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PALMYRA (Ancient city) SYRIA
Palmyra (Palmura, Ptol. v. 15. § § 19, 24, viii. 20. § 10; Appian,
B.C. v. 9: Palmira, Joseph. Ant. viii. 2; and Palmira, Plin. v. 25. s. 21: Eth.
Palmyrenus, or Palmirenus, Id. l. c.), a city of Syria, situated in 34° 24? N.
lat., and 38° 20' E. long. Its Hebrew name, Tadmor, or Thadmor, denotes, like
its Greek one, a city of palms; and this appellation is preserved by the Arabs,
who still call it Tedmor. Tadmor was built, or more probably enlarged, by Solomon
in the tenth century B.C. (1 Kings, ix. 18; 2 Chron. viii. 4), and its identity
with Palmyra is shown in the passage of Josephus before cited. It is seated in
a pleasant and fruitful oasis of the great Syrian desert, and is well watered
by several small streams; but the river mentioned by Ptolemy is nowhere to be
found. Its situation is fine, under a ridge of hills towards the W., and a little
above the level of an extensive plain, which it commands on the E. (Wood, Ruins
of Parlmyra, p. 5), at a distance of about 140 miles ENE. of Damascus. It is not
mentioned by Xenophon, who must have passed near it, nor in the accounts of the
conquests of Alexander the Great. The first historical notice that we find of
it is in Appian, who tells us that M. Antony, under pretence of punishing its
equivocal conduct, but in reality to enrich his troops with the plunder of a thriving
commercial city, directed his march towards it, but was frustrated of his object
by the inhabitants removing their goods to the other side of the Euphrates. (B.
Civ. v. c. 9.) This account shows that it must have been a town of considerable
wealth; and indeed its advantageous situation must have long rendered it an entrepot
for the traffic between the east and Damascus and the Phoenician cities on the
Mediterranean. Yet its name is not mentioned either by Strabo or Mela. Under the
first Roman emperors it was an independent city; and its situation on the borders
of the Roman and Parthian empires gave it a political importance, which it seems
to have preserved by a well-judged course of policy, though naturally exposed
to much danger in the quarrels of two such formidable neighbours. ( Inter duo
imperia summa, et prima--in discordia semper utrinque cura, Plin. l. c.) It is
called a colonia on the coins of Caracalla, and Ulpian mentioned it in his first
book de Censibus as having the Jus Italicum. It appears, from an inscription,
to have assisted the emperor Alexander Severus in his wars against the Persians.
(Wood, Inscr. xix.) It is not, however, till the reign of Gallienus that we find
Palmyra playing any important part in history; and at this period we have notices
of it in the works of Zosimus, Vopiscus, and Trebellius Pollio. Odenathus, a noble
of Palmyra, and according to Procopius (B. Pers. ii. c. 5) prince of the Saracens
who inhabited the banks of the Euphrates, for his great and splendid services
against the Persians, received from Gallienus the title of Augustus, and was acknowledged
by him as his colleague in the empire. After the assassination of Odenathus by
his nephew Maeonius, the celebrated Zenobia, the wife of the former, whose prudence
and courage had been of great assistance to Odenathus in his former successes,
ascended the vacant throne, and, assuming the magnificent title of Queen of the
East, ruled with a manly vigour during a period of five years. Under this extraordinary
woman, whose talents and accomplishments were equalled by her beauty, and whose
love of literature is shown by her patronage of Longinus, Palmyra attained the
highest pitch of its prosperity. She claimed to be descended from the Macedonian
kings of Egypt, and her achievements would not have disgraced her ancestry; though,
according to other accounts, she was a Jewess. (Milman, Hist. of the Jews, iii.
