Pre-Islamic Arab Queens Author(s): Nabia Abbott Reviewed work(s): Source: The American Journal of Semitic Languages and

Literatures, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Jan., 1941), pp. 1-22 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/529209 . Accessed: 05/05/2012 13:07
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The American Journal of SEMITIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES

Volume LVIII JANUARY 1941 Number 1

PRE-ISLAMIC ARAB QUEENS

NABIA ABBOTT

Arab queens make their first recorded appearance in history with the dramatic entry of the Queen of Sheba and her historic visit to King Solomon in the tenth century before Christ. The familiar biblical version of her story leaves the enterprising queen unnamed and the location of her kingdom within Arabia uncertain. But it depicts her as endowed with wealth, power, knowledge if not wisdom, and curiosity. It furthermore started her on her way to recognition in three great world-faiths. Her story soon captured the imagination of the entire Near East. Fascinating legends, varied by Jewish, Abyssinian, Arab, and Iranian fancies, grew and multiplied about her. These, though they surrounded her with romance and supernatural powers, left her free from neither scandal nor folly. Thus did this unnamed Arab queen, referred to in the Bible and Qur:In simply as the "Queen of Sheba" and "Queen of Saba:," respectively, come in time to acquire several names and to be known as the consort of Solomon the Great and the ancestress, if not the foundress, of two dynasties-the Himyars of South Arabia and the recently ended imperial line of Abyssinia. Western Christendom too fell under her spell. European story-tellers juggled the elements of the numerous tales to suit their own fancy, while medieval artists, not to be outdone, told her story in stone. Thus, even today, one may gaze on a statue of the Queen of Sheba as she
1

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stands between Solomon and Balaam in a triple carving that adorns the famous Chartres Cathedral in France.' Legend at last seems to have exhausted the variations of the agelong tale. But persistent and patient history still asks who was Solomon's Queen of Sheba and whence came she? To these questions no definite answers are as yet forthcoming. Her real name remains unknown, and her traditional South Arabian origin is seriously challenged. Some still undiscovered or unread inscription, South Arabic or Assyrian, may one day solve her mystery. For our purpose here this colorful figure exemplifies the exercise of the right of independent queenship among the ancient Arabs at least as early as the tenth century before Christ. The first of the ancient Arabs to establish an independent state, it seems, were the Minaeans, whose rule, begun sometime in the last half of the second millennium, lasted to about 650 B.C., and whose kingdom in its heyday stretched from Southwest to Northwest Arabia. So far, no definite and unchallenged reference to a Minaean queen has come to light.2 However, by analogy with the contemporary Sabaeans it would not be at all surprising to find the Minaeans too had their queens. The next independent ancient Arab kingdom was that of the Sabaeans, who ruled from about the tenth century to 115 B.c. Tradition has for long laid the scene of their rise to political power in southwestern Arabia. More recently, however, the Assyrian inscriptions have been interpreted to mean that the Sabaeans first came into power in the northern Arabian regions and gradually pushed southward3until in political leadership they displaced their earlier kinsmen,
1 To the references given in the Encyclopedia of Islam (EI), art. "Bil1kis," add Ibn Hishdm, Kitdb al-Tijdn (Hayderabad, 1928-29), pp. 137-63, and H. St. J. B. Philby, Sheba's Daughters (London, 1939), p. 1, frontispiece and pp. 10-14. 2 A North Minaean inscription was at one time thought to refer to a malkah Adbay. The malkah, rendered by Mtiller "queen," was later taken by others to mean "proprietress" and even "property"; the reading of "Adbay" was likewise questioned. Cf.
D. H. Miiller, Epigraphische (Munich,

Classe der Kais. Akad. d. Wiss.," Vol. XXXVII

und Abhandlungen 1892),

Denkmdler

aus

Arabien

("Denkschriften Beitrage

der philos.-hist. zur Mindischen

[Wien, 1889]); Fritz Hommel, Aufsdtze Mission

Vol. VI,

pp. 11 f.; J. H. Mordtmann, 255-59; Rgpertoire

Epigraphik
archgologique

(Weimar,

1897), pp. vii and Nos. xxiv f.; Jaussen and Savignac,
1909), d'gpigraphie simitique,

en Arabe, I (Paris,

ed. Ryckmans (Paris, 1925), No. 3285. I am indebted to Professor Sprengling for the elimination from my list of "Queen Adbay" or Udbay, whom I had first known through James A. Montgomery, Arabia and the Bible (Philadelphia, 1934), p. 181. 3 Professor Sprengling, to whom I am indebted for the following reference, inclines
strongly to this theory; cf. Fritz Hommel, Ethnologie und Geographie des alten Orients

(Munich, 1926), pp. 142 f., 581 (n. 1).

PRE-ISLAMIC ARAB QUEENS

the Minaeans, about 650 B.C. South Arabian inscriptions, numerous as they are, have not as yet thrown a clear light on these problems. Not only are they usually brief and fragmentary but a great many of them still await definitive publication if not decipherment. There is, therefore, much that is unknown and uncertain in the history and chronology of the Minaean and Sabaean kingdoms. So far as is now known no Arab queen, excepting the problematic Queen of Sheba, has been associated with the southern regions of these kingdoms. The case seems to be otherwise with the Minaeans and Sabaeans of the north, though here it is the Assyrian rather than the South Arabic inscriptions that generally come to our aid. To begin with, there is the Queen of Sheba herself. Her visit to Solomon coincides with the emergence of the Sabaeans as a political power; and if this took place first in the northern Arab lands, as some factors seem to indicate at present, then the Queen of Sheba would be the first of a series of Arab queens some of whom were, like her, queens of Saba, that is, of the Sabaean lands and tribes of the North Arabian regions. The earliest Sabaean and Assyrian relations were in all probabilities friendly since it would be to the advantage of the former, then on the aggressive against the Minaeans, to have the good will if not the active support of the great empire to the northeast. However, as the Assyrian empire soon became a menace to the kingdoms on her western borders, the Sabaean and other Arabs seem to have sought, at times at least, protection through alliance with the smaller northern kingdoms. At any rate, the first reference to an Arab chief or king that the Assyrian records give us is in connection with the successful expedition of 854 B.C.undertaken by Shalmaneser III against Hadad-ezer, the king of Damascus, and the "twelve kings he brought to his support," among whom were Ahab the Israelite and "Gindibu the Arabian," with his thousand camel riders.4 A little more than a century later we begin to get several definite references to the Sabaeans and to a series of Arab kings and queens in the North Arabian territories. This was the heyday of the second Assyrian empire when some of its greatest kings initiated a new wave of imperial expansion at the expense of the smaller kingdoms to the
4 Alois Musil,
Ancient Records

Arabia deserta (New York, 1927), p. 477; Daniel David Luckenbill,

and Babylonia (Chicago, 1926-27), I, 223.

