(19) Celsus. Elevated by the proconsul of Africa and the dux limitis Libyci. Hist. Aug. xxiv. 29.
Of these nineteen, Macrianus, Balista, Odenathus, Zenobia, and Piso have no claim to be regarded as tyrants. But the places of Macrianus the father and Balista may be filled by Macrianus the son. and Quietus. Thus the number nineteen is reduced to sixteen.
It is worth noting that Pollio, who, as Gibbon says, "expresses the most minute anxiety to complete the number" of the thirty tyrants, and as we have seen includes some who were certainly not tyrants, should omit two names of rebels which are mentioned by Zosimus. In i. 38 (ed. Mendelssohn) this historian says: ἐν τούτῳ δὲ ἐπαναστάντων αὐτῷ (Gallienus) Μέμορος τε τοῦ Μουρουσίου καὶ Aὐριόλου καὶ Ἀντωνίνου καὶ ἑτέρων πλειόνων. Aurelius we know; ἑτέρους πλείονας we know; but who were Memor and Antoninus? Are they mentioned by Pollio under other names or did they not reach the length of an Imperial title? Of Antoninus as far as I know we hear nowhere else, but of Memor we have a notice, in a fragment of the Anonymous Continuer of Dion Cassius (Müller, F. H. G. iv. p. 193), frag. 4, where the mention of a Theodotus recalls him who put to death Æmilianus and makes us think of Egypt. (In the old Stephanian text of Zosimus Κέκροπος is read instead of Μέμορος; but the unknown Ms. used by Stephanus seems to have been worthless.)
19. ZENOBIA—(P. 302 sqq.)
In regard to Gibbon's account of the war of Aurelian with Zenobia, the following points are to be observed:—
(1) This war preceded the subjugation of Tetricus and Gaul.
(2) After her husband's death Zenobia took the title βασίλισσα, and while her son Wahballath succeeded to his father's position as dux Romanorum and Lord of Palmyra, she really ruled. The name Wahballath, meaning dea dedit, was rendered in Greek by Ἀθηνό-δωρος.
(3) The story told by Gibbon from Hist. Aug. xxiii. 13, that Zenobia defeated a Roman army (under one Heraclian) is suspicious (see Schiller, i. 859, note 1); for we find her on good terms with the Roman government immediately after, and she recovers Egypt, which was under the usurper Probatus, for Claudius, who was too much occupied with the Gothic danger to proceed himself against the tyrant. Her son AVahballath governed in Egypt as the representative of Claudius, and the circumstance that he was officially named βασιλεύς does not imply that he was a rebel.
(4) Aurelian on his accession 270 A.D. recognized Wahballath as vir consularis Romanorum Imperator dux Romanorum; he appeared beside Aurelian on coins; and his mother assumed the title Augusta.
(5) Wahballath began to issue coins without the head of Aurelian and assumed the title Augustus. This seems to have been a consequence of an estrangement from the Emperor ; but we do not know the immediate circumstances. The position which the Palmyrene family occupied was obviously inconsistent with the unity of the Empire.
(6) The following stages may be marked in the course of the war: (a) Probus establishes the authority of Aurelian in Egypt, and the forces of Zenobia fail at Chalcedon; (b) Aurelian takes Ancyra and Tyana, and passes into Syria; (c) Zenobia's army is driven from Antioch, and (d) defeated at Emesa; (e) the surrender of Palmyra (early in 272); (f) its final destruction (spring 273).
(7) Von Sallet, who has thrown much light on this episode in his work Die Fürsten von Palmyra, thinks that the catastrophe of Palmyra was accomplished before the end of 271. But there are serious objections to his chronology. See Schiller, i. 857-864.
20. CORRECTOR ITALIÆ—(P. 312)
As Gibbon notices, two statements are made in the Historia Augusta, as to the honourable provision which Aurelian made for Tetricus. In the Life of