p. 175.) Besides the sovereignty of Syria and Mesopotamia, she is said to have
extended her sway over Egypt (Zosim. i. c. 44); but by some critics this fact
has been questioned. Claudius, the successor of Gallienus, being engaged in the
Gothic War, tacitly acknowledged her authority. But after the termination of the
short reign of that emperor, the progress of Zenobia in Asia Minor was regarded
by Aurelian with jealousy and alarm. Her arms and intrigues already menaced the
security of Bithynia (IB.C. 50), when Aurelian marched against her, and defeated
her in two great battles near Antioch and Emesa, at both of which she commanded
in person. Zenobia now retreated to Palmyra, and prepared to defend her capital
with vigour. The difficulties of the siege are described by Aurelian himself in
an original letter preserved by Vopiscus. (Aurel. c. 26.) After defying for a
long time the arms of the Roman emperor, Zenobia, being disappointed of the succour
which she expected to receive from the Persians, was ultimately compelled to fly,
but was. overtaken on the banks of the Euphrates by the light horse of Aurelian,
and brought back a prisoner. Shortly after this event her capital surrendered,
and was treated with clemency by the conqueror, who, however, sullied his fame
by the cruel execution of Longinus and some of the principal citizens, whom Zenobia
had denounced to him. The personal adventures of Zenobia we need not pursue, as
they will be found related in the Dictionary of Biography and Mythology. No sooner
had Aurelian crossed the Hellespont than he was recalled by the intelligence that
the Palmyrenians had risen against and massacred the small garrison which he had
left in their city. The emperor immediately marched again to Palmyra, which now
paid the full penalty of its rebellion. In an original letter Aurelian has himself
recorded the unsparing execution, which extended even to old men, women, and children.
(Vopisc. Aur. c. 31.) To the remnant of the Palmyrenians, [p. 537] indeed, he
granted a pardon, with permission to repair and inhabit their ruined city, and
especially discovered much solicitude for the restoration of the Temple of the
Sun. But the effects of the blow were too heavy to be retrieved. From this period
(A.D. 273) Palmyra gradually dwindled into an insignificant town, and at length
became only a place of refuge for a few families of wandering Arabs. It served
indeed for some years as a Roman military station; and Diocletian partially restored
some of its buildings, as appears from an inscription preserved by Wood. About
the year 400 the first Illyrian legion was quartered there (Not. Imp.); and Procopius
tells us that it was fortified by Justinian (de Aed. ii. 2). But this is the last
that we hear of Palmyra under the Romans; and the sinking for-tunes of their empire
probably soon led them to abandon it.
The remains of the buildings of Palmyra are chiefly of the Corinthian
order, which was the favourite style of architecture during the two or three centuries
which preceded Diocletian; whence we may infer that the splendour which it once
exhibited was chiefly owing to Odenathus and Zenobia. For many centuries even
the site of Palhyra remained totally unknown except to the roving Arabs of the
desert, whose magnificent accounts of its ruins at length excited the curiosity
of the English merchants settled at Aleppo. Under the auspices of the Levant Company,
an expedition started in 1678 for the purpose of exploring them; but the persons
who composed it were robbed and ill-treated by the Arabs, and compelled to return
without having accomplished their object. In 1691 the expedition was renewed with
better success, and an account of the discoveries then made was published in the
transactions of the Royal Society. (Sellers, Antiquities of Palmyra, Pref.) Subsequently
Palmyra was visited in 1751 by Wood and Dawkins, who published the results of
their journey in a large folio volume with magnificent engravings. The account
in Volney (vol. ii.) is chiefly taken from this work. Among the more recent descriptions
may be mentioned that of Irby and Mangles (Travels, ch. v.), who visited Palmyra
in 1816. According to these travellers the plates of Wood and Dawkins have done
more than justice to the subject; and although the view of the ruins from a distance,
with their line of dazzling white columns extending between one and two miles,
and relieved by the contrast of the yellow sand of the desert, is very striking,
yet, when examined in detail, they excite but little interest. Taken separately,
not a single column or architectural member is worthy of admiration. None of the
former exceed 40 feet in height and 4 feet in diameter, and in the boasted avenue
they are little more than 30 feet high. The remains of the Ternmple of the Sun
form the most magnificent object, and being of the Ionic order, relieve the monotony
of the prevailing Corinthian style. These columns, which are 40 feet high and
4 feet in diameter, are fluted, and formed of only three or four pieces of stone;
and in former times were surmounted by brazen Ionic capitals. The facade of the
portico consists of 12 columns, like that of the temple of Baalbec, besides which
there are other points of resemblance. On the whole, however, the ruins are far
inferior to those at Baalbec. At the time of Messrs. Irby and Mangles' visit the
peristyle court of the Temple of the Sun was occupied by the Arabian village of
Tadmor; but with this exception, and the Turkish burial ground, the space was
unencumbered, and there was nothing to obstruct the researches of the antiquary.
