Zenobia - The Great Jewish Queen?

Haggai Olshanetsky, a historian and archaeologist focusing on the Hellenistic and Roman periods at the University of Warsaw, came back on the show to discuss a paper he authored in 2024 that re-examines Queen Zenobia’s relationship with Judaism and how she may have converted in order to support her political and military objectives. Zenobia ruled in Palmyra which is in modern day Syria during the 3rd century and she’s one of the most famous female leaders in history.

You can read Haggai's paper here.

Transcript

AI-Generated Transcript:

Alex (01:00)
Okay, we're live. It's great to see you again.

Haggai Olshanetsky (01:02)
It's great to see you again too and I'm really happy to be here.

Alex (01:05)
So to set the table for this discussion, it'd be helpful if you can give a brief history of the state of the Roman and Persian empires during Zenobia's time, and then a bit about who she was.

Haggai Olshanetsky (01:16)
So we are in the third century. And the third century started with no Persian empire inside. What we had was the Asagid Parthian dynasty, and we had Parthian empire. And they are from a different part of what would be modern-day Iran. However, there was a rebellion of one of the territories in modern-day Iran and eventually they were defeated and the leadership was taken by the Sassanian dynasty. for the Romans actually this was a very bad turn of events because the Parthians were the great nemesis. For them their downfall would be something to rejoice. However the Persian Sassanian Empire was much tougher opponent even than the Parthians.

They were more aggressive, they were more successful in the field of battle and they defeated the Roman armies again and again and again. And in the next 50 years, from around more or less 224 to the late 260s, early 270s, they defeated the Romans countless of times.

And the Roman Empire was in one of its weakest periods ever and this also led Postumus to start a rebellion. He was a Roman general in Gallia, in modern day France, and he created his own kingdom. So he broke from the Empire into 60, just around the time of the defeat of Valerian, the emperor, to Shapu I, the king of Persia.

And it was one of the largest defeats of a Roman army ever and tens of thousands of Roman soldiers perished, many more have been captured, including the emperor, it was humiliating, the empire was really at its weakest. And this is actually the time that we see the rise of Palmyra and this is the place that Zenobia is coming from. Palmyra was a very important trade city, it was a trade emporium, a trade center as we define it usually in the research of antiquity. And they really had a massive network of stations throughout the East, especially in territories of the Persian Empire in the Arabian Peninsula. And they were on, of course, what we know also the land Silk Road. So it was a very rich city. And the leader of the city at the time was his name was Odaenathus.

And the Romans really relied on him at the time. So he fought for the Romans against the Persians, he stabilized the East to a degree, and he had a wife, his wife is Zenobia. And Zenobia and him had two sons, and eventually Odaenathus, which was a very successful leader, and also campaigned, as I said, in modern-day Iraq against the Persians.

He would eventually be assassinated with his elder son. And now the ones that are left in Palmyra or in Hebrew, for example, or in some of the sources that we mentioned, is called Tadmo, is Zenobia, his wife, and the younger son. And she's queen regent, and she's the de facto ruler of the Palmyraene territories. And she has ambitions. And the ambitions and what happens later, is what created the legends of Zenobia because she, between his death in late 267 to maybe early 268 and in the next four years, five years after, she managed to conquer most of the Roman East. And it is questioned if she wanted to create only an empire of her own, her own kingdom, very similar to Postumus, what he was doing in Galia and Britain and some of the other territories of the West.

Or if she wanted to actually take control of the empire in behalf of her son. It's an open-end question. We don't really know what were ambitions, but she was very ambitious, no matter what. And she managed to conquer parts of modern-day Iraq, most of modern-day Syria, parts of modern-day Israel and Jordan, and also large parts of modern-day Egypt.

And this is the situation that we are facing when we are actually coming to deal with the issue in the center of this research of mine.

Alex (05:29)
And how does her story end?

