Palmyra   Damascus Aleppo Palmyra Crac Chevaliers The Hauran Maalula The Coast . It takes some effort but what delight to discover after hours of driving through the rocky desert, the pearl of the desert, Palmyra. Its name, Tadmor, appears for the first time in Mesopotamian texts dating back to the lind millennium BC. The Greeks made it a town organized according to Hellenistic conceptions and rebaptized it Palmyra. Only during the Roman period Palmyra reallv started to flourish and was fully integrated into the Province of Syria by the reign of Nero.Though its rise to prosperity reflected its trading role, Palmyra is not on the natural trade route between the coastal area and the Euphrates. The 2nd century was the high period of its prosperity as reflected in the present-day remains and Palmyra turned increasingly to Roman political, social and cultural models. In the 3rd century however Odenathus campaigned against the Sasanians who more and more threatened Roman authority in the region, but in pursuing Rome's security interests he inevitably became a power in his own right beyond the traditional perimeter of the oasis state. His mother, the famous and ambitious Queen Zenobia, asserted Palmyrene power westwards, venturing as far as Egypt. For the Romans, things had gotten out of hand and Aurelian recovered Roman authority in Anatolia and Antioch, attacked Palmyra and imprisoned Zenobia. Even though Palmyra kept on playing a strategic role, its golden days were over. More
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