Palmyra as a Trading Centre

Author(s): M. Gawlikowski
Source: Iraq, Vol. 56 (1994), pp. 27-33
Published by: British Institute for the Study of Iraq
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4200382 .
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 27

PALMYRA AS A TRADING CENTRE

By M. GAWLIKOWSKI*

Ever since the RostovtzefFs famous book1 Palmyra is commonly called a "caravan city". As a
matter of fact, it is the only real caravan city among those considered as such by the great scholar.
Both Gerasa and Dura-Europos were calm, provincial towns living off the countryside, and no signs
of a commercial vocation are on record in either. Petra was above all a royal capital, and the
importance of its trade, though likely there, remains entirely to be demonstrated. We might now add
that Hatra, also a royal city and a major religious centre, owed its prosperity more to these
characteristics than to far-flung commerce.
I shall leave aside the Jordanian cities, Petra and Gerasa, very different from each other and from
the other three, including Palmyra, which have participated in a particular brand of civilisation,
often and rather mistakingly called Parthian.2
These urban societies shared a common language, Aramaean, and a body of customs?religious
and social?resulting from a mixed heritage in which a substantial nomad Arab contribution
predominated over more ancient traditions of Syria and Mesopotamia. While practically no trace of
Iranian influence can be detected, there was certainly a more or less thin veneer of Hellenism,
generally supposed to have spread within the limits of the Parthian empire. Actually, there is not
much to show in this respect for the Iranian part of the realm, or for the capital Ctesiphon. What is
known concerns mostly the Greek cities of Susa and Seleucia, and does not manifest any close
relation to the conditions of the Aramaic speaking cities we know further west. Whether Palmyra
was a "spiritual daughter" of Seleucia, to quote an influencial and imaginative formula of
Henri Seyrig's,3 is a question still waiting, after sixty years, for a documented answer.
While Dura-Europos was originally a Macedonian colony, it went native before the available
documentation properly starts. Palmyra rose from insignificance about the turn of the Christian era,
and Hatra only a century later. All three ended their career at about the same time, Hatra conquered
and abandoned in 240, Dura in 256, and Palmyra broken in 273 never to recover. During their short
lifespan, they depended in various ways on commercial routes crossing the Middle East from the
Mediterranean to the Gulf.
The city of Europos was destined to control the communications between the sea-front of the
Seleucid kingdom and its inner possessions, along the all-important Euphrates route. After the
demise of the dynasty, however, the valley became, according to Strabo, inaccessible because of the
exactions of nomad sheikhs, such as Alchaidamnos, king of the Rhambaioi, perhaps the same tribe
that is already referred to in the 18th century b.c. as the Rabbum;4 this chieftain was active in the
middle of the 1st century b.c.; the bulk of Strabo's information (XVI: 1-2) should be dated about the
same time, and not in the author's day, including the story about the track to Seleucia and Babylon
going through the desert at three days' distance from the river. This itinerary should have passed
through or near the site of Hatra, but apparently it did not promote an urban development there.
The traditional route along or on the Euphrates was, however, back in use by the time Isidore of
Charax detailed these "Parthian stations", probably in the last years b.c., as a report for the planned
mission of C. Caesar.5 Neither he nor Strabo, apparently, had ever so much as heard of Palmyra.
When, much later, Pliny (NH, V: 88) called the oasis city prima cura of both Romans and
Parthians while in conflict, he was again quoting some early source, perhaps related to the raid
against Palmyra by the horsemen of Marc-Anthony in 41 b.c. (Appianus, V: 9), and certainly not a

* 4 M.
Paper read at the BANEA Conference in Liverpool,
December 1992.
1 M.
RostovtzefT, Caravan Cities, Oxford 1932.
2M. A. R. Colledge, Parthian Art, London 1977. For
Palmyra in particular, see Colledge, The Art of Palmyra,
London 1976; J. Starcky and M. Gawlikowski, Palmyre,
Paris 1985; E. Will, Les Palmyr?niens. La Venise des sables,
Paris 1992.
3 H.
Seyrig, "Palmyra and the East", JRS 40 (1950), 1-7.
Astour, "The Rabbeans: a Tribal Society on the
Euphrates from Yahdun-Lim to Julius Caesar", Syro-
Studies 2/1 (1978), 1-12.
5Mesopotamian
See most recently: M.-L. Chaumont, Syria 61 (1984), 63-
107, and M. Gawlikowski, in: G?ographie historique au
Proche-Orient (Syrie, Ph?nicie, Arabie grecques, romaines,
byzantines, P-L. Gatier, B. Helly, J.-P. Rey-Coquais (eds),
Paris 1988,76-98.

