The RomanColoniaeof the Near East form, with two ‘‘imperial’’nomina, that is both ‘‘Iulius’’ and ‘‘Aurelius.’’ There
is no way of determining whether Caracalla’s universal grant of citizenship
or the specific grant of the status ofcoloniato Palmyra came first; but the latter
also seems to date to his reign.^159
What is clear is that we have unambiguous evidence in the epigraphy of
Palmyra for the colonial status of the city and the adoption of a colonial con-
stitution, headed by an annual pair ofduumviri. But, apart from a couple of
milestones in Latin referring to thecol.Pal., orcol.Palm.,^160 all the evidence is
in Greek or Palmyrene. The colonial status of the city is therefore expressed
in Palmyrene inscriptions either by transliteration (QLNY’) or by using the
normal Greek equivalent for theduumvirof acolonia, namelyστρατηγός,
transliterated as ’SṬRṬG in Palmyrene. Once, however, we will see (below)
an attempt to produce in Greek a translation rather than equivalence.
Only a few of these items of evidence are dated to the decades immedi-
ately following the conferment of colonial status. The earliest is an honor-
ific Greek inscription from the Great Colonnade, dating to../, and
recording Iulius Aurelius Seiba Ath[e]akabas and (Iulius Aurelius?) Titianus
Athenodorus asστρατηγούντων.^161 Then there is a bilingual honorific in-
scription, also from a column in the Great Colonnade, dating to../,
and referring back to the service of Iulius Aurelius Zenobius, also called Zab-
dilas, on the occasion of the visit of the emperor Severus Alexander, in the
early s.^162 In the Greek text he is referred to asστρατηγήσαντα, but in
the Palmyrene more fully as ’SṬRṬGLQLNY’. Earlier he had another office,
described asἀγορανομήσαντα, surely in the context the equivalent ofaedilis.
In this case the Palmyrene version gives a translation, RB ŠWQ, ‘‘controller
of the market’’ (souk). It is important to stress that Palmyrene was a living
language, whose use was not passively dependent on Graeco-Roman con-
ceptions and terminology. This point is confirmed by a bilingual inscrip-
tion (InventaireX, ) from the Agora, in which Iulius Aurelius Malichus is
honoured as a paststratēgosandagoranomosof thecolonia. The second office is
described in Palmyrene via an abstract noun, and the first probably is also:
. For this see D. Schlumberger, ‘‘Les gentilices romains des Palmyréniens,’’Bull. d’Ét.
Or. (–): , the latest detailed tabulation of the evidence; the article is also essen-
tial for the points which follow. Note also J. K. Stark,Personal Names in Palmyrene Inscrip-
tions().
. (a)CISII,,:mil. xiv col. Pal.; (b) A. Poidebard,La trace de Rome dans le dé-
sert de Syrie(), :D. N. Imp. Caes. G. Val. Diocletiano p. . (?) Invicto Aug. