The empire is crumbling. Rome has been fractured,
separated into three states. The west is desperately trying
to hold the borders of Gaul, the east is being
overrun by the Sassanids, the Rhine provinces are in disarray. In the center, Italy alone stands. The year is 260 AD, the emperor
Valerian has marched East with an army of 70,000 legionaries
to push back the Sassanids and regain control of the
economic heart of the empire. Plague has struck. Disease travels
like a hurricane through the camp. Legionaries are sick,
dying, laid low... And the Sassanids, the mighty
new form of the Persian Empire, have come to deliver the coup de grace. The armies met near a town called Edessa
in Cappadocia, now southern Turkey. Outmatched, weighed down by sickness,
the Romans don’t stand a chance. The battle turns into a rout,
then a massacre. Not one man escapes. The emperor meets with the
Sassanids to discuss terms, but during parley he is
betrayed and taken prisoner. For the first and only time
in the history of Rome, an emperor is made captive
on the field of battle. The shockwaves from this
event are immense. The emperor is not dead,
but he’s also not ruling, so... who’s running the empire? Imperium breaks down. The East is left devoid of legions, the Sassanids are rampaging
through Roman territory, no army within a thousand
miles stands to oppose them. Complete collapse is imminent. But despite all of this, the East
would stand for 1200 more years, a bulwark to the West. What prevented its collapse? What allowed the legacy of
Rome to last long enough to be passed down to those who
would help shape the Renaissance, and thus the modern age? A little known Palmyrene
prince named Odenathus. Palmyra was an oasis town just
at the fringes of the Roman Empire, in modern day Syria. It was unusual because, although it was
technically within Roman territory, it was allowed to continue
operating as an independent city, with its own government
and even its own military. It lay right across the Silk Road
and was one of the most important reprovisioning stops for caravans
moving goods from Asia to Rome. So as Roman wealth grew,
so did the wealth of Palmyra, and by the second century, it was
a monument of classical city building. It had great temples and
amphitheaters, statues and a massive roadway that was flanked
on either side by monumental columns. Hidden among the desert dunes,
this was a city to rival perhaps any in the west besides Rome itself. As the city prospered, so too
did its citizens, and soon they clamored for the rights and honors
afforded to all prosperous Romans. By the start of the third century,
the city was named a Colonia, the highest status the Romans could
give a city, and its most notable citizens were acknowledged as equals in
rank, if not of lineage, to Senators. One such citizen was
Lucius Septimius Odenathus. His family, having been granted
Roman honors by Septimius Severus, had long been one of the
leading families of Palmyra. At the time our story begins,
the time of Valerian’s ill-fated expedition to the east, Odenathus was
serving as Exarch (governor) of Palmyra. As Rome and the Sassanid
Empire came to blows, Odenathus realized that this could mean
nothing good for his desert city state. At first he tried to remain neutral, but
after the disaster outside of Edessa, he realized that neutrality was impossible.
He would have to choose a side. The king of the Sassanids, Shapur,
with no Roman force left to oppose him, clearly aimed to annex Palmyra, so
Odenathus decided to cast the die and throw his lot fully in with
beleaguered and dying Rome. And here is where history turns. As the invincible Sassanid army
returned from ravaging the eastern Roman Empire, laden with booty and
captives, tramping through the desert a thousand miles from the nearest
army that could stand against them, a strange thing happened. The vanguard saw dark
shapes upon the dunes, thousands of them,
men outlined by the sun. Before they could even raise the cry,
this phantom desert army was upon them, tearing through their lax
and ill formed lines. This Sassanid army, the army that
no legion could stand against, that had savaged the eastern
empire unopposed and come within a hair's breadth of annexing all
of the eastern provinces of Rome, was gone in an instant, ruined by
these ghosts of the desert, scattered like windblown sand. And this mirage army, seemingly
conjured from the desert itself? This was the army of Odenathus.
