volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

i88 Bath Zahhai or Septimia Zenobia.
Syria, they used the Macedonian months and the Era
of the Seleucidae in dating their inscriptions. The finest
buildings, sepulchral and otherwise, date from the
third century, when Tudmur under Septimius Odhainat
or Udhainat II ('oSatVa^os)^ and Septimia Zenobia^
attained the zenith of its wealth and power. After the
destruction of Palmyra by the Emperor Aurelian in 273
its glory departed, though it continued to be of some
importance down to the time of its conquest by the
Arabs. Though some of the natives of Palmyra became
Christians at the close of the third century, and the
town was the seat of a bishop for two hundred years,
nothing seemed to remain of their buUdings. Khalid
ibn Walid occupied the town a.h. 12 = a.d. 634, but
he did it no harm and passed on to Damascus via
Karyaten ;' but because its inhabitants took the side
of the 'Abbasids, when Marwan II, the last 'Umayyad
Khalifah, captured it in 745, he threw down its walls
and made the town a desert. The temples and gateways
suffered irreparable damage through the great
earthquake which took place in 1157,* and the gaping
cracks in some of the walls probably date from this
time. The Oasis of Tudmur and its buildings are often
referred to in the works of Arabic poets, travellers and
geographers,^ but the writers knew very little about
1 This is the form given in the inscriptions published by de Vogiie
and others ; the Palmyrene original is njns. His grandfather, the son
of Hairan, p^n. son of Wahballath, n'?3ni. son of Nassor, -iiX3, was
also called Udhainat.
^ Her native name was Bath Zabbai, i.e., " daughter of Zabbai " ;
she was a native of Palmyra and of Arab descent.
^ Biladhurt, ed. de Goeje, pp. iii, 112.
' See Quatremere, Hist, des Sultans Mamlouks, tome ni, p. 255 f.
When Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela visited Tudmur sixteen years later,
in spite of the earthquake he found there " 2,000 warlike Jews,
who were at war with the Christians, and aided their neighbours the
Mahomedans." He says that Tudmur was buUt by Solomon with
stones as large as those of Ba' albak, from which place it is four days
distant. See Massd'Sth shel Rahhi Binydmin, ed. Asher, p. 87.
' See Istakhrt, p. 13 ; Ibn Hawkal, p. 17 ; Mukaddast, p. 54
Mas'u(M, iv, pp. 77, 78 ; Ibn Batutah, iv, p. 315 ; Abu'l-Fid^, p. 89,
etc. Yakut says (i, p. 829) that it was called Tadmur after Tadmur,