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west. Thus were these put on the defensive against the dreaded foe and driven into one another's arms for political and military alliance against the common enemy. It is in such circumstances that the Assyrian records give us our first historical glimpses of several Arab queens. The first of these is Zabibi, who is mentioned in a long list of independent rulers that were subjugated by Tiglath-pileser III (745-727 B.C.) and forced to pay tribute to him in 738.5 Though listed as queen of the Arabian land, the locality of her kingdom within Arabia is not specified. The probabilities are that it centered around the oasis of DiMmatal-Gandal in the North Arabian desert, where presently we have another Arab queen, the Sabaean Samsi, probably Zabibi's successor, facing the wrath of the same Tiglath-pileser in 732. Samsi was accused of breaking a great oath sworn by the god Shamash whose name she bore.6 This is evidently to be interpreted as violating a political agreement of some sort with Assyria. Perhaps her aid to the king of Damascus in his losing fight against Assyria was the excuse for Tiglath-pileser's open war on the Arab queen. She proved no match for her powerful enemy. Her major cities were captured and she herself was forced to flee to the desert. Here, her own camp besieged, hunger and thirst doing their worst, the proud queen was further forced to humble herself before the Assyrian and to pay heavy tribute. Her subjugation was complete. Henceforth an Assyrian resident was stationed at her court, and his duty was to transmit complete records of the conduct of the queen and her tribes.7 That Samsi continued to rule at all, despite the failure of her foreign policy and her own military defeat and humiliation, is in itself indicative of the security of queenship in general and of the firm hold that Samsi in particular must have had on the internal affairs of her kingdom. Her reign was a long one, for we find her some seventeen years later sending her tribute to Sargon II (722-705) by the hands of four of her Arab chieftains." Her end, however, is unknown. The next queen of the Arab lands, probably Samsi's successor, was
6Musil, pp. 578-80. 6 Musil, 7 Musil, 8 Musil,
p. 477; Luckenbill, I, 276; cf. also Hommel, Ethnologie und Geographie . p. 477; Luckenbill, I, 279. p. 477; Luckenbill, I, 293. p. 480; Luckenbill, II, 7 f., 27.

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Iati1e,9 who in 703 sent her brother, Basqanu, at the head of some Arab troops to the aid of Merodach-baladan of Babylon, then fighting against the Assyrian Sennacherib (705-681). Basqanu was defeated and made prisoner the next year, and we hear no more of either of them. Sennacherib, however, had yet another Arab queen to attend to before the end of his reign. This was Te'lkhunu1oof the same DMimat territory. Her offense, like that of latile, was friendship and alliance with Babylonia against Assyria. But Babylon and her allies fought a losing fight. Sennacherib, having taken Babylon in 689 B.C., was now in a position to undertake an extensive expedition against Queen Te'lkhunu. The queen and her tribes were defeated and forced to take shelter in the desert fortress of DMimat. Sennacherib next took her desert fort and transported her and her local gods to Nineveh. After Sennacherib's death Khazael, the "King of the Arabs," submitted to Esarhaddon (681-668). However, he was not confirmed in power at Dimat. Instead, Esarhaddon appointed Te'lkhunu's daughter, Princess Tabiia, born at Nineveh and referred to as a scion of his palace, to be the priestess and vassal queen of Diimat. Tabila remained loyal to her Assyrian overlord and for that reason lost favor with her Arabs." In the meantime Esarhaddon continued his expeditions westward against enemy and rebel Arabs, reaching into Syrian and Nabataean territories. Among those subdued were Baslu, the queen of Ikhilu, and Iapa1, the queen of Dikhrani, a Nabataean clan.12 Asurbanipal's reign (668-626) yields us the last Assyrian reference to an Arab queen. This was Adia, who with Ammuladi, king of the Arabs, was captured in Moab and sent to Nineveh.13 In a few more years Nineveh itself was no more. Babylon had triumphed over Assyria. Unlike the Assyrian records, the Babylonian and Persian sources have little to say about the Arabs beyond a few general references to Arab raids or revolts and Arab aid or tribute. Biblical and Jewish lit9 Musil, p. 480; Luckenbill, II, 130. 10Musil, pp. 480 f.; Luckenbill, II, 158, 364-66; Geographie Geographie . . . . pp. 574, 581 f. 11 Musil, pp. 481 f.; Luckenbill, . . . . pp. 581 f.

cf. also Hommel,

Ethnologie und

II, 207 f., 214, 364-66; cf. also Hommel, Ethnologie und

12 Musil,

pp. 483 f.; Luckenbill, II, 209. 13Musil, p. 485 f.; Luckenbill, II, 400.

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eratures add little more beyond incidental references to Sabaeans14 and Nabataeans except for the last period of the Nabataean kingdom. The contemporary South Arabic inscriptions have contributed, so far, little that is definite for the identity of many of the rulers, kings or queens, and the chronology of the earliest Arab kingdoms. Classical sources have more to tell us of Arab trade and customs, of Sabaeans, Lihyanites, and Nabataeans; but they too leave much to be desired so far as individual rulers are concerned. Moslem traditions, the longest removed from the times they record, are confused and little to be trusted. Hence, though a general picture in outline of the early kingdoms is now before us, a chronology and a list of rulers that is anywhere near being certain or complete is as yet not available. Yet these centuries between the fall of Assyria and the beginning of our era saw the Sabaeans reach the height of their power, decline, and finally yield of the south, who were themselves to give South to the a powerful Arabia H.imyarites dynasty and a great culture. It was during this period too that the Nabataeans consolidated their power and expanded, partly at the expense of the Lihyanites (ca. 500-300 B.C.)and partly at that of the Sabaeans of the north. Inscriptions of the short-lived Lihyanite kingdom have, so far, provided us with one Lihyanite queen whose name is unfortunately lost to us.15 That these centuries produced only this one Arab queen is possible but hardly probable. For the time being, she serves as a link between the Sabaean and Nabataean queens of the Assyrian period and the Nabataean queens of the Greco-Roman times. Our first detailed reference to a Nabataean king of the post-Assyrian period is Diodorus' (ca. 57 B.C.)account of the expeditions sent out in 312 B.C.by Antigonus, the Seleucid king of Syria, against Petra, the Nabataean capital.'" For more than a century after this expedition we hear little of the Nabataeans, who emerge, however, at the end of
14Jer. 49:28-33
subdued

refers to the Arab tribe of Qedar and the kingdoms of JHarorthat were
(604-561 B.c.). However, The Bible: Hommel (Ethnologie und Geographie (op. cit., p. 490) and Mission ..., An American 53.

by Nebuchadnezzar Musil

....,

p. 592 and n. 3) draws attention to the reading "Kedar and the queen of
Translation,

in this passage. 15 Jaussen

-IJaor" ed. J. M.

