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PALMYRA IN CONTEXT CITY, EMPIRE, WORLD, DRY STEPPE VERSION 1.0

a working paper from the project Palmyrena: City, Hinterland and Caravan between Orient and Occident

Jørgen Christian Meyer and Eivind Heldaas Seland University of Bergen

Feel free to cite this paper, but bear in mind that it represents work in progress. The working paper will be removed from the web-site when it appears in print. The authors welcome all comments and can be contacted for details on revisions and publication (e-mail). WORKING PAPER WORKING PAPER

PALMYRA IN CONTEXT CITY, EMPIRE, WORLD, DRY STEPPE

Jørgen Christian Meyer and Eivind Heldaas Seland University of Bergen

From Hadrian’s Wall to Palmyra.

Regina was only 30 years old, when she died near the easternmost fort of Hadrian’s Wall, Arbeia, at the mouth of the river Tyne around 200 AD. Her husband, Barates, erected a magnificent tombstone to his deceased wife, whom he had given the dignified name “Regina” (Salway 1965, 256-7). Regina is seated in an elaborate architectural niche with a work-basket, needle and balls of wool, and her right hand on a jewel case. At the bottom a panel carries two inscriptions. The first one reads: D M REGINA LIBERTA ET CONIVGE BARATES PALMYRENVS NATIONE CATVALLAVNA AN XXX (To the memory of Regina, freedwoman and wife of Barates of Palmyra, of the Catuallaunian tribe, who died aged 30). The second one is shorter and written in characters: rgyn’ brtin bt hry’ hbl (Regina, freedwoman of Barates, alas!). Regina’s tombstone in northern England is an excellent starting point for an understanding of the Syrian city of Palmyra, its history, people and culture. Since European travellers in the 17th century discovered the impressive ruins of one of the most important cities at the eastern edge of the , the place has been wrapped in exoticism. The ruins lie in a green oasis, named Tadmor in , in harsh, arid environments, dominated by with their herds, and Palmyra is often labelled “The Bride of the Desert”. The funerary towers west of the city contained , some of them dressed in silk from China and cotton from India (Stauffer 1995). Sculptures of the deceased show a peculiar synthesis of Greco-Roman and Oriental style (Ingholt 1928; Colledge 1976). Inscriptions, both private and public, are frequently bilingual; Greek and Aramaic, and in some cases even trilingual, including . Even if most of the architecture can be classified basically as Hellenistic/Roman with some Eastern elements, Palmyra leaves the impression of some

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WORKING PAPER WORKING PAPER otherness and orientalism. No doubt, Palmyra was different from Rome, Pompeii, or Eburacum (York) in Britannia. However, Rome also differed from Athens or the cities in North Africa, and how much importance should we attach to this otherness? This is where Barates may help us. As an officer in the 6th legion, stationed at Hadrian’s Wall, or a civilian contractor, negotiator, to the Roman army, he was far away from his native town about 3900 km as the crow flies, or at least 3-4 month’s travel, if he chose the right season for seafaring in the Mediterranean, considerably more if he chose to cover the whole distance on foot. A modern Syrian or Briton can cover the distance in a day or two, but still most travellers experience a huge cultural difference between what we call the Orient and the Occident. Also for Barates the encounter with Britannia and its people must have been a peculiar experience. He had to accustom himself to the damp, misty landscape and the cold, rainy summers of northern Europe (Tac. Agr. 12.3-5). Local customs, dress, housing, food and languages also differed from what he was used to. However, it is highly unlikely, that he experienced any larger cultural shock, when he settled in Britannia and married a local girl, who he had bought as a slave and later manumitted. Contrary to the modern world, family structures, social connections, friendship and basic values associated with a good and successful life were essentially the same in and Britannia in antiquity. In Britannia he found cities with almost the same institutions he knew from Palmyra. They had a city council, annually elected magistrates, tax collectors, baths, a central market place with public buildings, a theatre or amphitheatre and an imperial cult (Kaizer 2002, 148-9). The temple for the Capitoline triad, Jupiter, Juno and Minerva was not identical to the Palmyrene triad, , the master of the universe, Iarhibol (the sun) and (the moon), but Jupiter could easily be identified with Bel or Zeus (Butcher 2003, 346-7). The local elite both in Britannia and Palmyra competed for prestige and political power by being generous to the community. Well-founded roads and rest-houses, very often with military presence, made travel relatively easy and safe between cities even in the rainy season, and milestones with basic geographical information made maps or guides superfluous. If Barates wanted to return to his native town, lists of names, the so-called itineraria, with cities, road stations and distances, functioned much in the same way as a subway map does today. Barates lived in a multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious and multilingual empire, which was not only bound together by loyalty to the emperor in Rome. The different regions shared some basic features, cutting across climatic, geographical and cultural divides. WORKING PAPER 3 WORKING PAPER

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He was a cosmopolitan and mastered several tongues; in Palmyra the two official languages, Greek and Aramaic, in Britain also Latin. This was not only the world of Barates, but the world of many of his fellow Palmyrenes, whether they sailed on the Indian Ocean, traded in Mesopotamian cities, did military service in Britannia or Dacia or even entered the Roman Senate.

Palmyra in the centre of an old Hellenistic world.

