[ 755 3 
perform or accomplifh a vow they had made ; and that 
he conducted fome important enterprize, which had 
occafioned that vow, with great fuccefs. Whether the 
principal figure on that fide of the ftone, which exhi- 
bits the Palmyrene infcription, was intended to repre- 
fen t the SVN (8), as F. Montfaucon and others have 
afferted j or TIBERIVS CLAVDIVS himfelf, as 
fome perhaps may fuppofe not lefs probable ; I fliall 
not pretend to decide : but that the inference here de- 
duced from the term, which I have now been confi- 
dering, can by no means be deemed unjuft, will, I 
flatter myfelf, by the learned be very readily allowed. 
Who the CALBITES mentioned in this infcrip- 
tion were, we cannot fo eafily learn from any of the 
Greek or Latin authors. However, I make not the 
leaft doubt, but they muft have belonged to the 
Calbites taken notice of by (9) Abulfeda, the cele- 
brated Arabian hiftorian; who, according to that 
writer, were a tribe of Arabs that acknowledged 
for their great progenitor Calb Ebn Wabra, de- 
fcended in a right line from Hamyar, the fon of 
Saba, the fifth of the antient kings of Yaman. This 
tribe, in the times of ignorance ( 1 o), that is to fay, 
before the introduction of Iflamifm into Arabia, oc- 
cupied Dawmat Al Jandal, Tabuc, and feveral other 
places upon the confines of Syria. From whence, in 
conjunction with the infcription now before me, which 
perhaps was brought to Rome from Tadmor by 
the emperor Aurelian himfelf, we may infer, that 
(8) Montfauc. L'Antiq. Expliq. Tom. II. par. ii. p. 391, 392. 
(9) Ifm. Abulfed. in cap. De Arab. pur. Poc. Not. in Spec.HiJl. 
Arab. p. 40, 41. Oxon. 1650. 
(10) Al Kadi Saed Ebn Ahmed Andalofen. apud Greg. Abul 
Faraj. in Hiji. Dynaji. p. 159. Oxon. 1663. 
5 C 2 the 