In some places the lines of the streets and the foundations of the houses were
distinctly visible. The sculptures are uniformly coarse and bad; the stone is
of a perishable description, and scarcely deserves the name of marble. The sepulchres
outside the walls formed perhaps the most interesting part of the remains. These
consist of square towers, from three to five stories high, forming sepulchral
chambers, with recesses for the reception of the bodies. In these tombs mummies
and mummy cloths are found, prepared very much after the Egyptian manner; but
there are no paintings, and on the whole they are far from being so interesting
as the Egyptian sepulchres. There was a sculptured tablet in bas-relief, with
seven or eight figures standing and clothed in long robes, supposed to represent
priests. Several Greek and Palmyrene inscriptions, and two or three in Latin and
Hebrew, have been discovered at Palmyra. They will be found in Wood's Ruins of
Palmyra, and the following works may also be consulted: Bernard and Smith, Inscriptiones
Graecae Palmyrenorum, Utrecht, 1698; Giorgi, De Inscriptionibus Palmyrenis quae
in Musaeo Capitolino adservantur interpretandis Fpistola, Rome, 1782; Barthelemy,
in Mem de l'Academie des Inscr. tom. xxiv.; and Swinton, in the Philosophical
Transactions, vol. xlviii.(...)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Palmyra (Palmura; the O. T. Tadmor). A celebrated city of Syria, standing
in an oasis of the great Syrian Desert, which from its position was a halting-place
for the caravans between Syria and Mesopotamia. Here Solomon built a city, which
was called in Hebrew Tadmor--that is, "a city of palm-trees." Of this
name the Greek Palmyra is a translation. Under Hadrian and the Antonines it was
highly favoured, and reached its greatest splendour. The history of its temporary
elevation to the rank of a capital, in the third century of the Christian era,
is related under Odenathus and Zenobia. After its capture by Aurelian in A.D.
270 it was partly destroyed, but was made a frontier fortress, and under Justinian
was strongly fortified. When the Arabs overran the country it was taken by them,
and in the year 1400 was plundered by the Tartars under Tamerlane. Its splendid
ruins, which form a most striking object in the midst of the desert, are of the
Roman period. They resemble those of Heliopolis, though less fine. Among them
are the remains of a temple of the Sun (or Baal), a great colonnade which originally
consisted of some 1500 columns of the Corinthian order, and was nearly a mile
in length. There are also a number of square sepulchral towers of much interest;
and the streets can still be traced. Several inscriptions in Greek, Latin, Hebrew,
and the Palmyrean dialect are still extant.
Palmyra. Great oasis in the Syrian desert E of Homs, occupied since prehistoric
times. Palmyra grew at the end of the Hellenistic period and flourished until
the 3d c. A.D., enriched by the caravan traffic between the Roman and Parthian
Empires. After Valerian was captured by the Sassanid Shapur, a prince of Palmyra,
Septimius Odaenathus, organized the defense of the Roman East. His widow, Zenobia,
extended his empire to Egypt. Palmyra was defeated by Aurelian in 272, sacked,
and occupied by a Roman garrison. First Diocletian and then Justinian fortified
the town against the Persians. It surrendered to the Moslems in A.D. 637 and declined
under the Abbassids.
The monuments include the three great sanctuaries of Bel, Nabo, and
Baalshamin; a wide avenue with colonnades at the sides which is crossed by other
porticoed streets, a theater, an agora and its annexes, marble fountains, public
baths, a palace often called the Camp of Diocletian, ramparts, and numerous necropoleis.
The oasis has two springs: one, not very abundant, is in the center
of the ancient city, the other, the Efqa spring, on the W edge of the town. It
wells up in a deep cave, shaped artificially into a long tunnel bordered by benches
and by small rock-cut chapels with incense altars (pyrat) dedicated to the Spirit
of the Spring.
The temple of Bel, to the E, is a vast sanctuary of traditional Syrian
plan. A quadrangular area, more than 200 in on each side, is enclosed by a high
wall bordered on the inside by porticos; in the middle of this court stood a cella.
On the outside, to the W, propylaea dating from the second half of the 2d c. A.D.
included a portico with eight Corinthian columns. A wide stairway led up to the
portico. In the wall of the peribolus three gates gave access to the W portico
of the courtyard, built in the middle of the 2d c. A.D. On the other three sides
the porticos (built between A.D. 80 and 120) have a double row of columns, lower
than those of the W portico. The brackets jutting out from the shafts, very common
at Palmyra, carried honorific statues.
The cella (first half of the 1st c. A.D.) was in the middle of the
court, with its long side facing the entry and the door in the center of this
long W side. Its original foundations of Hellenistic type, a crepis with steps
on all four sides, were transformed into a large podium when the level of the
courtyard was lowered at the time the porticos were built. The peristyle consisted
of fluted columns, 15 by 8, with capitals bearing acanthus leaves of gilded bronze.