However, at one point there was a great difference between northern Britain and Palmyra. The frontier to the north was a visible line in the landscape, marked by Hadrian’s Wall. It was not only a military and political boundary line, but also a cultural one. Even if there was an extensive economic exchange across the border, and some parts of Roman Britain were still characterized by tribal organization, Hadrian’s Wall marked the borderline between a labile tribal society to the north, and a well-organized empire, based on a city-state culture to the south. The frontier in the East towards the was not clearly defined (Whittaker 1994, 49-59). In the more arid regions nomadic tribal groups continued to move their herds long-distance from summer to winter pasture and control of oases and wells was essential. In other parts client kingdoms, bound by personal loyalty either to the Roman emperor or the Parthian king constituted an unstable buffer zone. Further, the frontier in the east was essentially a political border zone between two great empires, not a cultural one. The eastern part of the Mediterranean, and the Iranian tableland had been part of large empires before, first the Persian , later the Hellenistic (Sherwin-White & Kuhrt 1993, 40-71). Both empires stretched from the Mediterranean in the West as far as in the East. When the Parthians took over and pushed back the Seleucids to the , they assimilated much of the Hellenistic culture and combined it with their own and other local traditions (Sellwood 1980; Brosius 2006, 126-8). There were differences in art and architecture, especially from the first century AD and onwards, when there was a reaction against the former Philhellenism, but this does not justify the conception of a sharp cultural dividing line between the Orient and the Occident. The more feudal and rural Parthians never attained the same degree of political cohesion as the Romans did within their sphere of influence, and the cities were still the centre of political power and social life. The old Hellenistic cities enjoyed a high degree of political autonomy (Wiesehöfer 2001, 141- WORKING PAPER 4 WORKING PAPER

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3), they flourished and some of them became important strongholds on the overland trade route between the Far East and the Eastern Mediterranean. Palmyra is thus situated more or less in the centre of an old Hellenistic cultural sphere, and it makes sense to classify it as an Hellenistic city, if we by “Hellenism” mean a symbiosis of Greek (later Roman) and Oriental elements, not only a one-way Greek influence on the eastern societies (Briant 1990; Sherwin-White & Kuhrt 1993, 1-6, 141-87). The material culture in Palmyra shows all the characteristics of this symbiosis (Al-As’ad & Schmidt-Colinet 1995, 28-53). In architecture the Greco-Roman tradition dominated, even if mud bricks were widely used as building material, leaving columns and doorposts the only visible remains of the houses today. The Bel temple has a more Eastern ground plan, but otherwise the idiom is Greek. The large colonnaded street can be compared to similar ones in Apamea, , , Gadara, Philadelphia, just to mention a few (Butcher 2003, 105). The sepulchral culture, on the other hand, shows strong influence from the east (Ingholt 1928; Colledge 1976). It is an open question whether the Palmyrenes themselves were aware of this symbiosis or attached any importance to it. However, “culture” is not only art and architecture. It is also a question of social relations and institutions, irrespective of material culture. From a historical point of view there was no borderline at Euphrates, and, as we shall see, Palmyrene activities and presence were not only confined to different parts of the Roman Empire, like a Barates in Britannia, but also to the cities across the political frontier.

The city of paradoxes.

Most cities in the Roman had been important centres in the Seleucid epoch, which the Romans could take over as means of control of the new provinces (Millar 1993, 236-7; Butcher 2003, 106-21). Palmyra does not belong to this group. While new excavations south of the surviving ruins from the late imperial period have revealed the Hellenistic roots of Palmyra (Al-As’ad & Schmidt-Colinet 2000; Schmidt-Colinet & al-As’ad 2002; Schmidt- Colinet & Ployer & Römer-Strehl 2008), nothing yet indicates that the Hellenistic habitation ranked among the Syrian cities as to size and wealth. When Mark Antony plundered the city in 41 BC, he found it deserted and empty of valuable booty (App. B Civ. 5.9). In most of its history the settlement in the oasis seems to have been modest. The is void of finds. The city is mentioned in as Tadmor (Fayssal 1996; Sommer 2005, 149- WORKING PAPER 5 WORKING PAPER

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50), but there is no large as in Mari, or , and the finds from the Bronze Age are few and insignificant (Al-Maqdissi 2009). From about 1000 AD up to the French mandate the population of the oasis inhabited the precinct of the old Bel temple, which was converted into a mosque and the territory around Palmyra was dominated by warring tribes not subject to any effective central control, making travel and communication difficult. In the beginning of the 20th century the population of the oasis only counted about 350 families (Musil 1928, 145). In the Roman period, however, Palmyra could be compared with the largest cities in the region. To the west its territory bordered to those of Apamea and Emessa (). To the east and northeast the control stretched towards Euphrates; to the south and southeast deep into the arid Bedouin territory. There have been several attempts to estimate the population of the city, ranging from 30.000 to 200.000 (Crouch 1972). The city covered an area of twenty square kilometres within the farthest walls, but the population density must have been low. Palmyra is an oasis and much of the city area has probably been occupied by gardens and open space. Even if we allow for a seasonal nomadic floating population, not having permanent houses in the city, 200.000 is probably a too high figure for the city area. A population between 50.000 and 100.000 is much more realistic. However, there are several oases in the large territory, and the combined population in the Roman period was indeed large enough for the city also to play a political role. Unlike most client states of Hellenistic origin in the Roman East, which were incorporated in the Roman provincial system during the first century AD, Palmyra appears to have enjoyed a relatively free position under Roman control. In the second half of the turbulent 3rd century, when the Romans lost control of the eastern provinces, the city was strong enough, under the leadership of the noble to repel a Sasanian offensive and to restore Roman control in concert with emperor in Rome (Butcher 2003, 58-60; Sommer 2005, 159-70; Meyer 2006, 143-4). After the murder of Odaenathus in 267, his famous wife, , expanded Palmyrene control to , Arabia and the eastern parts of Asia Minor, and she began to issue coins with her son, Vallabathus, together with the new emperor in Rome, , on the other side. Zenobia’s independent actions clashed with Aurelian’s ambitions to re-establish a firm unity of the Roman Empire, and a Roman offensive in 272-273 put a stop to Zenobia’s dreams of installing her son as Roman emperor. The city was sacked, lost its relatively free position and during the reign of Diocletian Palmyra was reduced to a legionary stronghold on a new defence system from Euphrates to WORKING PAPER 6 WORKING PAPER