Powis Smith (Chicago, 1931) have "kingdom" for "queen."

and Savignac, II, 391, No. 16 For the following brief summary of Nabataean history cf. George Livingston Robinson, The Sarcophagus of an Ancient Civilization (New York, 1930), chap. xxviii, contributed

by Arthur P. Scott; Albert Kammerer, Petra et la Nabathne (Paris, 1929-30), Index.

ARABQUEENS PRE-ISLAMIC

this period as a major force in near eastern politics. With the year 169 B.C., we begin to get a series of definitely known Nabataean kings, beruler of the Nabataeans." By the end ginning with "Aretas (Ij.arith) of the second century before Christ the Nabataeans were in a position to profit in territory and prestige by the decline of their neighbors, the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria. They also more than held their own against the neighboring Jewish state of Judea. Aretas III (85-60 B.C.)was the first to come in contact with the Romans, who decided it was more to their advantage to help Judea than to encourage the already too successful Aretas. Though succeeding Nabataean kings were able to hold their own and managed to be on the winning side in the Roman civil wars, Roman interference eventually led to Roman conquest and annexation in A.D. 106. What part the Nabataean royal women played in Nabataean history is nowhere recorded. That they played a part is, however, not to be doubted. The nature of this part can perhaps be guessed at by recalling the significant role played by the royal women of the Hellenized though semi-Arab, semi-Jewish court of the Idumean Herods. Some of these royal women bore the proud titles of basilis, "king's daughter," and basilissa, "queen," or shared equal honors with their royal husbands as implied in the title basileis, "their majesties," that is, the king and queen.17 We must remember further that there were marriage alliances between these two kingdoms. For it was the daughter of Aretas IV (9 B.C.--A.D. whom Herod Antipas wished to di40) vorce in order to be free to marry Herodias, his brother's wife. This situation, with the aid of Herodias' dancing daughter, Salome, cost John the Baptist his head, as the familiar Gospel story tells us. But it also cost Herod a military defeat at the hands of the outraged Aretas.18 Later this same Salome was to fall violently in love with the Arab Syllaeus, prime minister and power behind the throne of the Nabataean king Obodas III (30-9 B.C.). Syllaeus' refusal to conform to the Jewish religion, together with the imperial disapproval of the affair, prevented their marriage. Eventually Salome married Aristobulus,
17

Cf. Grace

Harriet

Macurdy,

Vassel-Queens

and Some

Contemporary

Women

in the

Roman Empire (Baltimore, 1937), chap. v, esp. pp. 77 and 48-86. 18Robinson, p. 387; Kammerer, pp. 245-48; Macurdy, op. cit., pp. 78-81.

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king of Chaleis (Qinnesrin), and herself attained the proud and coveted title of basilissa.19 Had the Nabataeans their historians as did and do other nations, Nabataean royal women would doubtless have claimed some of their attention. As it is, we have only comparatively late Nabataean coins to fall back on for any tangible information on the Nabataean queens. Beginning with the reign of Obodas III, these coins display jugate busts of a king and queen; such busts continued henceforth to appear on the coins until the fall of the kingdom.20 In some instances the queen is the mother, in others the wife, and in still others the sister of the king. This last designation points to the adoption of the ancient Egyptian custom of brother-sister royal marriages, where the sisterwife is queen by right of birth and the royal couple is considered divine. This adoption is not surprising if one remembers that the custom had penetrated even into imperial Rome when in A.D.37 Caligula decided to marry his sister Drusilla.21 The coins yield us the names of four Nabataean queens, two of whom were wives of Aretas IV: Huldu, whose last appearance on the coins is in the sixteenth regnal year, and Shagilath I, who shared his throne to the end. Shagilath II was the sister-wife of Malichus II (A.D. 40-71); she outlived her husband and was regent for her son Rabel II (71-106), who later married Gamilath, our fourth queen. With them the Nabataean kingdom came to its end. In the meantime, another Arab dynasty had run its course at Emesa and Arethusa in northern Syria.22 This dynasty, founded by the Arab chief Sampsiceram(us) (Shamas + Jarm) in about 64 B.C., grew in power under his successor at the expense of the declining Seleucid kingdom. Like the Nabataeans of Petra, the royal house of Emesa was related by marriage to the semi-Arab house of the Herods of Judea. The Emesan princess lotape was married to Aristobulus, the brother
19 Macurdy,
20

op. cit., pp. 72 f. and 82; Kammerer, pp. 206-9.

Hill, Ferrero, Catalogue of Greek Coins in the British (New York, Museum, 1925), Arabia, pp. 232-34. Meso-

George

Francis

potamia and Persia (London, 1922), pp. xvi-xviii.

21
22

Cf. Guglielmo

The Women of the Caesars

For brief accounts of this dynasty see Karl J. Marquardt, Romische staatsvorwaltung (Leipzig, 1881-85), I, 403 f.; Cambridge Ancient History (CAH), XI (1936), 214; PaulyVol. X (Stuttgart, 1905), cols. 2496 f.; for the names Wissowa, Real-Encyclopddie ...., Shamas and Jarm see D. H. Miiller, WZKM, VI (1892), 318 f. and Ibn Duraid, Kitdb alIshtiqdq, ed. Wiistenfeld (Gottingen, 1854), pp. 117, 314, 318.