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28 M. GAWLIKOWSKI

political fact true in his own time.6 In any case, he or his source was stressing the isolation of the
oasis. No ancient author, before or after, ever noted that it was a trading centre.
There is, to be sure, direct evidence. About thirty inscriptions concern honours offered to
benefactors by successful merchants upon their return from a caravan expedition.7 The direction of
the trade and some of its ways and means can be deduced from this source. We know next to
nothing, however, of the nature of the wares transported or of financial conditions of the exchange;
silk from China and pearls from the Gulf are obvious imports; the rest is sheer speculation.
Not much can be gathered from the celebrated Tariff of ad. 137. This, the longest extant West
Semitic inscription (CIS II, 3913), contains a law on municipal taxes farmed out to publicans, levied
on local traffic and small trade. There is no question of international trade, which was of course
controlled by Imperial agents. Several recent publications, including an article of John Matthews',
dispense me from elaborating on the subject.8
The first direct proof of caravan movement in Palmyra is an inscription from ad. 10/11 that I am
to publish shortly with Khaled As'ad.9 Found in the gardens installed on the line of the ancient wall
protecting the oasis from the south, the stone bears a text of difficult interpretation, which I
understand as pertaining to the levies on camels: "(At) this wall, the taxes of the camels, so much as
above the tax due to the Assembly of all the Palmyrenes, (are for) 'Atenatan b. Kaffatut b. Bar'a and
for Yamliku his son, (both) from the tribe of Bene Mita, in the year 322". Apparently, 'Atenatan was
a collector to whom the Assembly, at the time the highest authority in the city, had farmed out the
tax duties. Only some years later, an order from Germanicus was issued "in a letter to Statilius"
quoted in the Tariff, to the effect that all taxes should be paid in Roman denarii and asses.1 While
possibly concerning the whole province of Syria, this measure could have expressed the will to
integrate the oasis into it. After this, local taxes were farmed out to freedmen, such as Kilix, also
recorded in the Tariff,11 who fixed the fee of 1 d. for each camel in or out of the territory. Some other
publicani of the same origin are known from their funerary inscriptions, significantly trilingual: one
was L. Spedius Chrysanthus12 who built a tomb for himself and his dependents in a.D. 58, while C.
Virius Alcimus did so together with T. Statilius Hermes in ad 56/57. The inscription concerning the
latter was discovered only last year and will be published shortly; this Statilius is probably a
freedman of the person to whom Germanicus wrote in ad 18/19, and his friend is also quoted in the
Tariff of ad. 137 as one of the tax-farmers instituting a precedent recorded in this law.
In the meantime, and in the very year ad. 19 when Germanicus was putting the affairs of Palmyra
in order, merchants from Seleucia, both Palmyrene and Greek, offered a statue to a person who
contributed to the construction of the Bel temple.13 It is not only the earliest mention of this
building, but also the only reference to Seleucia in the whole epigraphical corpus of Palmyra.
Moreover, it is by no means certain that the city on the Tigris was meant, rather than one of several
others of the name. Another contribution to the building of the Bel temple was acknowledged by
"all the merchants in the city of Babylon" in ad. 24.14 Again, this is the only mention ofthat ancient
city in the inscriptions from Palmyra.
At about the same time, a man from Palmyra named Alexandros served as an envoy of
Germanicus to the king of Mesene and to another ruler called Orabzes, probably king of
Elyma?s.15 The choice of Alexandros would only be understandable if admitted that Palmyra had
already established relations with the region of the Gulf.
Later on, the merchants from Palmyra mostly go to and come from Spasinou Charax, capital city
of the kingdom of Mesene, or a city called Vologesias, first mentioned in a.D. 108.16 Never again
after ad. 19 are they known to visit the area of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, where Andr? Maricq has,