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Damascus, the so-called Strata Diocletiana (Millar 1993,183-4; Whittaker 1994, 135-9). Aramaic inscriptions soon disappeared and the city area shrank to the ruins, which is visible today, and was surrounded with a new defensive wall. However, the city continued to be an important administrative and military centre into late antiquity, and it also became an Episcopal residence (Gawlikowski 2005; Genequand 2008, 3-4). It was later renovated by emperor Justinian, who restored the baths and the churches of the city ( Chron. 18.2), although it never regained its former glory. In the early Islamic period, during the Umayyads (661-750), who erected large, monumental country seats in the territory, Palmyra was a regional commercial centre, with a large suq, marketplace, within the former colonnaded street (Genequand 2008). Palmyra’s strong position in the Roman period is a paradox. It cannot be explained by access to an abundance of natural resources. Whereas the other cities are located in the most fertile parts of the region, the landscape around Palmyra does not receive enough annual precipitation to make traditional agriculture a reliable source of nutrition. Several springs in the oasis can feed gardens with date palms, olive and fruit trees, vegetables and probably also some grain fields, but it is highly unlikely that the oasis in itself can support a larger population, say 50.000 people. To bring in cereals overland on pack animals from the fertile Orontos valley over 150 km west of Palmyra was no realistic alternative. This is not the only paradox. In the three first centuries of the Roman period one of the main arteries of the trade between The Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean passed Palmyra. It was an important caravan city, not only in an interregional network. Most scholars today agree that the caravan trade was of great importance for the strong position of Palmyra in the Roman period, but the problem is that the normal communication line for goods and people up through history did not pass Palmyra, but followed the corridor along the river Euphrates with good access to water and provisions. Palmyra is located far away from this corridor and crossing the arid territory to the southeast, which was dominated by nomadic groups, must have been a great practical and organizational challenge. Palmyra's growth from village to major city of the Roman east, and the Palmyrenes transition from herdsmen of the steppe to long distance merchants calls out for an explanation. Answers must be sought along two lines – politics and geography – and on two levels – in the geopolitical landscape between Indian Ocean and Mediterranean and on the Syrian dry steppe around Palmyra. Only in this light can we start to appreciate Palmyra’s sudden entrance and abrupt exit from the stage of world history. WORKING PAPER 7 WORKING PAPER

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Palmyra between Empires and desert, the geopolitical setting

It was the geographical position of Palmyra that made it possible to establish a caravan route between the Euphrates and the Orontes. In terms of distance this route constituted a considerable shortcut compared to the road along the rivers, but distance was not the only consideration, and apart from the heyday of Palmyra, the desert routes have been a major alternative only in the Ottoman period, particularly in the 17th and 18th century (Carruthers 1929; Grant 1937, 131-48). Along the rivers, provisions and shelter was available throughout the year. In the desert, transport, security, food, water and guides had to be arranged. The Palmyrenes became highly successful in this, but this alone does not explain why the river route appears to have been relatively little used in the Roman period and why the route across the steppe seems to have been preferred. The key to understanding the position of Palmyra is the relationship between the city and her powerful neighbours, and the changing political conditions along the Euphrates. In 141 BC, Mithridates I and the Parthians conquered Mesopotamia, and the Euphrates was established as the political border it would remain under successive empires until the Islamic conquest almost 800 years later. Already before the loss of Mesopotamia, the fortunes of the Seleucids had been waning, and during the second and first centuries, nomadic tribes from northwestern Arabia used the weakness of the political centre to settle down on and near agricultural land (Sommer 2005, 58). Local dynasties emerged from Characene and Petra in the South, to Armenia and Commagene in the north, and found themselves in a politically undefined landscape between competing empires, where they had to manoeuvre in order to maintain as much independence as possible. The Arsacid rulers of the Parthian Empire incorporated such dynasties without problems, and continued to rule large parts of their realm through a system of client kingdoms throughout their history. The Romans initially followed suit. When Pompey deposed the last of the Seleucid kings in 67 BC and established the province of Syria, only a relatively small area around Antioch became subject to direct Roman rule. The rest of the territory between the Sinai, and the Euphrates was controlled by local dynasts, who were allowed to stay in office in return for their loyalty to Rome. The tribal elites on the steppe around the emerging urban centre in Palmyra had to deal with the new political power in Antioch, but WORKING PAPER 8 WORKING PAPER

