62 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO ]6Q5. 



his duty both to his father and country, to bring a powerful army into the field, 

 and to recover Mesopotamia from the Persians, and to penetrate as far as their 

 capital city Ctesiphon. Thus rendering so considerable a service to the Roman 

 state, that Gallienus thought himself obliged to give him a share in the empire. 

 But by a strange reverse of fortune, this honour and respect to Odaenathus oc- 

 casioned the sudden ruin and subversion of the city. For he and his son 

 Herodes being murdered by Ma3onius their kinsman, and dying with the title 

 of Augustus, his wife Zenobia, in right of her son Waballathus, then a minor, 

 pretended to take upon her the government of the East, which she administered 

 to admiration : and soon after, Gallienus being murdered, she seized the 

 government of Egypt, and held it during the short reign of the emperor 

 Claudius Gothicus. But Aurelian coming to the imperial dignity, he would not 

 suffer the title of Augustus in this family, though he allowed them to hold 

 under him as Vice Csesaris ; as plainly appears by the Latin coins of Aurelian 

 on the one side, and Waballathus on the other, with these letters V. C. R. IM. 

 OR. which P. Harduin has very judiciously interpreted Vice Caesaris Rector 

 Imperii Orientis, but without the title of Caesar or Augustus, and with a laurel 

 instead of a diadem. 



But notliing less than a participation of the empire contenting Zenobia, and 

 Aurelian persisting not to have it dismembered, he marched against her, and 

 having in two battles routed her forces, he shut her up and besieged her in 

 Palmyra : and the besieged finding that the great resistance they made, availed 

 not against that resolute emperor, they surrendered the town ; and Zenobia, 

 flying with her son, was pursued and taken : with wiiich Aurelian being satis- 

 fied, spared the city ; and leaving a small garrison, he marched for Rome with 

 this captive lady : but the iniiabitants, believing he would not return, set up 

 again for themselves, and, according to Vopiscus, they slew the garrison he 

 had left in the place. Which Aurelian understanding, though by this time he 

 was got into Europe, with his usual fierceness, speedily returned ; and collect- 

 ing a sufficient army by the v\ay, he again took the city without any great op- 

 position, and put it to the sword, with an uncommon cruelty, and gave it up 

 to the pillage of his soldiers. And it is observable, that none of the Greek in- 

 scriptions are after the date of this calamity, vvhicii befel the city in or about the 

 year of Christ 2/2, after it had been 9 or 10 years the seat of the empire of 

 the East. 



In this appears the great utility of coins to illustrate historical facts ; for by 

 them alone it is made out, that tiicre was such a prince as Wabaiiathus, by Vo- 

 piscus called Balbntus ; and from the same coins it appears, that Odasnathus had 

 the title of Augustus 4 years, and Waballathus 6 at least : and that the first 



