i62 MEMOIRS of the 
adorn their publick buildings; thcfe in this place were not far 
to fetch, the neighbouring mountains affording marble quar- 
ries: But the magnitude of the porphyry columns is indeed 
very remarkable, confidering how far thefe vaft ftones mud 
have been brought by land-carriage to this place, it not being 
known that any other quarries yield it, except thofe of Egypty 
which lie about mid- way, between Cairo and Siena, between 
the Nile and the Red Sea 5 the ftone is very valuable for its 
colour and hardnefs, and becaufe it rifes in blocks of any 
magfnitude required 5 therefore is a great miftake to fuppofe it 
fa^litious. 
From the time q{ Adrian to that of Amelian^ for about 140 
years, this city continued to flourifh and encreafe in wealth and 
power to that degree, that when the emperor Valerian was 
taken prifoner by Sapores^ V\ngo{ ^erjia, Od<ena!hus,onQ of the 
Lords of this town, was able, whillt Gallienus negle(5ted his 
duty both to his father and his country, to bring a powerful 
army into the field, and to recover Mefopotamia from the 
^Perfians, and to penetrate as far as their capital city Ctefiphon 5 
by this means, doing fo confiderable a fervice to the Roman 
ftate, that Gallienus thought himfclf obliged to give him a 
fliare in the empire; but, by a ftrange reverfe of fortune, this 
honour and relpeft to Odeenatbus occafioned the fudden ruin 
and fubverfion of the city; for he, and his Ton Herodes^ being 
murdered by AUonius their kinfman, and dying with the title 
oi AugiifluSy his wife Zenobiay in right of her fon JVaballathuSy 
then a minor, pretended to take upon her the government of 
the eafl:, which (he adminiftred to admiration; and loon after, 
Gallienus being murdered, j'hc feized the government o^ Egypt, 
and held it during the /liort reign of the emperor Claudius 
Gothicus-^ but j4urelian, coming to the imperial dignity, would 
not fufter the title oi jluguftus m this family, tho' he allowed 
them that of Vice Cdefaris, as plainly appears by the Latin 
coins o{ Aurelian, on the reverfe of which is Waballathus with 
thefe letters U. C. R. I M. OR- which T. Ilardouin has very 
judiciouily interpreted, Vice Cdfaris ReEior Imperii OricntiSy 
bur without the title of C<fjar or AugufluSy and with a laurel 
inftead of a diadem. But both Waballathus and Zenobia are 
Itilcd (^EBA(^TOI in the Greek coins, probably made within 
their own ju'ifdidtion. 
But Zenobia not iarisfied with any thing lefs than a (hare in 
the empire, and Aurelian^ perfifting not to have it difmenibrcd, 
marched againit her, and having m two battles routed her 
forces, 