WORKING PAPER WORKING PAPER they also had immediate neighbours and rivals in the Nabataeans and Hasmoneans to the south and southwest, the Itureans and the Emesans to the west, Osrohene to the north, Parthian Parapotamia, governed from Dura Europos, and the Parthian core territories around , Seleucia and to the east. How precarious this situation could be is reflected in the first reference to Palmyra from a Roman point of view, in which Appian (App. B. Civ. 5.9) reports that the stated (but spurious) motive for Mark Anthony's raid of 41 BC was that the Palmyrenes had maintained neutrality between Parthia and Rome. Appian goes on to describe the caravan trade of Palmyra, and most modern scholars tend to view this part of the passage as anachronistic, reflecting Appians own time, the second century AD (Millar 1993, 321; Sommer 2005, 151-2), nevertheless his description of the political situation of Palmyra and the liabilities it brought with it fits very well with the political context of early . While direct evidence is lacking, it is likely that the political fragmentation of the border zone between the empires was an obstacle to transit trade along the upper Euphrates. Gawlikowski has drawn attention to Strabo's account of trade east of the Euphrates (Strabo Geo. 16.1.27), probably describing a mid-first century BC situation (Gawlikowski 1996, 139), where merchants are reported to have preferred a 25 day's desert crossing to the route along the river in order to be able to relate to one political authority (the nomadic Scenitae), rather than the many phylarchs exercising sovereignty and exacting tribute along the river. This situation can perhaps also explain why a window of opportunity opened for a parallel route west of the river, by way of Palmyra, and could indicate that Appian's description of Palmyrene trade in the mid first century BC might not be so anachronistic after all. Although client states always remained an element of the Roman border organisation, most of the minor kingdoms of the Roman east were incorporated into the Roman provincial system during the first century AD (Butcher 2003, 79-98; Sommer 2005, 58-66). There is no doubt that Palmyra at some point also became a part of the Roman Empire, but it is not clear just when this happened (Edwell 2008, 3-62). The so-called Palmyra Tariff of 137 AD (see below) refers to earlier rulings by Roman officials starting with Germanicus Caesar (Matthews 1984, 179), who visited Syria in 17-19 AD. The city received the honorary epithet of Hadrianê, probably on occasion of the visit of that emperor in 129 or 130 (Millar 1993, 105-6), and was bestowed the privileged status of a Roman colonia during the rule of (193-211) or his son Caracalla (211-217) (Millar WORKING PAPER 9 WORKING PAPER

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1993, 143-4, 326-7). The formal status of Palmyra at different stages is, however, perhaps not as important as the fact that it was able to and trusted to act with a considerable degree of autonomy (Potts 1997, 94; Sommer 2005, 153-4). Being organised as what appears to have been a hybrid between a tribal republic and a Greek model city-state (Sommer 2008, 289-93), Palmyra possessed an institutional framework, which allowed it to operate inside, next to and outside a Roman context as it was fit. Situated at least five day's march from the cultivated and densely populated regions of the Orontes valley and Northern Syria, it was safe for the Romans to let the Palmyrenes maintain their ties with the different communities of the steppe and the western Parthian Empire without undue interference. This does not mean that Palmyra was not a part of the Roman Empire, but that the Romans allowed the Palmyrenes to act with a degree of independence, because they must have considered it to be in their own interest, quite in line with the general Roman recipe of "government without bureaucracy", as Garnsey and Saller have characterised it (Garnsey & Saller 1987, 20-43). The relative autonomy of Palmyra is not only visible in the distinctive architecture, sculpture, and religion of the city as well as in the extensive use of Aramaic script for official purposes, it is also evident in other fields. The caravan trade seems to have been managed as a a purely Palmyrene venture, outside the control, although surely not the supervision, of Roman authorities, and the Palmyrenes maintained their own military forces, which for a long time seems to have operated outside, or perhaps rather next to the framework of the Roman border organisation. The permanent deployment of Roman military detachments in Palmyra is not attested before 167 AD (Edwell 2008, 51), while there is evidence for Palmyrene soldiers, officers and military units, cavalry, archers and camel- cavalry, not only in and around Palmyra, but also in Roman service from a variety of locations throughout the empire (Edwell 2008, 51-4; Sommer 2005, 155-8). Reliefs from Palmyra show proud officers of the camel-corps, and inscriptions attest that Palmyrene citizens held the military office of strategos and led military action against the nomads of the steppe. The appearance of Palmyrene military forces partly in Roman contexts, partly outside, strengthens the impression that Palmyra remained a de facto client state within the Roman Empire for a long period. The success of this arrangement is not only evident in the monumental remains of Palmyra itself, but also in the heavy investments in military presence and fortification which the Romans had to undertake along the Damascus-Palmyra road and in Palmyra itself following the suppression of Zenobia's revolt.

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With regard to the Parthian Empire, it is clear that there were resident communities of Palmyrenes in a number of Parthian cities, including Dura Europos (Dirven 1999), Seleucia, Babylon and Vologesias, and in Spasinou Charax, Gennae and Forat in the client-kingdom of Characene on the lower Euphrates and the Persian Gulf (Sommer 2005, 204). Palmyrenes also acted as ambassadors to and officials in Parthian client-kingdoms. Unfortunately we do not know what happened in Palmyra or to the resident communities of Palmyrenes on Parthian soil during periods of conflict between her powerful neighbours, but it is significant that most campaigns known to us focused on the Euphrates corridor and Armenia rather than the Syrian steppe, and the sustained presence of Palmyrenes in Parthian cities and the continued operation of Palmyrene caravans presupposes toleration of Palmyra's special position in Ctesiphon as well as in Rome.

Ships and caravans

Michael Rostovzeff labelled Palmyra as a "Caravan City" (Rostovzeff 1932), and later scholarship has generally agreed with his emphasis on caravan trade as an important economic basis for the city (Will 1957; Gawlikowski 1994; Gawlikowski 1996; Young 2001, 184-6; Sommer 2005, 202). It was Palmyra's role in the long distance exchange between India, China, Iran and the Mediterranean during the first three centuries AD, which brought the power and prosperity that could turn the settlement into one of the most important cities of the Roman Empire in the third century. Caravans regularly went to the Euphrates and came from the Persian Gulf. From Charax at the head of the Persian Gulf, Palmyrene merchants sailed to the mouth of the Indus, using their own ships (Starcky 1949, Inv. X.96; Milik 1972, 32-3). A Palmyrene is attested to have acted as governor (satrap) of the Characene king in Dilum (Bahrein) in 131 AD (Starcky 1949, Inv. X.38), and envoys from the Syrian city were present at the court of the South Arabian kingdom of Hadramawt (Bron 1986, RES 4859), probably in the early third century AD. The presence of Palmyrenes in these regions should be interpreted in light of Palmyrene interest in maritime trade, and Palmyrenes also seem to have been involved in the Red Sea trade in Egypt in the late second and third century (Bingen 1984; Dijkstra & Verhoogt 1999). Popular accounts sometimes describe Palmyra as a city on the so-called Silk Road – the overland routes linking East Asia, Central Asia and the . This is partly WORKING PAPER 11 WORKING PAPER

