PALMYRA. – An oasis and ancient city in the Syrian desert, an important centre of the trade route that ran from the East, through the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates, to Syria and thence to the Mediterranean. It was this position that ensured Palmyra’s great prosperity during the first three centuries of the Christian era, for the most part within the sphere of influence of Rome.
The origin of the name is uncertain. To the Semitic forms Ta-ad-mar (Assyrian), Tadhmôr (Hebrew: II Par. 8, 4), Tadhur (Arabic) there correspond the Greek Πλαμμόν and the Latin Palmyra. Two explanations are given for this fact: a) the Greek-Latin form derives from the Semitic through the assimilation of the latter by assonance to tâmôr (Hebrew: “palm tree”); b) the Greek-Latin form derives directly from the Semitic, with alteration of certain consonants (t > p; d > l). The first explanation is supported by the biblical case of I Reg. 9, 18, in which the kêthôb Tâmôr corresponds to the gêrê Tadhôr, but is hindered by the fact that there are no palm trees at Palmyra (it is nevertheless replied to this objection that the linguistic fact may have occurred far from the city); the difficulty of the second explanation lies in the considerable alteration of the term.
The earliest mention of Palmyra so far known is found in an inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I (late 12th–early 11th century B.C.), in which it is spoken of as “Ta-ad-mar which is in the land of Amurru” (cf. E. Dhorme, Palmyre dans les textes assyriens, in Revue biblique, 33 [1924], pp. 106–108).
The biblical passage II Par. 8, 4, in which Solomon is credited with the founding of Tadmor, is disputed. According to some (cf. J. G. Février [V. BIBLICA.], pp. 3–4), this passage is a simple correction of the parallel I Reg. 9, 18, in which, as has been said above, the kêthôb states that the king built Tâmôr, a locality in Judea (in opposition, cf. E. Dhorme, op. cit., pp. 106–107, who insists on the gêrê Tadhôr).
One must wait until 4 B.C. to have another mention of Palmyra, this time from a classical source: Appian (Bell. civ., V, 9) relates that Antony sacked the city, adducing as his reason its ambiguous attitude between the Romans and the Parthians.
About the same time the two oldest inscriptions in the Palmyrene language were discovered (cf. J. Starcky, Les inscriptions palmyréniennes les plus anciennes, in Actes du XXI Congrès intern. des orient., Paris 1949, pp. 111–114): one of them is dated to 4 B.C. Towards the beginning of the 1st century A.D. the Palmyrene inscriptions, many of which are bilingual (with Greek), increase in number; they continue until 274 (the last so far discovered bears precisely this date: cf. J. Cantineau, Tadmorea, in Syria, 19 [1938], p. 163), amounting to several hundred (the most recent, from the excavations of H. Seyrig in the years 1939–40, have been published by J. Starcky, Inventaire... [V. BIBLICA.]). The script in which the inscriptions are written is of the Aramaic type; so too is the language (v. ARAMAIC, LANGUAGE), which may be defined as a continuation of the ancient Imperial Aramaic (Reichsaramäisch), into which elements of Eastern Aramaic subsequently infiltrated (cf. J. Cantineau, Grammaire du palmyrénien épigraphique, Cairo 1935; F. Rosenthal, Die Sprache der palmyrenischen Inschriften und ihre Stellung innerhalb des Aramäischen, Leipzig 1936). Alongside these direct sources, for the reconstruction of the history of Palmyra from this period there are the growing notices of classical writers, culminating in the account of the war between Zenobia and Aurelian in the Greek Zosimus and the Latin Vita Aureliani.
The city’s continued position in an intermediate situation between Rome and the Parthians is attested in the course of the 1st century A.D. by a passage of Pliny the Elder (Hist. nat., V, 88). At the same time the inscriptions reveal an internal organisation based on tribal lines; the names of the tribes, like those of the persons, are predominantly Arabic: the result is a substratum, or at least an Arab element, in the population, upon which is grafted the Aramaic element, attested by the language.
Probably (cf. J.-G. Février [V. BIBLICA.], pp. 19–24) the annexation to Rome took place around 114, on the occasion of Trajan’s expedition against the Parthians. This resulted in a change in the internal constitution, which became similar to that of the Greek cities of the Empire. Power was divided between the senate (σολά) and the people (δάμος): membership in the latter probably depended on a census criterion, which replaced the tribal principle. The senate was presided over by a πρόεδρος; executive power belonged to two ἄρχοντες, who in the 3rd century changed their name to στρατηγοί; financial administration was exercised by the δεκάπροτοι, together with the ἄρχοντες and the σύνδικοι. At the beginning of the 3rd century, it appears from a passage of Ulpian (D. 50, 15, 1) that Palmyra was a colony of ius Italicum: but it is difficult to say how long this had been the case.
The emperor Hadrian, who visited Palmyra in 129, was pro-