6 See E. 181-183.
Will, "Pline l'Ancien et Palmyre: un probl?me 11CIS
d'histoire ou d'histoire litt?raire?",Syria 62 (1985), 263-269. II, 3913, II, 61-62, III, 45-46.
7 See the list of 12CIS
inscriptions below (hereafter inscriptions; to II, 4235 (= ?GRS III, 1539); J. Cantineau, ?nventaire
be also published in the papers of the ?nternationalCollo- des inscriptionsde Palmyre, VIII, 57.
13?nv.
quium on Palmyra and the Silk Road (Palmyra, April 1992). IX, 6 = dS II, 3924 (a divergent reading). Cf. M.
81. Shifman, Palmirskij Poshlinnyj Tarif, Moscow 1980; J. Rostovtzeff, M?langes Glotz II, Paris 1932, 797.
Teixidor, Un port romain du d?sert. Palmyre, {Semitica 34, 14???.IX, 11 (= dS II, 3915, incomplete).
15J.
1984); J. F. Matthews, "The Tax Law of Palmyra", JRS Cantineau, Syria 12 (1931), 139-141; cf. H. Seyrig, AS I,
74(1984), 157-180. 44-45.
9 Seroi/ica 41-2 16?nv.
(1993), 163-72. IX, 15 (= C/SII, 3917).

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 PALMYRAAS A TRADING CENTRE 29

brilliantly but mistakingly, located the emporium of Vologesias.17 There is strictly nothing to
suggest that the Palmyrenes were interested in the land route through Iran and Central Asia, the
celebrated Silk Road. They headed instead to the Gulf to take delivery of sea-borne Far-Eastern
goods. Some even risked themselves at sea, going in their own ships to the country then called
Scythia, i.e. the Saka kingdoms in North-West India channelling trade from India and China.18
The interests of the merchants from Palmyra were protected by residents established in Charax
and Vologesias, in a position to offer diplomatic and financial assistance to their countrymen in
need. Several inscriptions in Palmyra record the gratitude of caravan members upon returning
safely home. The best known of these notables, So'adu b. Bolyada', has been rewarded by at least 17
statues of him erected between ad. 132 and 147 in Palmyra, Charax, Vologesias, and even in the
open desert.19Among other contributions, he also dedicated a temple to the Roman imperial cult in
Vologesias; it was often wondered how such action could have been tolerated within the Parthian
jurisdiction. One recent discovery allows the supposition that the city of Vologesias was simply
outside this jurisdiction, in spite of its being named after one of the Parthian kings called Vologeses.
The remarkable statue of Heracles found in 1984 in Seleucia on the Tigris bears a bilingual
inscription dated in 151/152 (Babylonian reckoning), in which Vologeses IV reports his victory over
Mithradates (on coins Meredates) of Mesene, his conquest of this country and the transfer of the
statue itself from Mesene, to be set up in the "temple of Apollo at the Bronze Gate", manifestly in
Seleucia. This led to a reappraisal of the earlier evidence by several authors, most notably by Glen
Bowersock and Paul Bernard.20 The extent and situation of Mesene in the first half of 2nd century
now appears in a completely new light.
The last king of Mesene (spelled this time as Meeredates) was already known to have appointed
before a.D. 131 on Yarhai b. Nebozabad as his satrap in Thilouana, i.e. the island of Tylos, ancient
Tilmun and modern Bahrein,21 while two other Palmyrenes served at about the same time as
archons in other cities of the kingdom.22 Considering also the intensity of caravan movement
between Palmyra and Charax in the time of Hadrian and Antoninus, it seems reasonable to
conclude with Bowersock that Mesene was then placed within the Roman sphere of influence. The
king, now revealed by the new document as an Arsacid prince and a son of the Great King Pacorus
II, had replaced the local dynast Attambelus, who must have sided with Trajan during the short-
lived Roman conquest of Babylonia. Soon at odds with the new Great King, Mithradates of Mesene
maintained a special relationship with the merchants from Palmyra, and by the same token with the
Roman Empire. As a client of Rome, he would naturally have had no objection to a shrine of the
imperial cult being established in one of his cities.
The extent of his kingdom appears now to include much more than the estuary between the
capital Charax (located by Hansmann23 at the confluence of the Kerkha-Eulaios and the Tigris) and
the sea, together with some islands of the Gulf. According to Paul Bernard, it controlled also the
whole region of the marshes ("Maikene" for "Maisene" in Strabo XVI: 4,1) between the Tigris and
Shatt al-Hai, with the site of Tello and the city of Apamea-of-the-Seleias just below Kut el-Amara.
There is no information as to the status of Babylonia proper, lying directly to the west.
Now, the city of Vologesias is located by Ptolemy on the "Maarsares", between Babylon and
"Barsita" (most probably Borsippa), while Stephanus Byzantius has put it on the Euphrates;
accordingly, it was usually situated somewhere on the modern Nahr Hindiyeh not far from Kufa.
The proposal of Andr? Maricq (note 17), identifying Vologesias with Vologesocerta, the