WORKING PAPER WORKING PAPER misleading. The Chinese silk which robed the bodies of deceased Palmyrenes in the funeral towers and tombs west of the city had probably come along the caravan roads from China to modern Afghanistan. From the Kushan kingdom, however, much of the trade seems to have been directed down the Indus, and Chinese silk was available at the ports of northwestern India, along with spices, aromatics, cotton textiles, gems and other products (Casson 1989, PME 36, 39, 49). Palmyrene merchants on the Red Sea will have traded in South Arabian and Somali frankincense and myrrh, as well as East African ivory. Although Palmyrene trade is likely to have connected to the overland networks through Arsacid and Sasanid Iran at Seleucia, Babylon and Vologesias, the distribution of the Palmyrene mercantile diaspora, with its emphasis on the lower Euphrates, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea / Indian Ocean clearly shows that Palmyrene trade should be interpreted in light of the Indian Ocean exchange.

The rythm of trade

This dependence of Palmyrene trade on the Indian Ocean exchange has implications on how we must imagine the organisation of Palmyrene commerce, and we have to be wary of romantic images of a steady flow or even trickle of camels crossing the loaded with all kinds of exotic goods. Comparative material and natural conditions indicate that the deservedly celebrated caravan trade of Palmyra might have been limited to a few large caravans going back and forth each year, probably one or two to each major destination, and only when political conditions allowed it. Maritime commerce in this part of the world before the breakthrough of steam depended on the seasonality of the monsoon, which has changed little from antiquity. Colonial and Islamic navigation handbooks report that the passage from India to the Persian Gulf was easiest in November-February (Findlay 1882, 180; Tibbets 1981, 228). Allowing time for the journey itself, this would bring the Indian and Chinese commodities to the Persian Gulf ports in December-March. Inscriptions from Palmyra attest caravans from Charax, Forat and Vologesias (Gawlikowski 1994, 32-3). For the actual hauls from the Gulf or from the Euphrates, we have good comparative evidence from European travellers of the 18th century, when two annual caravans connected in Syria with Basra, near ancient Charax and Forat, and Baghdad, not far from the presumed location of Vologesias (Grant 1937, 131-2). These caravans passed through either Taybeh or Kowm, within one and two day’s distance of Palmyra. The WORKING PAPER 12 WORKING PAPER

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Baghdad and Basra caravans left Aleppo together, and split up near Hit on the Euphrates. The records of actual journeys show that the distance from Taybeh / El Kowm to Basra or vice versa were covered in about a month (Beawes 1929; Roberts 1929; Plaisted 1929). Although Palmyrene merchants probably followed a route through Wadi Hawran (Mouterde & Poidebard 1931; Gawlikowski 1983), slightly to the south of the one used in the 18th century, the travel time must have been comparable. Many modern travellers in the Syrian Desert have pointed to the difficulty of moving with camels in rainy weather and on slippery ground (Raunkjær 1913, 180; Grant 1937, 42-3). At the head of the Persian Gulf as well as in Palmyra, most rain falls in the period from November to February. In combination with the arrival time of the ships from India, this probably means that Palmyrene caravans would normally leave the Gulf no earlier than the beginning of March. By this time they would only experience infrequent and limited rain underway, while pools in the desert would remain after the winter rains and ease the supply of water to the animals. This way they would arrive about a month later in Palmyra, leaving plenty of time for transhipment and customs clearance of goods to the Mediterranean before the sailing season there ended in early October. From Palmyra, it is possible that caravans followed a route to the northwest either via Seriane (Isryeh) and Chalcis (Qinnesrîn) or by way of Apamea to Antioch, which was the main commercial and administrative centre of the Roman East. Caravans from Palmyra to Vologesias, which was probably situated on the west bank of the near Seleucia and Ctesiphon (Chaumont 1974: 77-9), would probably head for Hit at the Euphrates, a route epigraphically attested in the second century AD (Mouterde & Poidebard 1931; Gawlikowski 1983, 57-8). The distance would be comparable to that between El Kowm and Hit, which was covered in ten days by Beawes in 1745 (Beawes 1929, 13-9). Hit was not only a convenient place to cross the river, but also a good place to load merchants and merchandise on rafts (Gawlikowski 1996, 140), as the river straightens out, widens and slows down below the traditional crossing. The rafts could continue down the river and the canals connecting Euphrates and Tigris to Vologesias, Seleucia or Babylon, or all the way down to Charax and the Gulf. Kelek, rafts built on inflated skins, are attested in Assyrian reliefs, and were used to transport people, animals and merchandise on the Euphrates and the Tigris well into the 20th century. The inscription from the colonnaded street of Palmyra set up by the society (symposion) of leathermakers and floating-skin makers (askonautopoioi) (Al-As'ad & Gawlikowsky 1997, no. 25) indicate that this was an integrated part of Palmyrene commercial operations, as there is little other conceivable use for floating skins in the vicinity of Palmyra. WORKING PAPER 13 WORKING PAPER

