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| Palmyra - General
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Source: Matson Collection. |
Palmyra, View Looking
Down from Western Castle Hill
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After riding eleven hours the second day, we find the ranges of hills which
border the broad valley suddenly approaching each other, the southern mountain
sweeping to the northeast across the mouth of the valley. On the sides to the
right and left are square towers. Some are low down, others on the summit of
hills. These are the tower sepulchres of Palmyra . . . and as we emerge from the
valley we see in the distance, on the top of the high northern hills, the
castle, which commands the whole plateau of the City of Palms. From the west end
of the castle . . . we are almost exactly in a line with the Great Colonnade,
which seems in the distance like a forest of giant trees, stripped of their
branches and bark by some fierce cyclone, and standing gaunt and naked against
the sky. On every side are ruins, broken temples, towers, columns, tombs, and
walls, in a tumultuous sea of stony fragments; and in the eastern extremity
rises the stately Temple of the Sun, the finest ruin in Palmyra, and for extent
and grandeur second to none in Syria. (Source:
Picturesque Palestine, vol. 2, p. 192.) |
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Palmyra, Temple of Bel, Eastern Side |
Source: Matson Collection. |
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“And Solomon built Baalath, and Tadmor in
the wilderness, in the land.”—I KINGS ix. 18.
“And Solomon went to Hamath-zobah, and
prevailed against it. And he built Tadmor in
the wilderness, and all the store cities,
which he built in Hamath.”—2 CHRON. viii. 3,
4.
In the former of these passages this city is
called Tamar . . . and in the latter . . .
Tadmor. The word Tamar in both Hebrew and
Arabic means palm, or fruit, and Tadmor means
probably “City of Palms.” The word Palmyra is
simply the Latin translation of the Semitic
original. The present name, and the only one
by which it is known to the Arabic-speaking
races, is Tŭdmŭr. . . . After the time of
Solomon it is not even mentioned in history
for nearly ten centuries. And it is a striking
fact, that among the extensive ruins of the
city there is not a wall or stone which can be
identified as belonging to the era of the
Hebrew monarch, the only approximation being
the Hill of Balkis, Queen of Sheba, south of
the sulphur fountain. (Source:
Picturesque Palestine, vol. 2, pp.
201, 203-4.) |
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Source:
Picturesque Palestine, vol. 2, p. 197. |
View of Palmyra, from
the Grand Colonnade, Showing the Castle in the
Distance
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Palmyra is an example of both the changing and the changeless in the East. Its
name Tadmor remains. Its commercial importance is gone. The lines of national
traffic have shifted from the Euphrates Valley to the Suez Canal and the Straits
of Gibraltar. This once-glorious city, the seat of ancient commerce, the highway
of the nations, the outpost of King Solomon, the key of Persia and India, the
city of palaces, the home of Zenobia, the school of the sublime Longinus, built
in remote antiquity, fortified and beautified by kings and emperors, is now,
alas! a magnificent ruin. It stands in an oasis in the Syrian desert, about
half-way between the Orontes and the Euphrates, and about one hundred and twenty
miles east-north-east of Damascus. . . . Ancient writers describe it as a city
of merchants, and proverbial for its wealth and luxury. It has been suggested
that this Indian trade was the cause, in ancient as in modern times, of much of
the military strife between the eastern and western nations, and that it
occasioned the continual wars between Assyria and Babylon on the east, and
Palestine and Phoenicia on the west. (Source:
Picturesque Palestine, vol. 2, pp. 201-3.) |
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The Triumphal Arch, Palmyra |
Source:
Picturesque Palestine, vol. 2, p. 196. |
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Palmyra is not alluded to in the history of
the younger Cyrus or the campaigns of
Alexander the Great. The decline of Tyre and
Jerusalem, however, opened the way for the
revival of the ancient city. Pliny says it was
the first care of Parthia and Rome, when at
war, to engage Palmyra in their interest. Mark
Antony, during the triumvirate in 38 B.C.,
attempted to plunder Palmyra, on the ground of
its having violated the neutrality between the
Romans and Parthians. During the successive
wars between these two great empires it
increased rapidly in commercial and military
importance, and became a wealthy and
magnificent city. In 130 A.D. it submitted to
Adrian, and, though nominally subject to Rome,
had a senate and popular assembly of its own,
as is seen from the inscriptions found among
its ruins. Adrian adorned the city with many
of its grandest temples and colonnades, gave
it his own name, Adrianopolis, and conferred
upon it the dignity and rank of a Roman
colony. (Source:
Picturesque Palestine, vol. 2, p. 204.) |
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See
Palmyra Grand
Colonnade,
Palmyra Temple of the Sun,
Palmyra
Tombs,
Damascus,
or
Baalbek |
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