Timolaus of Palmyra (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

: Timolaus) was reportedly a 3rd century Palmyrene nobleman, son of the

king of kings King of Kings; grc-gre, Βασιλεὺς Βασιλέων, Basileùs Basiléōn; hy, արքայից արքա, ark'ayits ark'a; sa, महाराजाधिराज, Mahārājadhirāja; ka, მეფეთ მეფე, ''Mepet mepe'' ...

Odaenathus Septimius Odaenathus (Palmyrene Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; ar, أذينة, translit=Uḏaina; 220 – 267) was the founder king ( ''Mlk'') of the Palmyrene Kingdom who ruled from Palmyra, Syria. He elevated the status of his kingdom from a re ...

(r. 252-267) and

augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...

Zenobia Septimia Zenobia (Palmyrene Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; AD 240 – c. 274) was a third-century queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Syria. Many legends surround her ancestry; she was probably not a commoner and she married the ruler of the city, ...

(r. 267-272). Little is known about him, and all the existing information comes from speculation. Such is the doubt of his existence that some scholars try to associate him with

Vaballathus Septimius Vaballathus (Palmyrene Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; ar, وهب اللات, translit=Wahb Allāt; 259 – c. 274 AD) was emperor of the Palmyrene Empire centred at Palmyra in the region of Syria. He came to power as a child under his re ...

(r. 267-272), another of the sons of Odaenathus and Zenobia. Some authors believe he is an individual made up by the ''

Historia Augusta The ''Historia Augusta'' (English: ''Augustan History'') is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers from 117 to 284. Supposedly modeled on the sim ...

'', the only historical source that cites him, and some speculate that he is in fact a historical figure. He appears only in 267, at the time of his father's assassination.

Family

Timolaus was the son of

and his second wife

, grandson of

Hairan I Septimius Herodianus or Hairan I ( 240 – 267) was a son and co-king of Odaenathus of Palmyra. Through his father's marriage to Zenobia, Hairan I had two half-brothers, Hairan II and Vaballathus. Life Hairan was born to Odaenathus and his first ...

, great-grandson of Vaballathus, and great-great-grandson of Nasor. He was the half-brother of

, the fruit of Odaenathus' relationship with a previous wife. He also had two sisters, whose names are not known. It is known, however, that they married respectively the

emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

Aurelian Aurelian ( la, Lucius Domitius Aurelianus; 9 September 214 October 275) was a Roman emperor, who reigned during the Crisis of the Third Century, from 270 to 275. As emperor, he won an unprecedented series of military victories which reunited t ...

(r. 270-275) and a

Roman senator The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in ...

. Timolaus was also the brother of

Hairan II Hairan II was a Palmyrene prince, the son of king Odaenathus and, possibly, his second wife Zenobia. Seal RTP 736 The existence of Hairan was established by the discovery of a lead seal (code named RTP 736). The seal bears the images of two prie ...

, and

Septimius Antiochus Septimius Antiochus (died after 273) was a Roman usurper in Syria during the 3rd century. In 272 AD Emperor Aurelian had defeated the breakaway Kingdom of Palmyra; its king Vaballathus and his mother Zenobia were in Roman captivity. In 273 AD ano ...

. The ''

'' ''(HA)'' cites him as having another brother, Herodian, whose existence is questioned. Some think Herodian was a variant of Hairan II's name.

Life

There are doubts as to the existence of Timolaus. Some authors suggest that he may be a fabrication, a ''de facto'' individual (whose name, recorded here in Latinized form, has the Palmyrene variant Taimallat), or a distortion of the name Vaballathus. Nothing is known about his life, having been mentioned only in 267, in the context of the murder of Odaenathus and Hairan I. The versions of the events are many, but in one of them, presented by the ''Historia Augusta'' (which also cites two other versions), his murderer was

Maeonius Maeonius (died c. 267), or Maconius, was a short-lived ruler of Palmyra. Life He was the nephew (according to Zonaras xii.24) or the cousin (according to ''Historia Augusta'', which lists him among the Thirty Tyrants) of Odaenathus of Palmyra, ...

, a cousin or nephew of Odaenathus, having carried out the crime at the behest of Zenobia. According to the source, Zenobia resented that Hairan II (Herenian) and Timolaus were in a lower position than her godson and therefore orders Maeonius to kill them. The ''Historia Augusta'' mentions that Zenobia assumed the throne on their behalf, dressed them in purple, as emperors, and led them in public meetings which she attended in the likeness of

Dido Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in modern Tunisia), in 814 BC. In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (t ...

Semiramis ''Samīrāmīs'', hy, Շամիրամ ''Šamiram'') was the semi-legendary Lydian- Babylonian wife of Onnes and Ninus, who succeeded the latter to the throne of Assyria, according to Movses Khorenatsi. Legends narrated by Diodorus Siculus, who dre ...

, and

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Philopator ( grc-gre, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ}, "Cleopatra the father-beloved"; 69 BC10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler.She was also a ...

. The ''HA'' itself indicates that how they died is uncertain and presents two versions: in the first, they were killed by Aurelian at the time of the conquest of the

Palmyrene Empire The Palmyrene Empire was a short-lived breakaway state from the Roman Empire resulting from the Crisis of the Third Century. Named after its capital city, Palmyra, it encompassed the Roman provinces of Syria Palaestina, Arabia Petraea, and Egypt, ...

(272); in the second, they died of natural causes, as there were still at the time the work was written (4th century), noble descendants of Zenobia in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. The ''HA'' further asserts that such was Timolaus' eagerness for Roman studies that, in a short time, he allegedly fulfilled the declaration of his professor of languages, who said that he was indeed capable of making him the greatest of Latin rhetoricians.

References

Bibliography

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