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How was this organised? An annual caravan from the Persian Gulf would be a large-scale venture. The average merchant ship on the Mediterranean could carry 100-150 tons of cargo (Casson 1995, 170-3). Judging from a ship relief from Palmyra, the crafts familiar to Palmyrene merchants were not very different. A camel can carry 150-200 kg on a longer journey (Leonard 1894, 204-6). To be sure we do not know how many shiploads of eastern merchandise arrived at the ports of the Persian Gulf each year, but that is hardly necessary to see that caravans would need a large number of animals for the cross-desert haul. While no direct comparison is possible, the annual caravans between Basra, Baghdad and Aleppo in the 18th century in some cases numbered up to 5000 camels (Carruthers 1929, xxxiii). The Palmyrene merchants not only had to finance the merchandise, but also to procure animals, drivers and guards, and to secure good relations with the nomads of the desert and the political authorities along the parts of the route close to the river. The relationship with the tribes south of Palmyra was the key to successful operation, as they possessed the necessary expertise, animals and manpower, and if they were hired to organise the venture, they were also less likely to infringe on the security of the caravan. Such a system was flexible, as it enabled merchants or city dwellers to hire the camels they needed for the duration of the caravan rather than to maintain them year-round, and the nomads could obtain grain, weapons, money or imported textiles by letting out animals that would be heading northward to their summer pastures at this time of year anyway (Grant 1937, 17-8; Naval Intelligence Division 1943: 198-202). This model builds on parallels from the Ottoman period, and we do not know the details of the relationship between the city dwellers and the desert tribes in antiquity. We do know, however, that the population of Palmyra was organised in tribes. Although the exact nature of the Palmyrene tribal system is not clear (Sommer 2005, 175-83), Michael Sommer has argued convincingly that tribes would consist of elements permanently settled in the city, permanently wandering the steppe, and people spending parts of the year in the city and parts outside. Tribal elites will have served as mediators between steppe and city, facilitating the cooperation necessary for the overland commerce (2005, 206-8).

Trade and the Palmyrene economy

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It is sometimes claimed that the taxation of the caravan trade was an important basis of Palmyrene wealth (Ball 2001, 76; Edwell 2008, 32). The bilingual, Greek-Aramaic Palmyra Tariff (Matthews 1984), however, found in the so-called Tariff Court in Palmyra near the Agora and one of the most comprehensive texts of its kind preserved, deals with the interaction between Palmyra and the intermediate hinterland and the economic activity in Palmyra itself rather than with the long-distance trade. Among other things, charges are set down for -loads and camel-loads entering and leaving the city, the taxation of prostitutes, door-to-door textile vendors and the import of salted . There is no clear evidence for the taxation of the caravan trade at Palmyra itself. Arguably, the main Roman tax on the eastern trade, the 25% tetartê, was levied at Antioch rather than at Palmyra (Young 2001, 149; Seland 2008, 93-4). The Palmyrene caravans probably never entered the city itself. After all, who would want a few thousand tired, thirsty, hungry and dirty camels loose among the shops of the colonnaded street? Dentzer has identified the probable outside Palmyra, and as he suggests, transit goods were probably stored there awaiting onwards transport (1994, 105-6). This would be analogous with the situation in , where eastern goods would go under seal from the Red Sea ports to Alexandria, (Thür 1987, P. Vindob, G. 40822). Heavy taxes on the foreign trade made sense for a tributary empire like the Roman or for a Parthian client king in the Euphrates valley. It did not in the city-state or tribal-state setting of Palmyra, where the merchants, elite investors and organisers of the caravans were integrated parts of the collective making up the state itself. Even if it is unlikely that the caravans were taxed at Palmyra, there is little doubt that the caravan trade was a vital source of income for the city and its citizens. Trade itself, as well as the protection, financing and organization of caravans, must, however, have offered ample opportunities for profit. The involvement of the elite of Palmyra in commercial activities is illustrated in a number of so-called caravan inscriptions. Notwithstanding diplomatic efforts, rulers along the Euphrates would sometimes be difficult, and alliances with some tribes of the desert potentially alienated others. From time to time, things went wrong, and the caravan or the Palmyrene merchant community of a Parthian or Characene city needed metropolitan assistance. In return the merchants would frequently dedicate an honorific statue and inscription, thanking the individual who had assisted them. Some 34 dedications, spanning from the early first century AD until after 260 (Gawlikowski 1994: 32-3), mention trade or traders. A number of them are from the merchants of the caravan, others of them from the resident Palmyrene communities in Parthian and Characene cities. Military action, financial WORKING PAPER 15 WORKING PAPER

WORKING PAPER WORKING PAPER support and diplomatic effort are among the services specified in the dedications. Many of the honoured individuals are thanked for their general assistance and goodwill, or for their actions as magistrates or military commanders. Several of them also took direct part in the trade as synodiarch (caravan leader) or archemporos (head merchant). The inscriptions show how the Palmyrene elite involved itself in the organisation and probably also the financing of the caravan trade, combining city politics, commerce and military commands (Will 1957; Young 2001, 150-7; Sommer 2005, 213-8). Although there is disagreement about the nature and degree of this involvement, there is little doubt that they do not fit into the traditional picture of landed elites in the Mediterranean world, sceptical of any overt association with mercantile activities (although perhaps not adverse to the money associated with them). This elite, which figure in the epigraphic record as the benefactors not only of merchants and caravans, but primarily of the city-community at large, is also the link between the geopolitical world of empires, client-kingdoms and caravan trade, and the local and regional relationship between the city and its hinterland, which produced the grain, water, fuel and livestock vital for the growth and existence of the city.

The fertile dry steppe. Bride of the Desert?