ARABQUEENS PRE-ISLAMIC

of King Agrippa; and the Emesan king Azizus (cAziz) was married to Drusilla, the daughter of Agrippa I and sister of Agrippa II.23 Azizus' successor, Soemus (Suhtaim), participated in the Roman wars of 6673. Under Domitian (A.D. 81-96) the dynasty lost its political independence and Emesa was annexed to Syria. The family, however, retained its power and prestige as a hereditary priest-prince dynasty in the service of the temple of Elagabalus, the baal of Emesa.24 It is as such that this originally Arab family, now with Jewish and North Aramaic blood in its veins, emerged once more in the early third century to play leading roles, chiefly through its women, for some forty years in the history of the Roman Empire. Septimius Severus, Roman governor, himself no mean astrologer, was persuaded he had a royal nativity. After the death of his first wife in about A.D. 185 or 186, he looked to the stars to direct his choice of a second. On discovery that Martha, the daughter of Bassianus,25 the then priest-prince of Emesa, also had a royal nativity, he asked and obtained her hand in marriage. The stars fulfilled their promise when in 193 Severus was elected emperor, and the Emesan lady henceforth shared his honors as the empress Julia Domna.26 However, she played a small part in politics during her husband's reign, contenting herself with a brilliant patronage of art, literature, and philosophy.27 But she came to the political foreground, directly and indirectly, in the reign of her sons Caracalla and Geta. Her influence was exerted in the interest of the state, but her own personal experiences in the story of her rival sons was most tragic. It was she who prevented the division of the empire between them; but all her efforts to reconcile the two brothers not only failed but finally played into the hands of Caracalla. For at a meeting arranged in 212 by the empress, who hoped to reconcile her sons, Caracalla treacherously murdered Geta even though the latter
23

Pauly-Wissowa,

cols.

2496 f.; Emil

Schtirer,

Geschichte

des Jildischen

Volkes, I (Leip-

zig, 1901), 557 and 573. 24 Pauly-Wissowa, second series, Vol. V (1927), cols. 796 f.; Rudolf Egger, "Ein neuer
Statthalter der Provinz Dalmatia," Jahreshefte des

Institutes," XIX-XX (1919), Beiblatt, 319 f.; cf. also M. Rostovtzeff, Ancient World, trans. S. D. Duff, II (Oxford, 1938), 254 and 307 f. 25Pauly-Wissowa,
27

"Osterreichischen

A History of the

Archdologischen

Vol. XIX (1917), No. 116, cols. 176 f. CAH, XII (1939), 35.
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. Bury

26 Ibid., No. 566, cols. 926-35; CAH, XII, 20; Edward

Gibbon,

(4th ed.; London, 1906), I, 127.

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sought protection in his mother's arms. Thereafter the unhappy empress-mother "was doomed to weep over the death of one of her sons and over the life of the other."28 For the murder of Geta did not improve the temper of Caracalla, who grew more tyrannous and eventually became unbalanced. Nevertheless, the empress, accepting the situation, continued "to administer the principal affairs of the empire with a prudence that supported his authority and with a moderation that sometimes corrected his wild extravagances.""29These extravagances eventually led to Caracalla's murder in 217. With the usurpation of Macrinus, Julia Domna Augusta, who had shared more honors and borne more titles than any empress before her, was relegated to the rank of a subject and exiled from Rome. This bitter humiliation, climaxing the tragic end of her family, and the extinction of the house of Severus, was too much to endure. Life held nothing more for her. In a few months the former empress was dead, either from a forced starvation or, as some believe, from a voluntary hunger strike.30 But if Macrinus thought he was rid of the house of Severus, he underestimated the empress' sister, Julia Maesa,31who had a genius for intrigue and a thirst for power. She had accompanied her royal sister to Rome, where she used her position to acquire much influence and great wealth. Macrinus had ordered her back to Emesa, which proved to be her most advantageous base. From here, with the aid of her wealth and with utter disregard for the honor of her older daughter, Soaemia (Suhaimah),32 she maneuvered to bring about the downfall of Macrinus and the election of Soaemia's son, Varius Bassanius, whom Maesa falsely claimed to be the natural son of Caracalla. Varius, whose official name was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (218-22), became infamous under the name of Elagabalus, for he now identified himself with that god of Emesa whose high priest he was. He devoted himself to the aggrandizement of his religious cult and to his personal pleasures which ended in grossest dissipation. His mother and grandmother, the one officially and the other from behind the throne, ac28

Gibbon, I, 141; CAH, XII, 43 f.

I, 127; CAH, XII, 49.

29Gibbon,
30

Pauly-Wissowa,

Vol. XIX, col. 934; Gibbon, I, 141; CA H, XII, 51 f. Vol. XIX, No. 579, cols. 940-44; CA H, XII, 51 f. Vol. XIX, No. 596, cols. 948-51.

31 Pauly-Wissowa,

32Pauly-Wissowa,

ARABQUEENS PRE-ISLAMIC

11

quired more and more power and virtually ruled the empire during his reign. The shrewd and crafty Maesa, realizing that Elagabalus' follies would eventually lead to his fall, maneuvered into the line of imperial succession yet another grandson, Alexander, the son of her second daughter, Mamaea.33 Mamaea had personally supervised the education of her young son, whose good character shone by contrast with the evil one of his cousin, Elagabalus. When eventually Elagabalus and his mother were both murdered in 222, Alexander, then still a minor, was raised to the imperial throne. Maesa died soon after. But Mamaea was to rule her son and Rome for the next thirteen years. Her administration was in the interest of both her son and the empire, for peace and justice were its keynotes. However, as the young emperor grew to manhood, he failed to develop a worthy independence, while his mother held on tenaciously to the exercise of her power. Presently the ambitions of others made use of this situation to get rid of both mother and son. Mamaea, who was in the habit of accompanying her son on his military campaigns, was with him in the German campaign of 234. She counseled Alexander to negotiate for peace instead of giving battle. This so infuriated his fighting troops, who resented the empress' influence and took the emperor for a coward, that a revolt engineered by the commander and next emperor, Maximinus, ended in the murder of both Alexander and Mamaea early in 235.34 Their death was the prelude to civil wars and anarchy that brought the empire to a dangerously low level and gave it in the half-century from 235 to 285 no less than twenty-six emperors, many of whom were low-born adventurers of non-Roman origin. One of these was Philip from an obscure Arab family of Trachonitis. He had seen the Arab"5 and given good service in the empire's campaigns against Persia, for he rose rapidly to second and first position in command in these Persian wars. His ambition, fired by his success, led him to aim higher. He turned the discontent of the soldiers against Gordian IV to his own advantage and managed to have himself elected as emperor (244-49), with the titles of Marcus Julius Philippus. He set out to establish an
33Ibid., No. 558, cols. 916-23;
34 CAH, XII,

CAH, XII, 56, 63 f. II,

69 and 71.