Haggai Olshanetsky (05:30)
Unfortunately, of course, maybe we should not say unfortunately because that is a bias. What actually happened is that she was defeated and that was the end of her legend. There are different sources that offer different ending to the story. Some speak about her death, some mention that she was captured and paraded by the Emperor Aurelian and then also some of them offer different ending after the parade, some of them saying that she may be even retired or allowed to retire to one of the villas in Italy because of the admiration of the Roman Empire to her skills, beauty and so on. So we don't really know what happened to her precisely. We have different versions, but we know she was defeated in 272 and that was the end of the Palmyri Empire.

The Roman Empire was at a turmoil, there were, you can say, there are civil wars, are fights, because Aurelian eventually defeated the Gallic Empire that Postumus created, but Postumus is not in control even of that Gallic Empire. So there are constant changes and constantly new names popping around. So, Odaenathus gaining power at that time, and also passing it to Zenobia later, is not really surprising because the weakness creates a lot of people that try to reach for power and to get as much territory, as much influence as possible. this is why the third century is considered for the Roman Empire in historical terminology as the crisis century, because it's a century of turmoil, constant turmoil, and not a very successful one for them.

Alex (07:07)
So going back to Zenobia, what do historical sources say about her religious beliefs and why do you feel that her connection to Judaism has been misjudged?

Haggai Olshanetsky (07:16)
So I'm saying that because usually I like to follow the ancient sources and we have half a dozen Christian, early Christian sources from about a few decades after she was defeated and until the early 9th century and they mentioned that she was either Jewish or converted to Judaism. And for me when so many sources mention something like that you cannot just decide off hand that it's not reliable and it's not possible and so on. when I analyze the text and I see actually that there is actually a contradiction between some of the parts in those Christian sources in the earliest five, which are of a similar tradition and also a literary genre and how they dealt with the material. And you see that they in a very rudimentary way, two different texts and two different sources about two different things. And thanks to them trying to actually combine them into one story, we can know that there were two and that there was an earlier version speaking about her Jewishness and only about her Jewishness without any connection to any one of the most important church figures of the third century.

Alex (08:28)
Do the sources say specifically that she converted to Judaism or she was Jewish or did, when I was reading her paper, there was almost a sense that she was sort of dabbling in it, that maybe she wasn't formally a convert or wasn't, you know, didn't come out openly as proclaim herself as Jewish...

Haggai Olshanetsky (08:46)
So the issue of doubling or her relation to Judaism or when or where she converted is my suggestion in the article. In between the six different Christian sources, two mentioned that she was Jewish, just Jewish, and four mention bluntly that she converted to Judaism. So there is no ambiguity in the Christian sources.

The two that mentioned that she was Jewish and only Jewish cannot actually portray that she was born Jewish because that would make no sense about the background that we know about her. So maybe for them it just was not important in those two texts to mention that she converted. For them the fact that she was Jewish at the time of their story or according to the tradition that they made by combining that earlier source regarding her conversion and the sources regarding Paul of Samostah and that was the patriarch of Antioch, of the major city, biggest city in Syria is the undoing. But it is very clear that most probably we dealing with her converting. The question is if she converted and declared her conversion for everyone or just she kept it secret in order to have more influence and still attract more allies from other monotheistic religions and movement and especially Christianity because she needs as many men and as much support as possible if she wants to take down the Roman Empire.

Alex (10:20)
At what point in her career do you believe she may have done this?

Haggai Olshanetsky (10:26)
That is a great question that I'm not sure that the sources can actually give us a clear answer. But of course when we are saying a career anyhow we are speaking about her last faith. We are speaking about when she's already a queen most probably after the death of her husband. Although at least one of the mosaics in Palmyra itself from one of the three synagogues that we have from the time which is a huge number and suggests that both her and her husband and their sons had a very strong connection with the Jewish community even before the murder of her husband and the eldest son. However, if I'll put it in terms of time, I would suggest that what is mentioned there, anything to do with her wanting to convert, doing it in secret, is most probably in 69 or 70 because this is when she's trying to get more influence. This is when she's actually expanding the territories. However, any date in those and when she was defeated is a possibility.