Palmyra’s modern epithet “Bride of the Desert” is a misnomer, if we by that mean a sandy desert without almost any rain. The Bedouins have two words for desert, sahra and badya. Sahra, which have given name to Sahara in Africa, means sandy empty quarters, whereas badya means an arid landscape with low annual precipitation, but still suitable for pasture, that is a dry steppe. Palmyra is located in the northern part of a huge dry steppe, stretching towards the Arabian Desert to the southeast. In the rainy season the badya is green, and in good years limited agriculture is possible. The surface of the badya is very hard and during rainfalls the wadis are converted into torrential streams, washing away earth and stones. If this extra water can be tamed and led to ploughed fields, as a supplement to the rain, the badya

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WORKING PAPER WORKING PAPER has a great potential for agriculture. The soil is very fertile, and it produces crops of very high quality (Jabbur 1995, 63). The most impressive project is southwest of Palmyra, about 2 days’ travel (69 km) from the city. At Harbaqa a 365 m long and 20,5 m high wall dams up all the water, both surface and ground water, coming from a 600 square kilometres catch-area in the Palmyra range (Musil 1928, 131-2; Poidebard 1934, 190; Schlumberger 1939, 200-3; Schlumberger 1986, 2-3; Jabbur 1995, 52-4; Geyer 2004). The capacity behind the dam is about 50.000.000 cubic metres. It has been suggested that the dam is a road station between Palmyra and Damascus (Butcher 2003, 163), even if it lies 10 km north of the road, or a prestige project designed to demonstrate the power of the Roman empire and to impress the local Bedouins (Geyer 2004, 299), but it makes much more sense to see it as an huge investment in the food supply of Palmyra, and the Romans were skilled dam builders (Schnitter 1994, 55-80). In the Umayyad period the water was led via an aqueduct to a castle, Qasr el-Heir el Gharbi, where it watered a large garden (400.000 square metres) with watermills (Schlumberger 1986, 3-5), and it has also been suggested that the dam is an Umayyad construction (Genequand 2006). However, the capacity of the dam is much larger than the Umayyad gardens, and most scholars date the first construction at the site to the Roman period, later reused and maintained by the Umayyads. It can deliver, as an absolute minimum, extra water to fields covering an area of at least 50.000.000 square metres, producing enough barley or wheat to feed 15.000 people only living on cereals. The flat dry steppe west of Palmyra also has a great potential for agriculture. It receives extra water from several smaller and bigger wadis coming from the mountainous north. Today the area is occupied by villages and fields north of the modern Palmyra-Homs road, and everything seems to indicate that also in antiquity that was the case. Three alters of , Lord of the heavens and the deity of fertility, storm and rain, still stand in the middle of the fields (Musil 1928, 135), far away from the ancient road leading to the west and northwest. A relief on the front shows a hand holding ears of corn. When the Austrian explorer Alois Musil crossed the plain in 1912, he observed ruins of numerous old dams, ruined farms and houses, and even an olive press (Musil 1928, 134-5). Broader wadis in the mountains could also be cultivated by constructing long walls across the wadi-bed (Meyer 2009, 44-5). Such walls and the dams on the plain were not proper dams, like the Harbaqa dam, but they were designed to hold back the water preventing the wet soil from been washed away, as suggested by Musil (Musil 134). WORKING PAPER 17 WORKING PAPER

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Mountain villages.

In the mountainous area north and northwest of Palmyra we see an increasing human activity from the Roman period and onwards. Today the hillsides are bare, but up to recently the ecological conditions have been quite different. When Musil travelled through the area, he noted that the mountainsides were covered by Terebinth trees (Pistacia Atlantica), making it look like a vast natural park (Musil 1928, 147-9), an impression confirmed by French photos from the 1920s and 30s (Mouterde & Poidebard 1945, pl. XXI, XXIII; Schlumberger 1951, pl. I, XI, XVI, XX). The Terebinth grows very slowly, getting several hundred years old. Resin and oil are harvested from the trees, and they deliver charcoal of superb quality. Rightly managed, pollarding the branches not cutting the stem (Christensen 2001; Krzywinski 2001), the trees can be the source of energy for an expanding city like Palmyra, whereas the date palms of the oasis have only a very limited value as fuel. At the foot of the mountains and on the tableland several villages or estates have been registered. They consist of a cluster of smaller and larger buildings, enclosures, small shrines and also small dams across minor wadis (Schlumberger 1951, chap. 3; Meyer 2009, 126-7). Settlements like these needed access to water, and in the ancient period several sources were utilized. Firstly, springs in the mountainside were combined with aqueducts and terracotta water pipes leading the water down to the buildings or gardens (Meyer 2008, 29; Meyer 2009, 14-5). Secondly, deep wells were either cut into the rock reaching the water bearing levels or dug at the edges of the wadis, where geological features create underground reservoirs. Both methods confine settlements to areas with good “natural” water supply, but the ancients developed other hydraulic methods to overcome these limitations. Thirdly, long catch arms, sometimes several hundred metres long, and rock cut channels led the rainwater from higher ground into smaller and bigger cisterns. Concentrations of cisterns are mostly found at the foot of the mountains, but even small hilltops were utilized (Meyer 2009, 128). Many of the systems are still used by the Bedouins, but pottery from the debris accumulated during the maintenance of the cisterns clearly reveals their ancient origin. It was thus human activities and human demand that “created” the water supply, not vice versa, and it shows a very dynamic and pushing attitude to the territory and its resources.