17A.
Maricq, "Vologesias, Temporium de Ct?siphon", Syria
36 (1959), 264-276.
18See
inscriptions 20 and and 24; for "Scythia" as the name
of Saka kingdoms of north-west India, see H. Seyrig,
M?langes Cumont, Paris 1936, 397-402 (= Scripta Varia,
Paris 1985, 259-264).
19
Inscriptions 14-16; add private texts: ?n\. X, 56, and
Berytus 19 (1970), 65.
20
The inscription was first published by Wathiq al-Salihi,
Mesopotamia 22 (1987), 159-168; cf. F. A. Pennacchietti,
ibid., 169-186. See G. Bowersock, "La Mesene antonine",
in: L'Arabie pr?islamiqueet son environnementhistorique et
cultureV (colloque Strasbourg, 1987), 1989, 159-168; P.
Bernard, "Vicissitudes au gr? de l'histoire d'une statue en
bronze d'H?racl?s entre S?leucie du Tigre et la M?s?ne",
Journal des Savants 1990, 3-68.
21The name is
confirmed by Syriac sources, see J. Teixidor,
Mesopotamia 22 (1987), 192 n. 19, and R. Zadok, AfO 28
(1981/82), 139, on TLWN = Dilmun. See, however, G.
Bowersock, Classical Philology 82 (1987), 179, who prefers
to restore a form like Thilouos (= Tylos). Cf. Y. Calvet,
"Tylos et Arados", Arabie Orientale, M?sopotamie et Iran
M?ridional, Paris 1984, 341-346.
22H. Ingholt, Syria 13 (1932), 278-292 (also inscription
29 = ???. ?, 44).
23J.
Hansman, ?ranica Antiqua 7 (1967), 21-58.

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30 M. GAWLIKOWSKI

Fig. 1.

"emporium of Ctesiphon" founded, according to Pliny (VI: 26), with the intention of over-
shadowing Seleucia, is rightly rejected by Marie-Louise Chaumont, who has studied these and
several other cities built by one of the kings called Vologeses.24 In this case, it would have been the
first of the name (a.d. 51-80), the only one who could have been mentioned by Pliny. His rival and
successor Vologeses II managed to reach the Ctesiphon throne twice, each time for not more than a
year (a.d. 77/78 and 89/90), while Vologeses III ruled from 105 to 108 only in faraway Media; neither
could have founded a city in Babylonia.
It was in this city that the influential Socadu had resided before a.d. 146, exercised powers defined
as dynasteia, built an imperial temple, and received congratulatory rescripts of Hadrian and
Antoninus, not to mention the honours offered by his native city. It seems sensible to assume
that all this happened under the friendly rule of Mithradates of Mesene.
Several years ago, I claimed that caravans of Palmyra were regularly using the waterway of the
Euphrates (see Fig. I).25 Given the enormous advantage in matter of cost and time, it would have
been very strange had traffic of some volume avoided this natural facility. Rafts borne on inflated
goatskins (the kelek) were well known to travellers of the last century and before,26 while the makers
of such floats, askonautopoioi, appear in Palmyra in an inscription brilliantly explained by Henri
Seyrig.27 This would account for travel downstream, imitated several times by Roman armies on
their way to Ctesiphon. Navigation upstream as far as Thapsacus at the bend of the river is
confirmed by Strabo, and by even earlier cuneiform documents.
24M.-L.
Chaumont, "Etudes d'histoire parthe III. Les villes Berchem, Bonner Jahrb?cher 185 (1985), 71-75; J. Roug?,
fond?es par les Volog?se", Syria 51 (1974), 76-89. "La navigation int?rieure dans le Proche-Orient antique",
25M.
Gawlikowski, "Le commerce de Palmyre sur terre et L'homme et l'eau III, Lyon 1986; recently, M. Tardieu, Les
sur eau", L'Arabie et ses mers bordures ?. ?tin?raires et paysages reliques, Louvain-Paris 1990, 71-102 contested the
voisinages, Travaux de la Maison de l'Orient, Lyon 1988, use of kelek on the Euphrates. Even so, other kinds of boats
165-172. are well attested.
26 27H.
Strabo, Geogr. XVI, 3, 3; Pliny, NHY, 84, 89; cf. D. van Seyrig, AAAS 13 (1963), 159-166.

