Wahab-allath (5th year) begins to issue coins at Alexandria without the head of Aurelian and bearing the imperial title; and Zenobia’s coins bear the same. It was at this time (A.D. 271) that the two chief Palmyrene generals Zabdā and Zabbai, set up a statue to the deceased Odenathus and gave him the sounding designation of “king of kings and restorer of the whole city” (NSI. No. 130). These assumptions marked a definite rejection of all allegiance to Rome. Aurelian, the true Augustus, quickly grasped the situation, and took strenuous measures to deal with it. At the close of A.D. 270 Probus brought back Egypt into the empire, not without a considerable struggle; then in 271 Aurelian made preparations for a great campaign against the seat of the mischief itself. He approached by way of Cappadocia, where he reduced the Palmyrene garrisons, and thence through Cilicia he entered Syria. At Antioch the Palmyrene forces under Zabdā attempted to resist his advances, but they were compelled to fall back upon the great route which leads from Antioch through Emesa (mod. Ḥomṣ) to their native city. At Emesa the Palmyrenes were defeated in a stiffly contested battle. At length Aurelian arrived before the walls of Palmyra, which was captured probably in the spring of A.D. 272. In accordance with the judicious policy which he had observed in Asia Minor and at Antioch, he granted full pardon to the citizens; only the chief officials and advisers were put to death; Zenobia and her son were captured and reserved for his triumph when he returned to Rome. But the final stage in the conquest of the city was yet to come. A few months later, in the autumn of 272—the latest inscription is dated August 272 (Vogüé. No. 116)—the Palmyrenes revolted, killed the Roman garrison quartered in the city, and proclaimed one Antiochus as their chief. Aurelian heard of it just when he had crossed the Hellespont on his way home. He returned instantly before any one expected him, and took the city by surprise. Palmyra was destroyed and the population put to the sword. Aurelian restored the walls and the great Temple of the Sun (A.D. 273); but the city never recovered its splendour or importance.
Language.—The language spoken at Palmyra was a dialect of western Aramaic, and belongs to the same group as Nabataean and the Aramaic spoken in Egypt. In some important points, however, the dialect was related to the eastern Aramaic or Syrian (e.g. the plur. ending in ē’; the dropping of the final ī of the pronominal suffix third pers. sing, with nouns, and of the final ū of the third pers. pl. of the verb; the infin. ending ū, &c.). But the relation to western Aramaic is closer; specially characteristic are the following features: the imperf. beginning with y, not as in Syriac and the eastern dialects with n or l; the plur. ending -ayyā’; the forms of the demonstrative pronouns, &c. As the bulk of the population was of Arab race, it is not surprising that many of the proper names are Arabic and that several Arabic words occur in the inscriptions. The technical terms of municipal government are mostly Greek, transliterated into Palmyrene; a few Latin words occur, of course in Aramaic forms. For further characteristics of the dialect see Nöldeke, ZDMG. xxiv. 85–109. The writing is a modified form of the old Aramaic character, and especially interesting because it represents almost the last stage through which the ancient alphabet passed before it developed into the Hebrew square character.
The names of the months were the same as those used by the Nabataeans, Syrians and later Jews, viz. the Babylonian. The calendar was the Syro-Macedonian, a solar, as distinct from the primitive lunar, calendar, which Roman influence disseminated throughout Syria; it was practically a reproduction of the Julian calendar. Dates were reckoned by the Seleucid era, which began in October 312 B.C.
Religion.—The religion of Palmyra did not differ in essentials from that of the north Syrians and the Arab tribes of the eastern desert. The chief god of the Palmyrenes was a solar deity, called Samas or Shamash (“sun”), or Bel, or Malak-bel,[1] whose great temple is still the most imposing feature among the ruins of Palmyra. Both Bel and Malak-bel were of Babylonian origin. Sometimes associated with the Sun-god was ʽAgli-bol the Moon-god who is represented as a young Roman warrior with a large crescent attached to his shoulders (Rom. 1, and Vogüé pl. xii. No. 141). The great goddess of the Aramaeans, ʽAthar-ʽatheh, in Greek Atargatis (q.v.), and Allath, the chief goddess of the ancient Arabs, were also worshipped at Palmyra. Another deity whose name occurs in votive inscriptions, is Baal-shamim, i.e. “B of the heavens,”＝Ζεύς μέγιστος κεραύνιος, sometimes called “lord of eternity,” but he was not included among the national gods of Palmyra, so far as we know, though he probably had a temple there. Another interesting divine name, lately discovered, is that of a distinctly Arabic deity “Sheʽa-alqum the good and bountiful god who does not drink wine” (NSI. No. 140 B); the name means “he who accompanies, the protector of, the people”—the divine patron of the caravan. A common formula in Palmyrene dedications runs “To him whose name is blessed for ever, the good and the compassionate”; out of reverence the name of the deity was not pronounced; was it Bel or Malak-bel? It is worth noticing that this epithet like “lord of eternity” (or, “of the world”), has a distinctly Jewish character. Altogether about 22 names of gods are found in Palmyrene; some of them, however, only occur in compound proper names.