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What was then the purpose of those villages or estates, which in the hot summer period undoubtedly can have functioned as cool mountain resorts for the rich Palmyrene families? Most scholars have classified them as pastoral holdings of the elite (Schlumberger 1951, 133; Will 1957, 271-3; Young 2001, 150-1; Gawlikowsky 1994, 31), as centres of stock raising (sheep and goats), camel herding or horse breeding, but this is not satisfactory. The distance between the settlements is surprisingly short, only 3 to 4 km. It can be compared to the spacing of villages in central Europe, and it strongly indicates a much more intensive exploitation of the area, which was covered by trees. Pastoralism of some kind does not demand relatively monumental buildings and shrines within such a short distance apart. At the present the economic basis of the villages is still an open question.

Nomads and villages. Control of the area.

Between the mountain ranges in the northern territory there are also several more isolated buildings, which cannot be classified as villages: square structures, up to 60 x 60 metres, with towers in the corners, obviously of a military design (Meyer 2009, 124-6) or smaller well constructed buildings, which have been identified as small forts (Schlumberger 1951, 44-50). Their exact function is a vexed question (Dentzer 1994). Some of them have undoubtedly functioned as caravanserais on a route from Palmyra to the northwest towards Chalcis and Antioch at the Mediterranean coast. They are evenly spaced about one day’s travel apart (26- 33 km) along the route. Other structures do not fit into this scheme. Some of them are close to crossroads or springs, others are situated in the open landscape only 8 to 16 km from each other. All this shows a strong intention to control the area and important resources with some sort of military presence in the locality. The walls of the buildings do not indicate a heavy military threat from outside. They are relatively lightly constructed with mud bricks, and they differ markedly from the technique used in the monumental Roman forts along Strata Diocletiana (Kennedy & Riley 1990). Further, the villages in the area, which must have been an obvious target for raids, are not surrounded by any defensive walls. The clue to this problem can probably be found in the Palmyra tariff (Matthews 1984). The tariff not only lists all the taxes imposed on local and regional goods brought in and out of the territory, but it also mentions basic resources like water and salt in Palmyra itself and its territory (Matthews 1984, 177) and grazing rights. All animals brought into the WORKING PAPER 19 WORKING PAPER

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Palmyrene territory are liable to tax, and the tax collector may have the animals branded (Matthews 1984, 180). This entry testifies that the territory was not only exploited by Palmyrene families, who probably also owned flocks of sheep and goats, but also by nomadic groups not totally integrated into the political and social structure of the city, even if the Palmyrenes and the nomads originated from the same stock. Nomads live in symbiosis with more settled populations. The fields are excellent grazing ground after the harvest at the approach of the hot season, and the flocks fertilize the ground. Palmyra had the salt from the big salt lake south of the city, essential for the raising of animals, and cereals for the daily diet. The nomads had sheep and goats, providing wool, meat and skins, and camels with drivers, essential for the long distance communication across the arid dry steppe. The military presence guaranteed law and order, and the imposed taxation on grazing, water and salt. It provided conflict solution not only between the villages and the nomads, but also between the different nomadic groups. Another purpose of the installations might have been to prevent smuggling of goods liable to duty. The ancients were probably just as creative and eager, as we are, to escape duties and taxes, if they could be avoided. The intensive exploitation of the hinterland started in the Roman period. So far, nothing can be dated to the Iron Age or the Hellenistic period (Schlumberger 1951, 132; Meyer 2009, 123-4), and there can be no doubt that it is related to the growth of the city and the opening up of the caravan route across the dry steppe. Surprisingly the villages and the military installations continued also after Palmyra lost its position as a major caravan city at the end of 3rd century (Meyer 2009, 124, 128). Late Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad pottery are found at almost all sites, though it is not possible to reveal any fluctuations in the intensity of human activities up through the period on the basis of surface finds. The economic and social relationship between centre and hinterland, created in the first centuries AD was tenacious of life. It was based on the willingness to invest time, labour and resources into small and big hydraulic devices and to maintain them. It also depended on some control with the territory and the maintenance of a more complicated symbiosis of life with the surrounding nomadic population. The Umayyads were probably the last rulers of the Syrian dry steppe to guarantee that. In the Ottoman period, at the latest, the dry steppe was handed over to the Bedouin tribes, and Palmyra was reduced to a small oasis village in the shadow of its former greatness.

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La longue durée?

Since the French Annales School introduced the concept of La longue durée (Braudel 1958; Horden & Purcell 2000, 36-49) it has been common to see more long-term historical trends, such as continuity and change, as dependent on the geographical, climatic and ecological environment. The history of Palmyra does not fit into this environmental determinism. The Syrian dry steppe has for several hundred years supported a large complex society as Roman Palmyra on one hand and in other periods a much more simple Bedouin survival strategy within a regional network on the other. However, we have no indications of major climatic or ecological changes from the Hellenistic period to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. It was man, not the environmental conditions that shaped Palmyrene society. In the Roman period a specific geo-political situation in the was exploited by the population of the oasis. They invested time and resources in building up a new caravan route towards the Persian Gulf, control of the wider territory and numerous water systems in the hinterland to supply large-scale agriculture for a growing population. The Palmyrenes can be characterised as cosmopolitan entrepreneurs in the Roman Empire, with Barates in Britannia as an example, in the old Hellenistic world to the east, with ships crossing the Indian Ocean from the Persian Gulf, and on the Syrian dry steppe.

This article is a product of the project Palmyrena: City, Hinterland and Caravan Trade between Orient and Occident (2009-2013), financed by the Norwegian Research Council. The project involves joint Syrian-Norwegian archaeological field survey north of Palmyra. We thank the Direction Générale des Antiquités et des Musées, Damascus, and Dr. Michel al- Maqdissi, and the director of the Museum in Palmyra, Walid al-As’ad for all assistance and generosity during the fieldwork. For further information see: http://www.org.uib.no/palmyrena/.

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