I guess this is the best, this is my best guess, let's define it like this, but what we see from the synagogue, their whole family had connections and most probably also interest in Judaism to a degree. And in general it wouldn't be surprising in Palmyra because in Syria in general and especially in Palmyra,

we see from the second century what is called the cult of the anonymous god. And the cult of the anonymous god is a monotheistic religion that is being formed. So it's a very, it's a Syrian monotheistic religion that when you look at the terminology used is heavily influenced by Judaism and possibly Christianity. But we see in each city like Palmyra, Khatra, and so on that the terminology is a bit different. The most monotheistic and most Jewish one is in Palmyra. So the Jewish influence in the city and the Jewish influence also on non-Jews and especially non-Jews that are monotheistic is very strong. We also know that even in the fourth and fifth century, one of the Christian church fathers mentioned that even the Christians in Palmyra or in general the residents of Palmyra are Jewish Christians. So he sees them more as Jewish than actually Christian to show you also the influence on all types of Christianity. And this is also true when we are speaking about the Christianity in Syria because some of the terminology used by church fathers that are opposing Paul of Samosata, the bishop of Antioch, which is most probably also became an ally later of Zenobia when she conquered Syria and when she conquered Antioch is that many of his contemporaries and even later Christians, when they speak about him and his followers, they see them almost as Jewish. They think that their type of Christianity is very similar to Judaism for them. So it is question what they mean and if it's true, but we can see that everything to do with Syria has a lot of Jewish influence, especially in Palmyra.

And especially everywhere around Zenobia. And the idea of actually relying, going with monotheism, ambiguous monotheism, and even choosing a monotheistic religion is something that looks logical when you see that there is an anonymous god, is Christianity, is Judaism, and they together more or less constitute most of the population. And she needs support.

Moreover also the idea of maybe choosing one religion. And even the idea of conversion is monotheistic Jewish idea, like we saw with the Hashmonians already from 134 BCE. And for them, actually, always when we're looking at the Hashmonians, they are mentioned as the more religious, the more pious, unlike the Hellenistic Jews. And I don't like this term. I presume we'll get to that term in a second, that fought alongside the Seleucid masters against the Hashmonians, the Hellenistic masters. actually the Hashmonians are those that are for conversion. And we see in Palmyra that the sect there, or the Jewish congregation there, is very pro-conversion.

And the rabbis actually in Judea-Palestina are against them because they disliked conversion, for example. So we have a proselytizing Jewish community, they were accepting a lot of non-Jews into Judaism. So again, it would be easier place for Zinobi also to become Jewish if she wanted. And we know that there are a lot of God-fearers. There are some figures that like 20 % of Roman population at the time possibly were God-fearers, which means they liked Judaism, they became more monotheistic, maybe they wanted to convert, but not necessarily they all doubled, or they didn't do the final conversion either because Jews didn't want in their places to allow them, because they didn't decide it eventually, but there is a tie at the third century of monotheism. And it is not necessarily that it was set that Christianity would eventually rule or prevail.

And that's what we actually see in Palmyra and throughout that century.

Alex (15:40)
Few things I wanted to touch on there. One is going back to this idea of this movement of monotheism, you know, in your paper, you noted as the anonymous, the anonymous God was one of them. There was more just general monotheism going on. And it interesting to get your take on this because we're a few centuries away from Islam, but a lot of revisionist history now on the origins of Islam connect it to some sort of broader monotheistic type faith that isn't labeled necessarily in the beginning as Islam, but it's taking elements of Judaism, it's taking elements of Christianity, it's taking elements of something else that might have been related to this. Do you see any connection there?

