PALMYRA, TADMOII. Both them names are derived from the palm.trees which once grew in the neighbourhood of this ancient city. Palmyra is situated in an oasis of the Syriau desert, nearly half-way between the Orontes and the Euphrates, and about 140 miles E.N.E. from Damascus, in 34" 24' N. let., 38' 20' E. long , according to Major Rennall. (' Comparative Geography or Western Asia') The circumstance of Palmyra being situated in an oasis sheltered by hills to the west and north-west, and /applied with wholesome water, and on a line leading from the coast of Syria to the regions of Mesopotamia, Persia, and India, must have pointed it out in very early times to the caravans as a convenient halting-place in the midst of the desert. The Phoenicians were probably early acquainted with it, and may have suggested to Solomon, with whom the king of Tyre was in alliance, the idea of establishing an emporium there. We read in the Second Book of Chronicles (viii. 4), that Solomon " built Tadmor in the wilderness, and all the store cities which he built in Bernath." Bernath was a town and territory extending along the banks of the Orontes. and bordering on the Syrian desert. After this we read no more of Tadmor in the Scriptures; but John of Antioch, probably from some tradition, says that it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The first notice which we have of it in ROman history is that 31. Antony, being in Syria, marched to surprise it, expecting a rich booty, but the inhabitants disappointed him by transporting their goods beyond the Euphrates.
In the time of Pliny it was the intermediate emporium of the trade with the East, a city of merchants and factors, who traded with the Parthiene on the one band and the Romans on the other. The pro duce of India found its way to the Roman world through Palmyra. It afterwards became allied to the empire as a free state, and was greatly favoured by Hadrian and the Antoninea, under whom it attained its greatest splendour.
Odenatus, is native of Palmyra, having rendered great services to the Roman empire In a war against the Persians, assumed, with the consent of Gallienus, the title of King of Palmyra, and Gallienus con ferred upon him the command of all the forces in the East. Odenatus
obtained several victories over, the Persians, but being at last trea cherously killed, his wife Zenobia, an aspiring woman, assumed the crown, end styling herself Queen of the East, asserted her sovereignty over Mesopotamia and Syria. Zenobia remained undistnrbed for several years, during the latter part of the reign of Gallienus and the subsequent reign of Claudius. But after Aurelianus was proclaimed emperor, he resolved to put down Zenobia, who had extended her canquestsi over Asia Minor, and after defeating her at Antioch and at Einem, Palmyra surrendered to him, when he put to death her minister Longinus. An insurrection eubsequently took place, when be returned to Palmyra, and carried on an indiscriminate slaughter of the inhabitants. This is averred by his own letter to Probus, whom he appointed governor of the place, and which has been preserved by Vopisous. Zenobia appeared as a captive in the triumphal procession of Aurelian at Rome, after which she was allowed to reside at a country-house near Tibur, where she spent the remainder of her life. Synoellus says that she married a Roman senator, and had children by him. A Latin inscription at Palmyra, copied by Wood and Dawkins, shows that the place was garrisoned by the Romans under Diocletian, who built or restored several edifices. Justiuian is men tioned by Procopius as having fortified Palmyra and placed a garrison in IL The Moslems took it under the kalifato of Abu L'ekr, Moham med's successor. (Ockley, History of the Saracens.') We hear no more of Palmyra after this till the 12th century, when Benjamin of Tudela visited it. lie say. it was encompassed by a wall, and that there were in it 4000 Jews. Among them Isaac, surnamed Grtecus, and Nathan and Uziel, have the pre-eminence. (Purchas, ix., ch. 5.) The latest historical notice of Palmyra is its plunder in 1400 by the army of Tamerlane. It has been in a ruined and desolate state for centuries past, and the spot is inhabited by a small tribe of Beduin Arab., who have built their hovels in the peristyle of the great temple.