(Warning: Long, interesting.)
Around the year 270 AD, the times they were a-changin’. At least that is how it looked from the perspective of Zenobia, the queen of Palmyra. The Roman Empire had been top dog for centuries, but now it looked as if it might be falling. This could be a time for new empires. And Zenobia, like Walter White, was in the empire business.
The Roman provinces in Syria, Palestine and Asia Minor were all falling under the control of Zenobia’s Palmyra, the rich, semi-independent oasis city in the Syrian desert. Now, Zenobia had marched her army, led by her top general Zabdas, into Egypt, the jewel in the Roman imperial crown. Styling herself as a new Cleopatra, and giving her young son Vaballathus the title Augustus, her confidence was running high. With a bit of luck, she might be able to lift the entire Eastern Mediterranean world from Roman control.
Except that there was one man who Zenobia had failed to take into account: The new Roman Emperor Aurelian, also known as the Chuck Norris of the ancient world. And he had just about had it up to here with this motherfing queen in his motherfing Empire.
So begins my action movie script, lifted from history (and sorry about the mashed-up action hero references). But first, let’s back up a bit.
We’re in the middle of the ca. fifty-year period known as the Crisis of the Third Century. The Roman Empire is finding itself assaulted on all sides, from within and without, by invasions on all frontiers, crippling economic collapse, plague, famine, and a breakdown of central authority. Emperors are entering and exiting at a frightening clip, most of them coming to violent ends by way of assassination or death in battle. These Emperors are unable to defend the provinces, and people are looking for new centers of power to rally around. In the west, the provinces and armies of Gaul, Britain and Spain have broken away as the Gallic Empire, controlled by the rogue Roman commander Postumus. In the east, after facing a massive invasion from the Persian Sassanid Empire, the rallying point has become Palmyra: A city located on the key eastern trade routes, smack on the border between Rome and Persia, and therefore rich, not really under Roman control, and able to become an independent regional power center.
Before Zenobia, there was her husband, Odaenathus. In 260, the Roman emperor Valerian had faced off against the Sassanid invasion, only to be captured alive after a devastating defeat at the battle of Edessa. If you believe the stories, the Sassanid king Shapur was keeping Valerian alive only to humiliate him, by using him as a human foot stool. The East looked to be at the mercy of the Sassanids. Except, enter Odaenathus. Putting together an army of the remaining Roman forces in the area, local troops, and all the mercenaries and conscripted peasants he could get his hands on, the Palmyrene king rose to the challenge. Against the odds, the Sassanids were turned back. And Odaenathus, as a result, became the top man in the East.
Odaenathus remained somewhat loyal to Rome (where the Emperor in charge was now Valerian’s son Gallienus) and agreed to rule as a Roman subordinate. But then, just as suddenly as he had come onto the scene, his luck ran out. In 269, he was assassinated, under somewhat dubious circumstances.
His wife Zenobia was now in charge. And she, as we’ve seen, had no plans to take orders from Rome. Hey, if the Palmyrene army was now the strongest in the region, and the locals were willing to give their support, why should the Romans still be the ones getting all that tax income and controlling all that trade? Plus, doesn’t “Palmyrene Empire” have a nice ring to it?
Yeah, I’ll stop there, before this becomes too much of a wall of text. But, spoiler alert, things will not end well for Palmyra. The Emperor Gallienus is replaced on the hot seat by a series of much more capable Illyrian generals, and Aurelian, the most bad-ass of the bunch, will before long be kicking butt in every direction. Which spells bad news for all enemies of Rome, a list which, as far as Aurelian is concerned, now very much includes Zenobia. Taking out the Sassanids for Rome was great and all, but that didn’t give Palmyra a free pass to claim the East for itself. Aurelian would be having those territories back, thank you very much.
The ruins of Palmyra are still there in the Syrian desert today. They’re not ruins just because of entropy and the sands of time. They’re ruins because Aurelian and his legions destroyed the city, leaving only a few select buildings. It was reduced to a village, and had a legionary base plonked on top of it, to make sure that no separatist mischief would arise from there again.
Following his success in the East, Aurelian would then recapture the breakaway territories in the West, and become known as Restitutor Orbis - ‘Restorer of the World’. It’s a sign of the times, I suppose, that he himself then got assassinated in 275, for some really dumb reasons. But Rome was on the way out of the Crisis, and would get its head back over the water line again a little bit later, at least for the the time being, with the Emperor Diocletian.
What happened to Zenobia? She was taken prisoner by Aurelian and paraded in his triumph, and after that, strangely enough, we don’t know. One optimistic narrative has it that she lived out her days in a villa in Italy. However, that sounds about as likely to me as the idea that the dog that you had as a kid really went to live on a farm.
Why am I talking about this? Well, for a really depressing reason. As you may have heard in the news, the ruins of Palmyra have come under the control of ISIS. And going by the track record that those clowns have of psychopathic behavior, there’s a good chance that they’re about to finish off Aurelian’s demolition job. 
So, I thought this would be good time to remember Palmyra, and its moment in the sun in the troubled third century. There’s lots more to the story, too. Go check it out.
Oh, right, BTW, I almost forgot: What’s the thread title about? Well, there was a Roman city in Gaul which had been destroyed during the crisis years, called Cenabum, which Aurelian rebuilt and renamed Aureliana Civitas - City of Aurelian. This name later became Orléans. Which then later gave its name to a city in Louisiana. And that’s the connection between Syria and New Orleans: A third century Roman Emperor. 