After its overthrow by Aurelian, Palmyra was partially revived as a military station by Diocletian (end of 3rd centuryA.D.), as we learn from a Latin inscription found on the site. Before this time Christianity had made its way into the oasis, for among the fathers present at the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) was Marinus bishop of Palmyra. The names of two other bishops of the 5th and 6th centuries have come down to us. About A.D. 400, Palmyra was the station of the first Illyrian legion (Not. dign. i. 85, ed. Böcking); Justinian in 527 furnished it with an aqueduct, and built the wall of which the ruins still remain (Procopius, De aedif, ii. 11). At the Moslem conquest of Syria, Palmyra capitulated to Khalid (see Caliphate) without embracing Islam (Balādsorĭ [Balādhurĭ], 111 seq.; Yāqūṭ, i. 831). The town became a Moslem fortress and received a considerable Arab colony; for in the reign of Merwān II. (A.H. 127–132) it sent a thousand Kalbite horsemen to aid the revolt of Emesa, to the district of which it is reckoned by the Arabic geographers. The rebellion was sternly suppressed and the walls of the city destroyed (Ibn al-Athir, A.H. 127, ed. Tornberg V., 249; cf. Frag. hist. ar. 139, Ibn Wāḍih, ii. 230). In this connexion Yāqūṭ tells a curious story of the opening of one of the tombs by the caliph, which in spite of fabulous incidents, recalling the legend of Roderic the Goth, shows some traces of local knowledge. The ruins of Palmyra greatly interested the Arabs, and are commemorated in several poems quoted by Yāqūṭ and others; they are referred to by the early poet Nabigha as proofs of the might of Solomon and his sovereignty over their builders the Jinn (Derenbourg, Journ. As. xii. 269)—a legend which must have come from the Jews, who either clung to the ruins after the great overthrow or returned in the time of Diocletian. References to Palmyra in later times have been collected by Quatremère, Sultans Mamlouks, ii. pt. 1. p. 255 seq. Ml but annihilated by earthquake in the 11th century, it recovered considerable prosperity; when Benjamin of Tudela visited the city, which was still called Tadmor, he found 2000 Jews within the walls (12th century). It was still a wealthy place as late as the 14th century; but in the general decline of the East, and owing to changes in the trade routes, it sunk at length to a poor group of hovels gathered in the courtyard of the Temple of the Sun. The ruins first became known to Europe through the visit of Dr William Halifax of Aleppo in 1691; his Relation of a voyage to Tadmor has been printed from his autograph in the Pal. Explor. Fund’s Quarterly Statement for 1890. Halifax not only took measurements, but copied 18 Greek and 4 Palmyrene texts. The architecture was carefully studied by Wood and Dawkins in 1751, whose splendid folio (The Ruins of Palmyra, London, 1753) also gave copies of inscriptions. But the epigraphic wealth of Palmyra was first opened to study by the collections of Waddington (vol. iii.) and De Vogüé (La Syrie centrale) made in 1861–1862. Since that time the most valuable document which has come to light is the great fiscal inscription discovered in 1882 by Prince Abamelek Lazarew.
See also A. D. Mordtmann, Sitzungsb. of the Munich Acad. (1875); Sachau, ZDMG. xxxv. 728 sqq.; D. H. Müller, Palm. Inschr. (1898); J. Mordtmann Palmyrenisches (1899); Clermont-Ganneau, Études d’arch. or. i., Receuil. d’arch. or. iii., v., vii.; Lidzbarski, Ephemeris, i. and ii.; Sobernheim, Palm. Inschr. (1905). The Répertoire d’épigr. sém. contains the new texts which have been published since 1900. For the coins von Sallet’s Fürsten von Palmyra (1866) must be read with his later essay in the Num. Zeitschr. ii. 31 sqq. (1870). Critical discussions of the history will be found in Schiller, Gesch. d. Römischen Kaiserzeit., i. 2 Teil (1883), pp. 823 sqq. and 857 sqq., and Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire, (Eng. trans., 1886), pp. 92 sqq. (G. A. C.*)
PALNI HILLS, a range of hills in south India, in the Madura district of Madras. They are an offshoot from the Western Ghats, and, while distinct from the adjacent Anamalai Hills, form part of the same system. They contain the hill station of Kodaikanal (7200 ft.), which has a milder and more equable climate than Ootacamund in the Nilgiri Hills. There is some coffee cultivation on the lower slopes.
PALO ALTO, a city of Santa Clara county, California, U.S.A., between two of the coast ranges, about 28 m. S. of San Francisco,
- ↑ Transcribed Μαλαχβῆλος, Malagbelus, &c., and in the Palm, inscr. given in NSI., p. 268, translated Sol sanctissimus; he was further identified with Ζεύς. Malak-bel has been explained as “messenger of Bel”; but more probably Malak is the common Babylonian epithet malik given to various gods, and means “counsellor”; Malak-bel will then be the sun as the visible representative of Bel.
