Palmyra

The name given by the Greeks to an ancient city of Upper Syria. It occupied a fertile oasis, 140 miles east-northeast from Damascus. Palmyra was, in the time of Solomon, a bulwark of the Hebrew kingdom against the wandering hordes of Bedouins. After the fall of Seleucia, it became a great commercial centre, and greatly increased both in wealth and magnificence after the time of Trajan, who subjected the whole country to the Roman empire. In the 3d century, Odonathus, a Syrian, founded here an empire, which, after his murder, rose to great prosperity under his wife, Zenobia, and included both Syria and Me so pot am i a; but this was not of long duration, for the Roman emperor Aurelian conquered it in the year 275, and the city was soon after almost entirely destroyed in revenge for the slaughter of a Roman garrison. It never recovered from this blow, although Just in i an fortified it anew. The Saracens destroyed it in 774, and in 1400 it was plundered by Tamer lane. A village called Tedmor, inhabited by a few Arab families, now occupies its site.