CHAP. XI.
laid the foundations of their united fame and power.
The armies which they commanded, and the provinces ' which they had saved, acknowledged not any other sovereigns than their invincible chiefs. The senate and people of Rome revered a stranger who had avenged their captive emperor; and even the insensible son of Valerian accepted Odenathus for his legitimate colleague.
She re-venges her husband's death, After a successful expedition against the Gothic plunderers of Asia, the Palmyrenian prince returned to the city of Emesa in Syria. Invincible in war, he was there cut off by domestic treason; and his favourite amusement of hunting was the cause, or at least the occasion, of his death[1]. His nephew, Maeonius, presumed to dart his javelin before that of his uncle; and though admonished of his error, repeated the same insolence. As a monarch and as a sportsman, Odenathus was provoked, took away his horse, a mark of ignominy among the barbarians, and chastised the rash youth by a short confinement. The offence was soon forgot, but the punishment was remembered ; and Maeonius, with a few daring associates, assassinated his uncle in the midst of a great entertainment. A. D. 267 Herod, the son of Odenathus, though not of Zenobia, a young man of a soft and effeminate temper[2], was killed with his father. But Maeonius obtained only the pleasure of revenge by this bloody deed. He had scarcely time to assume the title of Augustus, before he was sacrificed by Zenobia to the memory of her husband[3].
and reigns over the East and Egypt. With the assistance of his most faithful friends, she immediately filled the vacant throne, and governed with manly counsels Palmyra, Syria, and the east, above five years. By the death of Odenathus, that authority was at an end which the senate had granted him only
- ↑ Hist. August, p. 192, 193 ; Zosimus, 1. i. p. 36 ; Zonoras, 1. xii. p. 633. The last is clear and probable, the others confused and inconsistent. The text of Syncellus, if not corrupt, is absolute nonsense.
- ↑ Odenathus and Zenobia often sent him, from the spoils of the enemy, presents of gems and toys, which he received with infinite delight.
- ↑ Some very unjust suspicions have been cast on Zenobia, as if she was accesary to her husband's death