3aPauly-Wissowa, Vol. XIX, No. 386, cols. 755-70; CA H, XII, 87-95; Rostovtzeff, 309 and Pl. LXXX, 4.

12

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Arab dynasty by having his seven-year-old son confirmed as Caesar and raising his wife, Marcia Otacilia Severa, to the rank of Augusta. The Persian wars and peace claimed no small part of his attention, while the ambitions of others frustrated his dynastic dream. It is against these backgrounds of the third century, with the Emesan princess exercising supreme powers in Rome, followed presently by Philip, the would-be Arab dynast, that we turn our attention to the part played by yet another Arab dynasty, that of Palmyra, which was to give us the most famous of all Arab queens, the illustrious Zenobia. This family was started on its way to power in the Roman world with Odainath (Udhainah) ibn HIairdn,36who became Roman senator about A.D. 230 or 231. His son, HIairdn,was the first to bear the local title of RAs Tadmur, that is, chief of Palmyra. son, named, 1.tairan's like his grandfather, Odainath, consolidated the local and Roman gains and honors of his predecessors and furthered them to a degree that must have exceeded any dreams of his ancestors. He achieved the proud position of Roman consul in 258, and in 262 the emperor Gallienus conferred on him the title of Dux Romanorumand later that of Imperator. These titles, however, did not imply co-rulership but rather placed Odainath in the exceptional position of a sort of vice-emperor of the East.37 In local politics he became king of Palmyra, and in imitation, if not in defiance, of the Persian King, he next assumed the high-sounding title of "king of kings." Several factors were responsible for this rapid and unprecedented advancement which made of this prince of Palmyra the most important and powerful political figure in the Roman East. First, Rome herself was going through the worst crisis of an ordeal of internal chaos and external defeat so that her very life was at stake. Sasanian Persia, on the other hand, was in a strong position; her great King Sapor I (241-72) dealt the Roman Empire a telling blow with the defeat and captivity of Valerian at Edessa in A.D. 260. The kingdom of Palmyra lay in a strategic position between the two. Her natural inclination was toward Persia, but the mighty Sapor haughtily disdained her advances. Odainath, realizing that continued Persian vic36Encyclopaedia Britannica (14th ed.), art. "Palmyra" and "Odaenathus." 37For this brief summary of Odainath's career see CA H, XII, 174-76.

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tories and Roman defeats would imperil his own kingdom, threw in his lot with Rome. In a series of brilliant Persian campaigns (262-67) he stemmed the tide of Persian victory and thereby saved the Roman Empire. The savior of the empire, however, was assassinated at the height of his power, and with him perished also his eldest son, H.airan. Though the murderer himself was his nephew, suspicion still clings to Rome for the timely removal of so powerful and successful a character as Odainath, in whose head ideas of an Eastern empire may have found some lodgings. His disappearance brought into the foreground his wife Zenobia, who acted as regent for her young son Vaballathus (Wahb-Allat), and "ruled Palmyra and most of the East with the vigor of a man." The classical historians38 have much to tell us about this Arab queen. The Palmyrene inscriptions have yielded her Semitic name, Bath Zabbai, and so have helped to identify her with the semilegendary al-Zabba of the Arabic sources.39 Both occidental and oriental sources depict her as a vigorous woman of great beauty, learning, and valor. She enjoyed the confidence of her husband, whose ambitions she shared and whom she accompanied to the hunt as well as to the wars. It was, therefore, but natural that on the murder of her husband she should seize the reins of government and continue his policy of allegiance to Rome. But as internal disorders continued in Rome together with disastrous German invasions in the West, it was soon apparent to the Palmyrenes that their arms which had recently saved the East were still needed to keep it saved. The conviction soon followed that it was the mission of Palmyra to rule the East, "a mission that Zenobia set out to work to realize with all the ambition and capacity of a Julia Domna."40 Needing the first years of her reign to consolidate her personal rule at home, and feeling uncertain and uneasy about Persian moves, she sought to gain the first stages of her objective while still remaining within the Roman fold. Thus she enlarged her borders at first eastward toward Mesopotamia and northwest into
38 See Macurdy, chap. viii, for a biography of Zenobia according to the classical sources. (Konigsberg, 1902), pp. 33 ff., esp. pp. 52-60; the important Arabic sources are listed on p. 34. Cf. also Kammerer, pp. 319-25, for the times of Odainath and Zenobia. 40 CA H, XII, 177 f.; for the following summary of Zenobia's rise and fall see ibid., Index, "Zenobia," and Macurdy, pp. 119-24.
3 Friedrich Mtiller, Studien iber Zenobia und Palmyra nach orientalischen Quellen

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eastern Asia Minor at the same time that she kept intact all outward ties with Rome. It was not until after the death of the emperor Claudius that she grew bolder both in territorial expansion and in her coinage. Yet the coins show the bust of Aurelian, indicating that the ambitious queen hoped to come to some understanding with the new emperor. Little did she dream that just as her husband Odainath had come in the nick of time to save the Eastern empire from Persia so now Aurelian had arrived to save that same empire from Palmyra. For Aurelian, casting for himself the role of "restorer of the Orient," was not the man to concede the division of the Roman Empire. The definite break with Rome came soon after and was reflected in the advance of the Palmyrene troops into Syria and Egypt early in 270. Zenobia's armies continued to be successful, and her dominions stretched from Egypt to Mesopotamia and from the Hellespont to North Arabia. Aurelian, occupied with his western campaigns, was not free to take the field against her until 272. On his approach Greeks and Romans deserted her cause, and her armies suffered a severe defeat on the Orontes near Antioch. She and her generals gathered their forces and once more met the imperial army in the plain of Emesa, but only to suffer a second defeat. It was then that she withdrew to Palmyra. Neither Persian help nor Western revolts materialized to distract the victorious and advancing Aurelian, who now laid siege to Palmyra. Harried by the desert Arabs and himself wounded in the fighting, Aurelian offered Zenobia moderate terms to induce her to surrender. These she unwisely refused. The siege continued with renewed vigor until the peace party in the unhappy city delivered it up, while its proud queen fled on her dromedary eastward, hoping against hope for help from Persia. It was no use; she was overtaken and brought captive to Emesa for trial before Aurelian. Her son perished either then or soon after. The Roman soldiers clamored for her death, but Aurelian saved her to be the crowning glory of his triumphal march in Rome, when, decked out in glittering gems and led by heavy golden chains, Zenobia, the proud queen of Palmyra and the wouldbe Empress of the East, made her last historic appearance. Zenobia, in all probabilities, ended her days in comparative obscurity, though legends of a dramatic suicide are to be found in both the classical and the oriental versions of her story. The centuries that