A frieze of winged spirits holding garlands of fruit adorns the entablature, which
is topped by stepped merlons, and many pieces of the frieze are scattered on the
ground. The ceiling of the peristyle consisted of decorated stone compartments.
Several limestone beams, now on the ground, have reliefs with traces of painting
on them: divinities in front of sacrificial altars, a procession with veiled women
and a dromedary carrying the draped image under a canopy, and hunting scenes.
The plan of the cella is unique in Syria. On each of the short sides
was a deep niche with a monolithic sculptured ceiling; the niches held the cult
statues. The ceiling of the N niche depicts the great god, surrounded by the planets
and the signs of the zodiac. In front of the S niche a gently sloping ramp allowed
the image to be moved easily to a processional litter.
Near the SW corner of the courtyard is another ramp that passed under
the W portico, allowing easy passage for processions and sacrificial animals.
Between the cella and the high portico the foundations of the sacrificial altar
are visible to the N, and the remains of a consecrated basin to the S. Pieces
of sculpture in soft limestone have been found beneath the courtyard (now in the
museum). They are remains of a temple of the Hellenistic period.
A wide colonnaded street runs NW from the temple of Bel, connecting
most of the monuments. The street has three parts with different orientations.
A monumental arch with three bays and sumptuous decoration marks the first change
of direction, a (restored) tetrapylon the second. The first section has been partly
cleared. It is about 40 m wide and dates from the first half of the 3d c. A.D.
Shops with cut stone facade and banquet hall open under the S portico. Jutting
out from the alignment of the colonnade, four tall Corinthian columns form the
portico of a nymphaeum with sculpture; its basin occupies an apse flanked by two
niches.
The temple of Nabo, S of the monumental arch, was begun in the second
half of the 1st c. A.D. and was still under construction in A.D. 146. Following
the normal Syrian plan, the cella stood on a high podium in the middle of the
enclosure. A wide stairway with an altar on the first step led to the podium from
the S, and the peristyle consisted of 6 columns by 12. The temple succeeded a
Hellenistic one, pieces of architecture and sculpture from which have been found.
A sacred well stood in front of the cella, as well as a monument with small columns
and a frieze depicting standing figures--a small chapel or monumental altar. The
columns of the porticos had Doric capitals and the roof was supported directly
by the architraves. On the back walls, highly colored frescos depicted religious
scenes. The propylaea opened to the S. The sanctuary had faced away from the great
avenue, which cut off its N portico.
The middle section of the avenue, more than 300 m long and 30 m wide,
is the best preserved. It has shops under the porticos and brackets for honorific
statues on the columns. On the N side are four columns of pink Egyptian granite
from the portico of public baths, which an inscription identifies as Baths of
Diocletian. To the S, the colonnade passes beside the theater.
The theater, dating from the 2d c. A.D., was built on flat ground.
It has a cavea with 13 well-preserved tiers of seats, an orchestra paved with
large rectangular slabs, a scaenae frons whose five doors open on exedras with
finely carved frames, and graceful Corinthian columns adorning the middle of the
facade. The theater is surrounded by a semicircular court, with a colonnade on
the outside. A street with porticos leads S, almost on the axis of the theater,
to a triumphal gate with three openings which was later incorporated into the
ramparts. West of the theater, a small building with a peristyle courtyard and
a room with tiers of seats arranged in a semicircle was probably the Senate. Immediately
to the S is a vast rectangular enclosure, with walls over 10 m high and no trace
of roofing, porticos, or paving: this was an annex to the agora, on which it opens
to the W. To the E it opens on the street of the theater, and to the S was a huge
gate, big enough to admit loaded camels. The famous fiscal law of Palmyra, a tariff
for caravans, was found just in front of the S wall.
The large agora, which dates from the beginning of the 2d c. A.D.,
was a quadrangular, walled area, surrounded on the inside by porticos. More than
200 brackets in the columns or walls bore statues of emperors (Septimius Severus
and his family), of Roman or Palmyrene officials, Roman soldiers, and caravan
leaders. In the SW corner is a banquet hall.
The paved platform and basin of a marble fountain with an apse lie
on the N side of the great avenue, facing the street which enters it W of the
theater. Immediately to the W, between two columns, a lane with irregular paving-stones
leads N to the Temple of Baalshamin. A column on the S portico of the avenue bears
an inscription in honor of Zenobia. The monument to the S may be a Caesareum.
The tetrapylon (restored) stands on a paved base with two steps. Its 16 granite
columns on four massive bases have Corinthian capitals and a sculptured entablature.
