Why Did She Do It?

Before writing Chronicle of Zenobia, I of course read virtually every word written about her and all the surviving Greek and Latin sources. In every book (almost all written by men), one word is always used: she was “ambitious” – as if male aspirants to the Empire were not ambitious; suggesting, too, that she was scheming and foolish or imprudent. Yet, why did so many men take the huge risk of rebellion on her behalf? Surely not to satisfy a woman's frivolous dreams. No one even considered that she might have been right: the Romans could no longer defend the East. Rome was corrupt.

They had debased the currency; inflation was rampant; taxes had reached confiscatory levels. Emperor after emperor was murdered, unleashing civil wars as ambitious generals fought against each other, rather than against the common Persian enemy. The Emperor Aurelian, who defeated her in 272 AD, cobbled the Empire back together, but none of the underlying problems were solved (and three years later, he too was murdered). Twenty years later, the Empire was being ruled by four Emperors; sixty years later, Constantine established his capital at Byzantium and it was split into East and West.

So, rather than ‘ambitious’, she seems to me visionary.