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followed produced no Arab queen to compare with her in power or fame. Arab sources do now and again couple her name with the Queen of Sheba,41though she herself preferred to be classed with Antony's Cleopatra, and not without reason; for if that Egyptian queen is indeed the most famous of all women, then Zenobia is her close second.42 Coming closer to the Islamic period in the centuries between the fall of Zenobia and the rise of Mohammed we have four Arab kingdoms that yield us here and there a remarkable queen or a vivid royal of South Arabia, the Kindah of central woman. These are the .Himyars and the Lakhmids of Hirah. Arabia, the Ghassinids of Syria, In the south the who had succeeded the Sabaeans about H.imyarites, 115 B.C., had assumed the title of kings of Sabs (Sheba) and DhiiRaidan, and flourished until about A.D. 300. Then there seems to be a new dynasty of HIimyaritic rulers whose members presently style themselves kings of Saba, Dhti-Raidan, I;Iadramfitand Yamanat and who continue to rule until overrun first by Abyssinia and then by Persia. South Arabian inscriptions have so far yielded no IHIimyaritic queen. Arabic tradition of the early Islamic period revived the legends of the Queen of Sheba by associating her with the IHimyars. Byzantine and Abyssinian sources, however, seem to tell a different tale. The untangling of all these materials is not an easy task, and not many have attempted it. Eduard Glaser, whose history of Arabia was never fully published, treats the problem at some length in his geography of Arabia.43 He concludes that the Arabian story of the Queen of Sheba as it has come down to us through the version of Wahb ibn Munabbih has compounded two queens into one-Solomon's Queen of Sheba and a queen of Sheba of the fourth century after Christ. He is HI.imyaritic led to this conclusion chiefly by the testimony of Edesius and Frumentius, whose travels brought them about A.D. 330 to Abyssinia, where they rose to a position of power and influence during the regency of a Yamanite queen who is unfortunately not named.44 This queen Glaser identified with the Balqis of the Arabic tradition and figures her reign
42 Cf. Macurdy, p. 124. 43Eduard Glaser, Skizze der Geschichte und Geographie Arabiens, II (Berlin, 1890), 51342. The first part of Vol. I, which constitutes the historical section, was published at Munich in 1889 but does not seem to have circulated; cf. Hill, op. cit., p. xlv; Hommel, Ethnologie und Geographie . . . .,p. 134, n. 1. 44Glaser, pp. 528 f. For Frumentius, who later became bishop of Axum, see PaulyWissowa, Vol. XIII, col. 126. 41 Friedrich Miiller, pp. 51 f.

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to have covered the years A.D.330-45, a period of Abyssinian influence and penetration. South Arabian inscriptions have the last word to say on this; and, though they are as yet silent, it is to be hoped they will some day be made to speak."' The history of the kingdom of Kindah of central Arabia gives us no ruling queen, yet the house of Kindah produced several Hinds-a popular name-who figure in history and legend and who form a frequent theme of the Arab bards of their day and after. There is first Hind al-Hunfid, or the Hind of Hinds. She is said to have been second cousin of her husband ibn cAmr, surnamed Akil al-Murar, who H.ujr is to be considered as the real founder of the kingdom of Kindah about the middle of the fifth century after Christ.46 She was one of several wives and seems to have had little love for her husband, if the usual story told of her is to be credited. According to this, she was once captured in a raid, and her captor, Ziyad, carried on a conversation with her in the presence of an unsuspected spy of H.Iujr's.On being asked what she thought her husband would do, she answered boldly: "By Allah, he will not cease pursuing thee until he sees the red castles (of Syria). It seems to me, as though I saw him approaching with the horsemen of the Banu Shaibnn .... unquenched fury fills his soul; and thou, Ziydd, thou art his goal." Ziyid was infuriated to the point of striking her; he asserted that her statements sprang only out of admiration and love for her husband. This she promptly denied with: "By Allah, I do not hate any living soul as I hate him; but I have never seen a stronger man than he is, whether he is asleep or awake." She then related the story of how once a snake glided to his cup filled with milk and spat into it, and how she, Hind, figured HIujr would wake up and drink it and in that way she would be well rid of him. But keen sense of smell saved his life. The spy reported this scene IHIujr's and conversation to ujr, who attacked and defeated the enemy H. and regained possession of his wife Hind. His anger against her, however, was so great that he had her bound between two (wild) horses which tore her to pieces.47 The three principal characters in
45Cf. Martin Hartmann, Die Arabische Frage (Leipzig, 1909), pp. 474-80.
46 Gunnar Olinder, The Kings of Kinda of the Family of Akil al-Murdr (Lund, 1927),

pp. 37 and 46. 47Cf. Ilse Lichtenstidter,

Women in the Aiydm al-cArab (London, 1935), pp. 37 f.