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 PALMYRAAS A TRADING CENTRE 31

If reached by ship, Vologesias on the Maarsares (Narsarri, Akkadian for "Royal River", as
applied to Nahr Hindiyeh) would be a natural stop on the way to Charax, even more so if within the
limits of the same kingdom. On the other hand, going from the Euphrates to the Tigris along the
canal of Narmalcha (Aramaic for the "Royal River") to Ctesiphon and its emporium Vologesocerta
would have been an unnecessary extension and possibly a political complication.28
Of course, it would have been impossible for a caravan of camels to reach either the Ctesiphon
area or Charax without crossing several large waterways and a multitude of canals. The sensible
thing to do would have been to leave the animals somewhere on the shore of the Euphrates and
embark men and wares on ships or rafts as far upstream as possible. Naturally, the herds had to be
guarded against nomad robbers while waiting for the return of their owners. Again, the sensible
thing would have been to leave them within the limits of Palmyrene territory. This is positively
known to have reached the river, not only because Appianus (Proem. 2) says so, but also because,
early in the 3rd century, a strategos from Palmyra is attested on the river island of 'Ana and in a
camp on the shore opposite where a Nabataean horseman with personal links to Palmyra had served
already in a.d. 132.
The camels grazing somewhere in the Wadi Hawran, where the Palmyrene presence is confirmed
by inscriptions as early as a.d. 98, would have been guarded by armed escorts who had no need at all
to go abroad, beyond the imperial frontier, a contingence which was troubling Franz Cumont and
M. Rostovtzeff. The trip back to Palmyra could have used the track from Hit identified from the air
by Antoine Poidebard on the Syrian side and Sir Aurei Stein on the Iraqi side of the modern
border.30
The fall of Mithradates in ad. 152 does not seem to have interrupted the Palmyrene trade. While
there are ten extant caravan inscriptions, including three in honour of So'adu, dated between a.d.
131 and 150 (as against four earlier ones and seven Severan or later), eight others are dated between
a.d. 156 and 161, including seven in honour of one M. Ulpius Yarhai, set up by caravans or by
merchants having gone to "Scythia". As Bowersock has remarked, however, the latter series could
reflect a new challenge successfully met by this leader.
Only the campaign of Lucius Verus in a.d. 163 seems to have effectively interrupted the caravan
movement, but it was resumed after the death of his adversary Vologeses IV in a.d. 192, not,
however, with the same intensity as before.
While only one inscription refers to a caravan "of all the Palmyrenes", many others were
manifestly of major public interest and supported by the municipal authorities. Indeed, the city
council voted several times the highest honours for those who had helped the caravans.
Unfortunately, most of these inscriptions are extremely vague as to the nature of the services the
merchants obtained from their benefactors. "Being agreeable in every way" is the usual formula,
only seldom supplemented with a mention of expenses being spared, or of desert robbers having
been turned away, and this only in the latest series.
A study by Ernest Will31 has established a distinction between the caravan leaders, synodiarchai
or archemporoi, and patrons such as So'adu, who could have resided abroad and served as a
king of consul of their nation, but above all would have provided the beasts of burden, being
masters of great herding estates around Palmyra. Be it as it may, the success of each caravan and the
general security of the route depended entirely on relations with the nomad tribes. A complex
fabric of hospitality, dependence, even parentage, is to be imagined between the desert chiefs and
the city notables. Only under these conditions could the caravan movement have used the short-cut
through Palmyra, rather than the longer route through Zeugma as described by Isidore of Charax.
In spite of some incidents, such as the abortive attack of one Abdallat Aeithenos (a tribal name),
reported in an unpublished inscription in a.d. 144 (list, no. 15), or several attempts averted by the

28Cf. F.
Paschoud, "Le Naarmalcha: ? propos du trac? d'un
canal en M?sopotamie moyenne", Syria 55 (1978), 345-359.
29The
strategos of 'Ana is directly confirmed in a.d. 225: J.
Cantineau, Syria 14 (1933), 178-180; on the Nabataean
mercenary: dS II, 3973, see E. Lipinski, Orientalia 45
(1976), 73, n. 164, and J. Teixidor, Journal of the Ancient
Near Eastern Society Columbia University5 (1973), 405-409.
30R. Mouterde and A.
Poidebard, "La route ancienne des
caravanes entre Palmyre et Hit", Syria 12 (1931), 105-115;
Sh. Gregory and D. Kennedy, Sir Aurei Stein's Limes
Report, BAR S.272, Oxford, 1985, 183-237.
31E.
Will, "Marchands et chefs de caravanes ? Palmyre",
Syria 34 (1957), 262-277; see recently G. Bowersock, "Social
and Economie History of Syria under the Roman Empire",
Arch?ologie et Histoire de la Syrie II, J.-M. Dentzer and W.
Orthmann (eds), Saarbr?cken 1989, 63-80.