Haggai Olshanetsky (16:18)
First of all, it's not only me, but there were lots of suggestions that the main forefather of Islam is Judaism, because Judaism was very prevalent in the Arabian Peninsula. And actually, one of the things that I suggested in this article, and I hope to explore further in another article that I'm working on, is the question of how the Judaism of the fourth century in modern day Yemen, in what was then the Kingdom of Himyar, started. And what is interesting, the god there, actually, or how they refer to god, is very similar to what we see in the anonymous god in Palmyra and in Judaism, which one of them, for example, is the Rahman. They speak about his mercy, if we are speaking about the Hebrew term.

And what is interesting is that we see the start of this presence in the Arabian Peninsula, in Himyar and so on, at the late third century beginning of the fourth. So I think, and that's what I raised in the article, is that we need to take into consideration that this is actually maybe came from Palmyra. Because there would be, of course, a lot of refugees after the defeat of the city.

And also Palmyra had a lot of connections with the Arabian Peninsula because there were trade emporiums, were trade stations in the Arabian Peninsula. And so we need to think that actually the way that religion transferred is that Judaism influenced in Palmyra and there was a lot of Jews and also the anonymous god then it came from there to the Arabian Peninsula.

And eventually in the late 4th century it led the ruling king and most of the nobility in the Himyarite kingdom to convert to Judaism. And until the beginning of the 6th century, they are the main empire and the main kingdom in the Arabian peninsula and they are Jewish.

And most probably when we look also at early Islam and we see at Muhammad and his preaching and also his tactics how to gather more support, how he changes some of the rulings and some of his decisions according to the local population that he wants to convert to Islam or to garner their support, see that a lot of times he doing things or changing things to be more Jewish in order to make the Jews join him. Unfortunately for him, most of the Jewish tribes in the area decided to oppose him and eventually he defeated them. And it was a very brutal war at the time.

Judaism was on his mind throughout. So Judaism is the main player, most probably even more than Christianity in the creation of Islam and in what is going on in the Arabian Peninsula. Although Christianity is also very important and we cannot take it out of the equation.

Alex (19:04)
The other thing I wanted to touch on was you referred to it throughout the paper, Hellenistic Judaism, what you call conventional Judaism versus rabbinic Judaism at the time, or what was emerging as rabbinic Judaism. What were the main differences between Hellenistic conventional Judaism and rabbinic Judaism?

Haggai Olshanetsky (19:20)
That is really a very good question that I'm now working on and I cannot give you a final answer but I feel actually that the difference between rabbinic Judaism and Hellenistic Judaism is everything Jewish and not anything taken from others. Because if there is nothing that will show us in Judaism throughout that accepting the others or living with the others is something that is not Jewish for long before.

And if we are looking actually at things that Hellenistic Jews and theoretically rabbinic Judaism do not agree upon is for example how you relate to art, which art you can absorb, which art you can use. However, I said it's conventional Judaism and not Hellenistic Judaism because Hellenistic Judaism is first of all a derogatory term. It's like saying that their Judaism is less Jewish. Although that taking the art and living among the others and accepting the other is actually something very ancient and very Jewish. And that is actually what caused some to call them Hellenistic. However, we know now that even the rabbis actually accepted or lived among the others more than we sometimes imagine. They would go to the bath house. They would go to the bath house, although there would be statues of Roman gods all around them they would always find an explanation why it is okay because they really like to bathe and they like hygiene and so on and so on. they found a way always. Many things that actually they quarrel about sometimes is about the Jewish stuff, the synagogue and as I mentioned, for example, conversion and so on. But conversion eventually was invented by the Jews. Conversion is a monotheistic idea.

Because in political religion and society, there is no problem to add more gods because you have an entire pantheon of gods. And there's no problem either to add another or just to decide that this god also have other names, including the name that this neighbor refer to their own gods. And this is just another name for one of my gods. And polytheistic religion gives a lot of room for the believer because I can offer something to one God in order that he will give me something but if he's not giving me what I want I can just offer something to one of the other gods and if I'm not happy I'll go to another and say I'll barter with the gods. It's almost you are in equal terms to the god in certain aspects because you can speak to them. In Judaism it's not like that you have one and this one is our one is not similar to any other one.

