Rome and the East
Scythia in the ship of Onainos son of Addoudanos,’’ because of the assistance
which he had given them.^44
Palmyrene traders, it is quite clear, regularly travelled across the steppe
to the Euphrates, either directly to Dura or on the route south-westwards
to Hit (Aeipolis). The long track across the steppe is still visible from the
air. They might go as far down the river as Vologaesias, whose exact loca-
tion on the Euphrates is not known, or on to Spasinou Charax (Mesene),
which is mentioned several times in the inscriptions from the second cen-
tury. But they might also take ship to north-west India. Strictly speaking
there is no Palmyrene evidence to show that they ever took the route north-
eastwards into central Asia, starting from Seleucia and crossing the Zagros
Mountains, which Isidorus’Parthian Stationsindicates (see text to n. and
to nn. – above). As Gawlikowski has made clear, the Palmyrene trade
route reflected in the inscriptions runs, without exception, south-eastwards
towards the head of the gulf: ‘‘There is strictly nothing to suggest that the
Palmyrenes were interested in the land route through Iran and Central Asia,
the celebrated Silk Road.’’^45
There did seem at one moment to be real archaeological evidence for a
Palmyrene presence on the Silk Road, in the form of two Palmyrenestēlai
(inscribed pillars) found at Merv in present-day Turkmenistan; but unfor-
tunately it now seems clear that they were brought there in the nineteenth
century.^46
What we can know from the honorific inscriptions is confined—obvi-
ously enough—to what they will tell us. Firstly, there were indeed ‘‘cara-
vans’’—synodiai. Their members are called in Palmyrene BNY ŠYRT’ (sons of
the caravan). Secondly, these caravans required protection against the peoples
living in the steppe. The protection involved might simply be financial, in
other words the payment of something between tolls and protection money
(compare Pliny’s account of the route through the Hedjaz, and Strabo’s of the
Euphrates route: text to nn. – and – above). We have seen how Sala-
mallathos in brought back asynodia‘‘at no cost,’’ ‘‘at his own expense.’’ But
on other occasions real fighting was involved. In Ogelos son of Makkaios
is honoured ‘‘for his having given satisfaction through continued commands
[stratēgiai] against thenomades, and having provided safety for the merchants
[emporoi] and the caravans [synodiai] in all his commands of caravans [syno-
.Inv.X,no.PAT, no. .
. Gawlikowski (n. ), .
. For the evidence and references, see K. Parlasca, ‘‘Auswärtige Beziehungen Palmyras
im Lichte archäologischer Funde,’’Dam. Mitt. (): –, on .