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32 M. GAWLIKOWSKI

strategos kata ton nomad?n Ogeilu Maqqai before a.d. 199,32 the caravan traffic went on smoothly
enough.
This was so only during the short period of the Roman peace, from the 1st to 3rd century a.d
However, security in the desert was not, and could not, be maintained by the Romans. It was created
and maintained by the nomad sheikhs themselves, when they realized the profits to be gathered from
the existence of the great market of the Empire. After all, if the route from the Mediterranean to the
Gulf is shorter through Palmyra than through the north of Syria, it is so only on paper. The cost of
camel transport, even if limited to the necessary crossing of the desert, was certainly much higher
than on the short distance through the settled country from Antioch to the Euphrates.
It was this northern road that was generally favoured throughout the millennia, establishing at
various periods the fortunes of Aleppo, Mari, and other Mesopotamian centres. The case of
Palmyra is understandable only in the particular conditions of a sudden urbanisation of nomads,
induced by the possibility of international commerce. It never happened in Palmyra before and nor
has it since. A remote village around its tepid sulphuric source lived a precarious existence among its
gardens from its first mention in the Mari texts in the 18th century b.c., until the chance presented
itself about the turn of the Christian era. It reverted to its former sleepy ways after the episode of
Zenobia, only to be awakened by modern tourism and, quite recently, by heavy traffic to and from
the new Syrian oil-fields beyond the Euphrates.

List of Caravan Inscriptions

l./nv. IX, 6 (C/SII, 3924). a.D. 19
Palmyrene and Greek merchants from Seleucia honour Yedi'bel b. 'Azizu, a benefactor of the temple of Bel.
2. Inv. IX, 11 (CIS II, 3915). a.d. 24
Merchants from the city of Babylon ("people of the Palmyrenes") honour Maliku b. Nesa Bolha, called
Hasas, a benefactor of the Bel temple. See Inv. IX, 12-13.
3. Cantineau, RA 27 (1930), no. 34. a.d. 50/51 or 70/71
Palmyrene merchants from Ispasinqert (= Spasinour Charax) honour Zabdibol b. Obayhan.
4. Inv. X, 7. Between a.d. 28-88
=
Palmyrene merchants on their return from Karka of Maisan ( Charax) honour NN.
5. Inv. X, 40. a.d. 81
Palmyrene merchants upon their return from Charax honour Zabdibol b. Ogeilu b. 'Aqamat Acaki.
6. Inv. X, 127. a.d. 86
The Council honours Yarhai b. Zabdilah, for protecting and favouring the merchants.
7.//iv. X, 38. a.D. 131
Merchants from Charax honour Yarhai b. Nebozabad b. Salamallat, satrap of Thilouana ( = Tylos,
Bahrein) for the king Meherdat of Mesene.
8. Inv. X, 81. a.d. 135
M. Ulpius Abgar b. Hairan and his caravan, upon return from Charax, honour a centurion, Julius
Maximus.
9. Inv.X, 114. a.d 138
The Council honours Yarhibola b. Lisams A'abi for having helped the merchants in Charax, and assumed
an embassy to Worod, king of Ailymene.
10. ?nv. X, 112. a.d. 140
A caravan under Malku b. 'Azizu, on return from Charax and Vologesias, honours NN, [archon of
Phor]ath near Charax.
11. M. Rostovtzeff, Berytus 2 (1935), 143; D. Schlumberger, Syria 38 (1961), 256. a.d. 89-188
NN . . .. b. Acabi, archon of [Mais]an, honoured for having favoured his native city and its merchants.
12. Inv. IX, 14 (CIS II, 3916). a.d. 142
A caravan returning from Phorat and Vologesias honours its leader, Nesa b. Hala b. Nesa b. Hala Raphael
Abisai.
13. Inv. X, 124. a.d. 150
A caravan having gone to Vologesias, for the same, its leader.
14. Chr. Dunant, Sanctuaire de Baalsham?n III, no. 45. a.d 132
A caravan under Hagegu b. Yarhibola and Taimar?u b. Taimar?u, having been saved by So'adu b.
Bolyada* b. So'adu Taimisams, honours him with 4 statues in 4 sanctuaries, also for assisting citizens settled
in Vologesias, caravans and merchants.
15. Unpublished, from All?t temple, a.d. 144
A caravan of all the Palmyrenes back from Vologesias, having been attacked by robbers under 'Abdallat
Ahitaya, honours the same with 4 statues in 4 sanctuaries.
32H.
Ingholt, "Deux inscriptions bilingues de Palmyre", Syria 13 (1932), 278-292.

