judith weingarten on zenobia

Now All Shame is Exhausted...

for in the weakened state of the commonwealth things came to such a pass that ... even women ruled most excellently. For, in fact, even a foreigner, Zenobia by name, proceeded to cast about her shoulders the imperial mantle, [and was] ruling longer than could be endured from one of the female sex.

Thus begins the biography of Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, in the unreliable and fantastical Historiae Augustae, written near the end of the 4th C.

Read on, and enjoy the illustration too!