It was a last stand. Here the Eastern Roman Empire would
live or die, and Palmyra with it. Odenathus, when he had heard of the
Roman defeat, had known that this was his only chance, the only chance,
at holding off the Sassanids. He had pulled together every troop
his city state could muster, he had gathered what remnants of
the Roman legions he could find scattered in the desert and had armed
his peasantry to make his stand. And then he descended on
the Sassanids with fury, like the howling desert winds.
From here he moved like lightening. He marched north to defend
the legitimate Roman Emperor, the son of Valerian, from
pretenders from the east. Then south to smash the
now hobbled Sassanids. He came to the very gates of the
Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon twice, and his patchwork army of peasants,
legionnaires, and soldiers of Palmyra liberated province after province,
bringing them back into the Empire. His desert army soon became
the most feared in the east, and he personally ruled a kingdom that
spanned from Anatolia to the Levant. But he never rebelled. Unlike
so so many in this time, he never named himself Emperor or
Augustus - though he perhaps controlled more land and a more impressive
army than the emperor of Rome. And for this, he was granted titles
extraordinary in all of Roman history. He was elevated to Dux Romanorum,
or Leader of the Romans, and then Corrector Totius Orientis,
the Righter of the East, and then finally Rex Regum
or King of Kings. This last one was a bit of
a dig at the Sassanids, whose customary title for their
leader was “King of Kings”. This was Odenathus and the
Romans telling the Sassanids who was now the real boss
in the middle east. Yet still, despite being made King of
Kings, he considered himself a servant of Rome and faithfully
defended the Roman borders in the east, bringing back into the fold the
provinces that had slipped away during the third century crisis,
until his death in 267. Would he have, with the passage
of many more years, eventually declared himself emperor and created
a new empire from the now massive part of the East he
controlled for the Rome? We’ll never know, because as he
rode to Cappadocia to quell an incursion of Goths, he went
hunting with his nephew and son. He told his nephew to leave the
hunting party, because of some act of rudeness, and while this
nephew waited out his time away from the group, he stewed and stewed… At the next great feast, he killed
both Odenothus and his heir. And like that,
history turns again. With no heir of age left, Odenothus’
wife, Zenobia, actually did take that final step and declared herself
empress of what she called the Palmyrene Empire and for this Zenobia
really deserves her own episode someday. But by the time she declared this
Palmyrene Empire, her late husband had bought Rome enough time
to recover and regain its footing. And a newly reforged Rome would
make sure that the Palmyrene Empire was not long for this world. And with its fall Rome would, at last,
fully reintegrated the east. So how much long term difference did
this one Arabian prince choosing to fight for Rome and pulling together an
army out of an oasis town really make? Well, consider this: it’s entirely plausible that,
without Odenathus’s actions, Eastern Rome would have disappeared
forever right here. And without Eastern Rome,
the Roman Empire as a whole would pretty much be over. Now, it’s true that the Roman empire
would still collapse 200 years later, but those 200 years of Roman
existence have had an enormous impact on Western culture. If nothing else, consider
just this one fact: this all happened in the year 260.
130 years before Christianity was named the official religion
of the Roman Empire. Who knows what would have
happened if this little known noble in the middle of the desert hadn’t
decided to stand for Rome? How different would today’s world be? For better or worse, this one prince’s
decision may well have helped to lead to the profound impact Christianity
would have on history for thousands of years to come. History so often hinges
on these small events.
I was waiting to see how long it takes them to say "Arab". 7:07 minutes. Not bad
I thought this was a good story since if it wasn’t for this Arab. The west would be speaking Farsi right now. Also I think having a couple episodes of Palmyra (yup that Palmyra) and the Empress Zenobia would be a good thing to hear about.
Side note. I hope I flaired it right. Im not Arab and my Arabic is just from what I picked up in weekend school (Called Duxi)
Did he speak Arabic ? I tried looking it up online, but I didn’t find anything. All I found is the the languages found there were Greek,Aramaic and Arabic.