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this story-IJujr, Hind, and Ziyvd-are frequently replaced by others in the different versions of the tale, though the outline of the story itself seems to be more or less steady.48 Just as tragedy seems to have stalked in the path of this early Kindite queen, so too it appears in the life of the last of the Kindite princesses, likewise named Hind. She was either the sister or the daughter of the dispossessed, ill-fated Imrii al-Qais, the last of the Kindites and one of the greatest, if not indeed the greatest, of Arab poets. Seeking to avenge his father's death and to regain his kingdom, Imrtf al-Qais made the round of Arab and Byzantine courts in search of aid and failed. Hind shared his misfortunes, and it was to her that the tragic poems recounting his failures were addressed.49 A third Kindite Hind, this time definitely historical and more tangible than the previous two, was the daughter of ibn cAmr ibn IHj.rith Akil al-Murdr, that is, the great-granddaughter of the founder of HIIujr the kingdom. Her role, however, was played largely in the court of was a powerful and ambitious Hirah, where fate placed her. HI.iriththe expense of the neighboring king eager to increase his dominions at kingdom of HIirahto the northeast, whose king at the time was Mundhir III (A.D. 505-54). When and how Mundhir came to marry Hind is not yet certain. Some scholars have assumed that she was made prisoner of war in some excursion undertaken by Mundhir against IHarith. Olinder, following Lyall, points out that it would be more in keeping "with the great honor in which Hind was held in al-Hirah and by her son cAmr, that she had been married to al-Mundir in a peaceful way, than that she had been taken prisoner in a war and been brought to his tent as a slave."50 The situation which led to a marriage alliance, recorded by some of the traditions,5' seems to have been somewhat as follows: Qubad, the Persian Sasanian overlord of Mundhir of HIirahwas at war with Byzantium and was not free to aid Mundhir, who was having serious troubles with a rival in HIirahitself. Harith of Kindah had been successful in several campaigns against IHirahin one of which Mundhir's father, Nucman al-Akbar, was killed. Caught in
48 For the sources of the different versions and the substitution Olinder, pp. 42-45. 49 Ibid., chap. viii, esp. p. 102. and al-Farazdaq, 5o Ibid., p. 62. I (Leiden, 1905), 267.

of chief characters see

51 The Naqd'id

of Jarir

ed. A. A. Bevan,

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this unhappy situation Mundhir's best way out of his difficulties was and ask his aid against his Hiran rival. to make peace with H.aIrith the new relationship was sealed with a This was apparently done, and marriage alliance between the two houses which made the Kindite princess Hind the queen of Mundhir of Hirah, the marriage taking place in the early years of the seventh century.52 The situation gave the opportunity to assume power in Hirah,53and this in turn .Harith seems to have reflected glory on his daughter Hind, whose son, cAmr, comes to be known among the Arabs more as cAmr ibn Hind than as cAmr ibn Mundhir. With the death of Qubad and the accession of Khusrau Anushirwan the situation changes; for Anushirwan adopted the policy of strengthening Mundhir against his too powerful fatherso that presently Kindah and HIirahwere again at war. in-law, H.arith, who was defeated and took to flight. But his This time it was .HI;rith party was captured; among them are said to have been forty-eight members of the family of Akil al-Murar, all of whom according to most traditions were put to death by Mundhir.54 Some, however, believe that their lives were spared by Mundhir in response to the pleadings of his wife Hind, daughter of HaIrith.55Olinder points out that, though Mundhir dealt mercilessly with the whole family of Harith, this general massacre must be placed in a later time when the struggle between the two had become a fight to the finish. In the earlier stages of the war Hind's pleadings for members of her family may have prevailed with her husband. Be that as it may, her position in the court of Hirah does not seem to have suffered despite the fact that her father and brothers were mortal enemies of her husband. Neither did the fact of her being a Christian in the heathen Lakhmid Hiran court seem to have stood in her way. Historians are agreed that she founded in the reign of her son cAmr (554-70) a dair, convent, named after her "Dair Hind," afterward known as the old convent or the convent of Hind the Elder to distinguish it from a second Dair Hind of a later time. The dedication inscription of the church of this convent as preserved by Yaqfit reads as follows: "This church (was) built (by) Hind daughter of alHarith son of cAmr son of H.ujr, the Queen, daughter of Kings and mother of the King cAmr, son of al-Mundhir, handmaiden of Christ,
52

Ibid., pp. 58, 62 f. 55 Cf. Caussin de Perceval,

53 Ibid., Essai

sur l'histoire

pp. 63-66. des Arabes

54

Ibid.,

pp. 66-68. II, 85 f.

(Paris,

1847-43),

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mother of his slave and daughter of his slaves, in the time of the reign of the King of Kings, Khusrau Anushirwan, and in the time of the bishop Mar Iphraem."56 Tradition connects the death of this cAmr with the great honor in which he held his mother, whom he placed above all Arab women of his day. The vivid story illustrates at once the honored position of a mother among the Arabs, cAmr's great pride in his own mother, and the independent spirit of Arab notables and tribes. It runs as follows: One day cAmr ibn Hind asked his companions if they knew of anyone in his kingdom who would resent having his mother wait on or serve his own mother Hind. They answered that they knew of no one except cAmr ibn Kulthfim. For his mother was LailS, whose father was Muhalhal (the Taghlibi poet); her paternal uncle was Kulaib (hero of the war of Basils), the most powerful of all the Arabs; her husband was Kulthfam, the most skilled horseman among the Arabs; and her son was cAmr (already a famous poet), the chief of his people. cAmr kept his thoughts to himself for the time being. Sometime later he extended an invitation to cAmr ibn Kulthiaimand his mother Laild to visit him and his mother Hind. The invitation was accepted, and the Taghlib chief and his mother arrived accompanied by the tribe's horsemen. cAmribn Hind pitched special tents, invited the nobles of his kingdom, and gave a great feast in honor of the occasion. In the meantime he had instructed his mother that when the meal was almost finished she was to dismiss her servants and then call on Laild to pass her the desserts. Hind did as was instructed, but to her request, "0 Laila, pass me that dish," Laild answered, "Let her who has need of it rise and help herself." When Hind insisted on the (menial) service, the haughty Laild cried out indignantly, "Oh, what an insult! Hither, ye people of Taghlib!" Her son heard her cry, and the blood rushed to his face while the rest went on drinking. Near by hung cAmr ibn Hind's sword, the only one in view. This the second cAmr seized and straightway struck down his host. Thus perished CAmribn Hind at the hands of cAmribn Lail !57 Of Hind and Laild, however, we hear no more.
56 Yiiqit, Geog. Dict., II, 709; cf. Gustav Rothstein, Die Dynastie IX,

Hlira (Berlin, 1899), pp. 23 f.