Around the tetrapylon is an elongated oval space, bordered to the N by a continuous
portico.
The W and longest section of the great avenue has a magnificent semicircular
exedra under its S portico. The colonnade ends in a funerary temple of the 3d
c. A.D., with six columns on its facade, outside the city gate.
To the S an avenue bordered by two porticos ends in an oval space
and a gate with a triple bay. This was built at the beginning of the 2d c. A.D.
The group of buildings called the Camp of Diocletian lies above this street on
the slopes of the mountain chain which bounds the site to the W. Past the triple
gate is a large quadrilateral area divided into four quarters by two streets which
intersect at right angles under a tetrapylon. The axial street then entered a
vast courtyard and ended in a stairway leading to a wide gallery, onto the center
of which opened a large apsidal chamber, flanked on each side by several rooms.
The dominant position, arrangement, and sculptured decoration suggest that this
was the palace of the princes of Palmyra, later rearranged by the Roman governors.
A temple dedicated to Arab divinities lay to the N, at the end of the transverse
street. In the district NW of the great avenue was a grid of streets, between
houses with peristyles of the 3d c. A.D. Two Christian basilicas of the usual
three-nave plan were built there in the 5th c.
The Temple of Baalshamin, farther E, was dedicated in 132, two years
after Hadrian's visit to Palmyra. It consists of a cella, without a podium, set
in the middle of a complex group of courtyards. The cella is decorated with pilasters
on the outside and lighted by windows; its facade has a portico of four Corinthian
columns. Much of the sculptured adornment is in the museum. The temple replaced
a sanctuary of the previous century, the S courtyard of which had been dedicated
in A.D. 33 and the N portico (with a banquet hall partly covered by the 2d c.
temple) built in 67. A large courtyard to the N contained archaic sculptures and
dedications of the beginning of the 1st c. A.D. In the SW corner of a courtyard
to the S, built in the middle of the 2d c. A.D., lay the main entry to the sanctuary.
Houses of the 3d c., E of the temple of Bel, have produced fine mosaics:
Achilles discovered at Skyros, Asklepios (both in the Palmyra museum), and Cassiopeia
(Damascus museum).
The ramparts, which can be followed for ca. 12 km, have an alternating
sequence of three rectangular bastions and one semicircular one. Although commonly
attributed to Zenobia, they date to Diocletian and were restored by Justinian.
Along the S stretch (ca. 3 m thick) the rampart makes use of the N crest of the
wadi and the S walls of the agora. An older fortification, of the 1st c. B.C.
at the earliest, included the Efqa spring and ran SW. The Damascus gate has been
identified there, on the edge of the necropoleis.
These necropoleis surround the town and have several types of tombs:
tower tombs (more than 150), house tombs, and hypogaea. The Valley of the Tombs
opens to the SW along the Emesa road. The oldest tower tombs (the most remarkable
is that of Atenatan, dating from 9 B.C.) have a lower story with vaults opening
to the exterior. The tower tomb of Jamblichus (A.D. 83) has four stories still
standing; in it were found pieces of Chinese silk used to wrap the mummified corpses.
The tower tomb of Elahbel, finished in A.D. 103, also with four stories, has a
balcony like a sarcophagus on the third floor. In the same necropolis was the
hypogaeum of Yarhai (partly reconstructed in the Damascus museum). Its plan is
normal, an inverted ?, but the end of the W lateral branch there is a sarcophagus
with a sculpture depicting the deceased lying in the banqueting position, and
in the exedra of the central branch (to the S) three sarcophagi form a triclinium
for a funerary banquet. Funerary compartments in the walls are sealed by slabs
on which are carved busts of the deceased, priests with ceremonial head-dress,
and women adorned with heavy jewelry.
In the SW necropolis along the Damascus road, several hypogaea have
fresco and stucco decoration: the hypogaeum of the Three Brothers (ca. A.D. 140)
has a group of fine sculptures and an exedra with paintings of the beginning of
the 3d c. A.D.; that of Atenatan (A.D. 98) has an exedra with a triclinium dating
from A.D. 229. Its sarcophagi with sculptures still show traces of painting. The
deceased is depicted with his pages and wears Persian costume. Another necropolis,
farther E, also has several fine hypogaea: in one of them the two stone leaves
of the door at the bottom of the staircase down to the chamber have been preserved.
The finest of the house tombs of Palmyra, built in A.D. 236, is in the N necropolis.
Many of the sculptures from these necropoleis are now in the museums of Palmyra
and Damascus, and in the Louvre.
J. P. Rey-Coquais, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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