And theoretically, this is the entire question, if you can accept that when others are referring to one God, even in their monotheism, is it the same God or not? And this is when actually the entire idea of conversion or that you cannot always reconcile with other religions starts. And as I mentioned, the entire idea of becoming proselytizing and offering others or even forcing others to become Jews, it's something Hasmonean.

And the Hasmoneans in a lot of the research are considered the more religious Jews. Like their religion is again very bad terminology because their religion is not more Jewish than the opposers. It's just anachronistic view because eventually rabbinic Judaism that came from the rabbis even before they had even been a sect or movement in the time that we are speaking and maybe were an evolvement of the pharisee that even came before, prevailed. And today almost more or less all the Jewish sects even today, they came at this or broke out of Orthodox Judaism, which the term Orthodox Judaism actually means rabbinical Judaism. And so we can't see, a lot of people can't look at Judaism as anything but rabbinic, but that is not how it was.

And we see that the influence of the Rabbi is not that strong. We don't necessarily see them everywhere. We don't see everyone, all Jews, respecting them. And we see a lot of communities doing stuff that many of the rabbis would disagree on. And one of the things the rabbis would agree is that in a place of worship, pictures and especially anything to do with foreign gods should not be present. In the...

Synagogues in Syria, we don't necessarily see foreign gods, but we see art in the synagogue. Especially in the Dura-Europos which was destroyed also by Shapur I, the king of Persia in 256. But thanks to the earth work that was constructed by the Roman defenders, kept all the murals in the synagogue.

The pictures show us that the Syrian community was in favor of art. And they were more very influencing because we almost no synagogues from the third century in Judea, for example. But in the fourth and fifth century, have a lot. And in all of them, almost we see art. So we see that the influence moved from Syria to there. And this is something that the Rabbis didn't like.

And the other thing is of course as I mentioned is conversion. The rabbis didn't like conversion and some of the Hellenistic communities, especially the communities of Syria, were in for conversion similar to the Hasmoneans Only that nobody in it, weirdly enough, everyone see the conversion of the third century as Hellenistic. Although in Hellenistic society there would be no such term and nobody can even imagine it. While actually a...

And when speaking about the Hasmonean nobody would think that this is something that they took from the Hellenistic or defined as Hellenistic because they are the more theoretically religious side of Jewish society. Although again, they are not more Jewish and their Judaism is not truer than anyone else.

Alex (24:45)
Mm hmm. And for people unfamiliar, the the Hasmoneans you're referring to that's the traditional Maccabees story, The last thing I wanted to unpack is, that Judaism at this time was sort of having its trendy moment. You note that particularly among female converts and even that aristocratic Roman women were adopting some Jewish customs. So I'm wondering what was the appeal of Judaism at this time?

Haggai Olshanetsky (25:08)
What was the appeal? That is a very theological question, even a philosophical question, because everyone finds in religion or in a certain religion something else. But in general, if we looking at Judaism and later also Christianity, they were really appealing among the females of the general society. And one of the suggestions is actually because women do not have power.

And of course the men are very traditional because they have power out of tradition. So they would not replace the gods and the old gods necessarily as quickly as the women. And the women would actually like Judaism and also Christianity because to a degree they offer a more fair terms between men and women and they see them as more equal sometimes than other religions or other societies in what theoretically they have. For example, Judaism would offer the k'tuba and the right to divorce and would give also rights for women, even sometimes rights on goods and property more than in the traditional Roman society. And also the Romans, as they and many of the ancients, always respected the things that are ancient. And they knew that Judaism is ancient, allowed Jews to live according to their rules. So again, among the Jews, if you are a woman and you live among the Jews or you are Jewish, you have more rights to a degree sometimes than a non-Jewish woman. So this was some of the appeal and we know even from 139 BCE that the reason why the Jews were expelled in 139 BCE from the city of Rome was because

A lot of people converted to Judaism and they were appealing to the women. And this is true throughout antiquity. So, Zenobia would not even be the first female queen to convert. So it is something we see throughout it's not something new to the third century.