57 Cf. Abfi al-Faraj

der Labmiden

in al-

of Jarir and al-Farazdaq, ed. A. H. Bevan, II (Leiden, 1908), 885 f.

al-Isbahini,

Kitdb al Aghdni

(BWil1q, 1868),

182 f.; The Naqd&id

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The Lakhmid dynasty presents us, toward the end of its course, with yet another Hind,58 probably the great-granddaughter of the first and greater Hind. She was either the sister or, as most of the sources have it, the daughter of Nucman III (ca. A.D.580-602). Tradition is rich in recounting a romance, which eventually led to marriage, between this princess of HIirahand cAdi ibn Zaid, the Christian poet of IHirahand influential secretary in the court of the Persian Khusrau.59 It was cAdi who maneuvered Khusrau's choice of Nucman to the Hiran throne. Later, however, Nucm2n and CAdi were estranged; Nucman imprisoned cAdi and set aside his marriage to Hind, whose reactions to the new situation are not recorded. Eventually cAdi was treacherously murdered in his prison in about 590, and Hind is then said to have retired to a convent which she built and which came to be named after her as the convent of Hind the Younger. Others place her retirement after the death of her father in 602, while still others connect it with a less likely motive, namely, the death of a beloved girl friend named Zarqd. She lived in her convent well into Islamic times. It was here that Mughirah ibn Shucbah, governor of Kfifah (643-45) visited her, and though she was then some ninety years old and blind, the romancers tell us that he proposed marriage to her. This she refused, letting him know that she realized his motive was none other than to be able to boast that he had married the daughter of Nucm5n of Hirah. After an interesting and literary conversation, so the story goes, in which the aged lady held her own, Mughirah departed, having first composed a short poem in her honor. She must have died soon after and is said to have been buried beside her father in her own convent. For at least a century after the exit of Queen Zenobia, the Syrian Arabs seem to have produced no woman of note in the political world. In the meantime the Ghassinids, who were of Yamanite origin, were moving up and establishing themselves in Syria. Arabic sources are utterly inadequate for the early history of this Arab dynasty, and the Greek historians leave much to be desired. However, it is these latter
58For her story see Aghdni, II, 22, 131-35, and XIX, 141; Yadq1t,II, 709; Rothstein, p. 125. 59For his career see Rothstein, pp. 109 f., 114 f., and cf. Nabia Abbott, The Rise of the North Arabic Script .... ("Oriental Institute Publications," Vol. L [Chicago, 1939]), pp. 5 f.

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that give us the story of an early Ghassanid(?) queen, Mawia, who on the death of her husband established herself among the Syrian Arabs and defied the Roman Empire. Her activities are placed in the period A.D.373-80. Like Zenobia, she rode in person at the head of her army. She made excursions into Phoenicia and Palestine, ravaging the land to the frontiers of Egypt. She had several encounters with the imperial armies from which she always emerged victorious, so that the Romans finally had to accept peace on her own terms, among which was the confirmation of her candidate for the bishopric of her Christian kingdom. She remained friendly and loyal thereafter; for, when Constantinople was presently hard pressed by the Goths, Queen Mawia sent Arab cavalry to its aid. These so distinguished themselves in the defense of the city that they were credited with turning the tide of victory against the barbarians.60 There is one other Ghassdnid queen who has left us little, very little, besides her name, if indeed she has left us that. She is called Maria in the Arabic sources; Ndldeke, however, has shown that, under Aramaic influence, "Maria" was used as a title meaning "lady" rather than as a personal name.6' This perhaps accounts for the frequent use of the name with Arab dynasties. Be that as it may, we have a clue to the identity and time of this lady in the fact that tradition seems agreed on her being a Kindite princess, the daughter of Zilim of Kindah and the sister of the ill-fated Hind al-Hunad mentioned above. This, so far as we can be sure of the chronology of the houses of Kindah and Ghassdn, would place Maria late in the fifth and early in the sixth century of our era, thus making her in all probability the wife of Abn Shammir Jabalah and mother of Harith ibn Jabalah (529-69).62 How she came to be the wife of a Ghassdnid prince is not known. Though capture in a raid was possible, a marriage alliance between the houses of Kindah and Ghassqn is likewise possible.63 We know nothing fur60Caussin de Perceval, II, 218-21, and sources there cited. The name is most probably to be identified with M&?wi(i)yah. A queen Mdwiyah is mentioned Aghdni, XVI, 103, coupled, interestingly enough, with al-Zabbd or Zenobia. It is quite probable that the of the story of Hiltim Aghdni account has confused an early queen with the spirited lady and M&'wiyah of Mohammed's time. Theodor Nbildeke, Die Ghassdnischen Fiirsten aus dem Hause Gafna's (Berlin, 1887), e61 p. 22 and n. 3. 62 Aghdni, IX, 167; N6ildeke, op. cit., p. 53. Something like a century seems to separate the story of Hind al-Hunfid and the rule of IJ~rith al-A'raj; yet Maria is said to have been the sister of Hind and the mother of this HIirith! 63Caussin de Perceval, II, 229 f.

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ther of her except that she possessed a pair of pearl earrings or pendants, each pearl said to be the size of a pigeon's egg and therefore of fabulous value, so that they became proverbial in the saying "acquire it (any rare and valuable object) even for (the price of) Maria's earrings." According to some, Maria made a gift of these to the Kacbah. Others, however, state that they were treasured by the Ghassdnids and passed from generation to generation and decorated the crown of the last of the dynasty, Jabalah ibn Ayham, when he came to Makkah in 637 to render homage to cUmar I.64 Our search for pre-Islamic Arab queens has netted us some two dozen of these, in a period of over sixteen centuries, and in territories that stretched from Ctesiphon to Rome and from the Black to the Arabian Sea. This is by no means a poor showing, since we are dealing with peoples and territories whose history, for great stretches of this long period, particularly from the Arab approach, is known to us only in spots. Neither is it surprising that under these conditions we can gain no more than a fleeting glimpse, or at best see but a hazy shadow, of something like the half of the number of queens that have come to our attention. In the case of the rest of these queens, thanks largely to non-Arabic sources, we are made more or less fully acquainted with royal women of the first caliber. They ruled either in their own right or as consorts, regents, and queen-mothers, some excercising power in more than one of these roles. Some of them, like the Queen of Sheba, seem to have been rulers of independent states; others, like Te lkhunu and Mawia, became allies and vassals of the great empires of their day; still others, like Samsi and Zenobia, gained more lasting fame by defying their imperial neighbors; finally, there were the Emesan princesses who came to control the destiny of the Roman Empire itself. At the head of the list stand the Roman empresses, Julia Domna and Julia Mamaea, yet in the popular mind their greater achievements have been overshadowed by the meteoric career of the "Empress of the East," the illustrious and immortalized Zenobia.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 64 Cf., e.g., Maidini,

Majmac al-Amthdl (BMi~iq, 1867), I, 204; Aghani, XIV, 4.