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 PALMYRAAS A TRADING CENTRE 33

16. Milik, D?dicaces, pp. 12-14, Umm el cAmed. a.D. 145/146

The Council (and perhaps a caravan) honour the same with statues in Palmyra, Charax, Vologesias and the
station of Genna? ( = Umm el *Amed). Mention of building by him of a [temple] of imperial cult in
Vologesias, and of his special powers there. Rescripts of Hadrian and Antoninus in his favour mentioned.
17. Inv. X, 111. a.d. 156
A caravan having gone to Charax honours its leader, M. Ulpius Yarhai b. Hairan Abgar.
18. Inv. X, 87-88 (CIS II, 3960). a.d. 157
Merchants back from an expedition honour the same.
19. In v. X, 90. a.d. 157
A caravan under Yarhai Zabdilah, back from Charax, honours the same.
20. Inv. X, 96; Seyrig, JRS 40 (1950), 6. a.d. 157
Merchants back from Scythia on the ship of Honainu b. Haddudan, honour the same for having helped
them.
2\.Inv. X, 107. a.d. 159
A caravan back from Charax under his son Abgar, honours the same.
22. Cantineau, Syria 19 (1938), 75. a.d. 159
Haddudan b. Haddudan Firm?n honours the same, for helping him in Charax.
23. Inv. X, 89. No date.
Merchants . . . honour the same.
24. Milik, D?dicaces, p. 32 (Cantineau, Syria 14 (1993), 187; Inv. X, 95 and 91).
Merchants back from Scythia on the ship of Beelaios Kyrou honour NN [Milik: the same, in a.d. 157].
25. Inv. X, 29. a.d. 161
Merchants back from Charax under Nesa b. Bolyada' (brother of So'adu, supra 14-16) honour M. Aemilius
Marcianus Asclepiades, counselor of Antioch and customs contractor.
26. Inv. X, 19. No date.
Merchants back from Charax . . .
27. Inv. X, 47. a.d. 89-188
A caravan honours its leader Taimar?u b. Lisams Malku A'abi. Cf. supra 9 and 11.
28. Inv. Ill, 28 (CIS II, 3948). a.d. 193
A caravan back from Charax honours its leader Taimar?u b. Taime b. Moqimu Garba and his sons Yaddai
and Zabdibol, for having spared it an expense of 300 gold denarii.
29. Inv. X, 44, cf. Milik, D?dicaces, 23 and 258. a.d. 199
The Council orders the four tribes to honour with 4 statues Ogeilu b. Maqqai b. Ogeilu Sewira, several
times strategos against the nomads, having assured security of merchants and of many caravans under his
leadership.
30. Inv. Ill, 29 (CIS II, 3949). a.d. 211
Honouring Yaddai b. Taimarsu b. Taime Moqimu Garba (cf. supra 28), having helped the merchants in
Vologesias.
31. Inv. Ill, 21 (CIS II, 3933). a.d. 247
Merchants having gone to Vologesias, for their leader Julius Aurelius Zebida b. Moqimu Zebida 'Astor
Baida.
32. Inv. Ill, 13 (CIS II, 3936). a.d. 257/258w
The Council honours Julius Aurelius Salamallat b. Male 'Abdai, caravan leader (archemporos), having
brought back a caravan at his own expense.
33. Inv. IX, 30. 3rd century.
The Council honours Julius Aurelius Nebomai b. Taimisams b. Bonne Sabi, caravan leader, having
brought a caravan back.
34. Inv. Ill, 7 (CIS II, 3942). After a.d. 260
The Council honours Septimius Worod, procurator and argapet, having brought back caravans at his own
expense and being given testimony by caravan leaders.

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