Alex (27:02)
The last piece of evidence that you note to support the idea that Zenobia converted to Judaism or was Jewish, least was heavily associated with it, was linked to pretty strong evidence for large Jewish conscription in the Roman army at that time, including a really heavy Jewish military population in Palmyra and other Eastern provinces. Can you talk more about that, about the evidence that we have for Jewish conscription in the Roman army at that time, the Jewish presence of Jewish soldiers in Palmyra and why she would need their support.

Haggai Olshanetsky (27:33)
So I more use it not necessarily to prove that she converted to Judaism, but to show the logic of doing so, of why you need to garner Jewish support, why you think Judaism can be a good choice among monotheistic religions, both to get soldiers and also later to unify your kingdom or empire I feel more that actually, and maybe we'll get to it just after, is that the best or last evidence that shows that she may have converted is actually the entire way that the rabbis refer to Palmyra and their hatred to the city and the fact that they opposing the conversion there and especially female conversion in the city and that they mentioned that Zenobia arrested the rabbis and the entire story is heavily redacted and censored and it shows that more probably she imprisoned them because of their religious beliefs, which show that she chose a side in the internal Jewish quarrel between the different Jewish communities and sects. Regarding the Jewish service, we have a lot of evidence. We have both inscriptions.

We have an inscription of course sometimes is just inscriptions mentioning people or its funerary inscription so from the graves of Jewish soldiers. And moreover we have texts that mention it and this is true throughout the centuries before Zenobia and after and they explicitly mention Jewish service and Jewish soldiers in the army. And from the time for example Emperor Gordian III died fighting against the Persian, against the king of the Persian, Shapu I. And the Roman soldiers built him a grave in Kilkensium. It's a place in modern-day Iraq where he was campaigning against the Persians. And when they erected the grave according to

Historia Augusta, they wrote the inscriptions in few languages. And Latin of course and Greek are mentioned. But also Hebrew and Egyptian writing is mentioned.

It is, the writing convention either Aramaic or Hebrew, the importance for us that it's actually speaking about who the right to write in their own language was given. And it of course, it speaks not about people that you want that would be able to from just passers-by on the road next to the grave, but actually as an homage or something that the soldiers themselves wanted to give to the emperor that died fighting shoulder to shoulder with them.

And there are many other texts similar to that that you can use the same logic to understand it because, for example, Marcus Aurelius, in his speech to the Western Roman armies before campaigning against Avidius Caesius, which was a Roman general that quelled actually a revolt in Egypt. And after taking control of Egypt, he decided to try and become an emperor and revolt against Marcus Aurelius. And Marcus Aurelius, when he speaks about the Eastern armies under Avidius Cassius, he mentioned about who is serving them. He's saying about his troops that they are much better than those in the ranks of the Eastern army, including Egyptians and Jews and so on. So he clearly mentioned it. it again shows us that in his time there were a lot of Jews.

And so it most probably really shows they are Jewish soldiers. And so we have texts like this.

And we have others from centuries before and after. We have inscriptions, funerary inscriptions, and we have finds from Jewish synagogues, which is, I feel, the strongest. There are inscriptions from synagogues that are donor inscriptions, usually. But some of them, for example, are next to figures in the mosaics that are supposed to represent the donor, most probably.

And those figures are sometimes dressed as soldiers. Moreover, in some of the inscription the job of the position of the one donating is mentioned and many times is high ranking officials or officers in the Roman army. Moreover, in other synagogues like in the Dura Europas we see that the different murals that depict stories from the Hebrew Bible.

And of course depict them in anachronistic way so like what was at the time and this is also common when the christian depict the story of Jesus in all the two millennia's after his death and what is interesting of course they depict a lot of figures in roman equipment but it's very accurate the depiction so again it is possible that some of those drawing them were Jewish soldiers or because they were Jews in the community.

