characters
Q
Queen Zenobia (Septimia Zenobia / Bat-Zabbai / az-Zabba')E
Emperor Aurelian (Lucius Domitius Aurelianus)C
Cassius Longinus (philosopher and advisor)G
General ZabdasV
Vaballathus (Zenobia's son)O
Odaenathus (Zenobia's husband)Source
Historia Augusta, 'The Thirty Pretenders' (Trebellius Pollio); Zosimus, New History; al-Tabari, History of the Prophets and Kings; Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Pat Southern, Empress Zenobia: Palmyra's Rebel Queen; Alaric Watson, Aurelian and the Third Century