It actually makes sense that they are serving because there many benefits to service. Jews always served all foreign empires from the Assyrian to the Babylonian to the dynastic Egyptian to the Persian. We're speaking about the Achaemenid Persian, the Hellenistic Alexander's armies and the other Hellenistic kingdoms, the Ptolemaic and the Seleucid, of course, the kingdoms of the Heirs of Alexander. So military service is traditional in Jewish society, including to serve foreign rulers. And of course, if he's the ruler and most Jews, as I said, knew very well how to accommodate the other and live among them, there will be no reason for them not to serve, especially if ancient armies were built to allow people to keep their own religions, usually. Other views that it would be hard, again, are not chronistic, because we're thinking about modern armies.

And the entire idea is to accommodate them because you want to utilize all that manpower for the benefit of the empire and to get as much as possible. To alienate people because of their culture and religion is more monotheistic concept and a nation-state concept than the concept of ancient empires and ancient people and religions. Polytheistic religions at least.

Alex (33:36)
So going back to Zenobia, the last thing I wanted to ask you about was the allegiances of these Jewish soldiers that were stationed in her kingdom. Because from the evidence that you cite, whether it was the mosaics that Jewish soldiers commissioned or the textual evidence that you presented, it seems that the Jewish soldiers seem to be pretty proud of their service.

So why would they side with Zenobia against the Empire?

Haggai Olshanetsky (34:03)
First of all, that is actually a very good question. However, people are people and they change alliances and allegiances. And also it's the question of putting your bet on who is going to win. first of all, if she has such a good connection with the Jewish people, and especially with Jewish religion and the Jewish communities, it will make sense for them to join, especially the empires in time of weakness. They can think of for themselves, that maybe the days of the empires are numbered. If she would also considering or even converted in secret or they would also think that she may convert maybe even convert into Judaism the new empire that she wanted they have a lot of interest in joining her. all of those it's part of what I said about both ambiguity and choosing Judaism would make sense. And it doesn't mean also that

The Jews are not loyal because they changed because as we've seen it's a time of civil wars. Usually Roman armies are supporting the local leader, commander and so on in their own territory. It's a problem in how the Roman Empire and armies are built that started or was revealed already in the year of the four empires in 69 CE that they had continuous civil war and in a gap of one year there were four different emperors Each emperor killed the other and followed by the next until eventually Vespasian with the eastern armies that were or that managed to garner the support of the eastern armies won. And actually one of the interesting things is that he won thanks to Tiberius Julius Alexander which was before that the governor or at that time was the governor of Egypt and governor of Egypt was one of the most important position in the Roman Empire and he was Jewish and he was a very famous and important general and he fought before that in as one of the maybe the chief of staff of general Corbulo in his campaign in Armenia a few years before and even after he was actually sent to serve under Titus as chief as second in command when he besieged Jerusalem. So this is a very prominent Jewish soldier and officer. And he gave allegiance to Vespasian that became an emperor. Or more or less, he was the kingmaker. He made Vespasian the emperor. And his last role was even as Patorian prefect, so the commander of the Patorian Guard, which is the most important military position in the empire. And the second most important position in general after emperor And just show you that this is the type of politics. Jewish soldiers, like any other soldiers, would change allegiances between Roman commanders and local leaders according to that. And Odaenathus and later Zenobia were a Roman leader or commander or influencer to a degree and so it would make sense to go with one of them, especially when you're seeing that she's managing to capture more and more territories and there is no guarantee that the empire would survive. So this is the situation, this is the world and that's where they were living.

Alex (37:10)
That's interesting. Well, I really enjoyed this paper as well and look forward to having you back on to discuss the next one.

Haggai Olshanetsky (37:17)
I hope soon. I'll keep you posted, that's for sure. Thank you so much for inviting me and it is pleasure as always.

Alex (37:24)
Thank you.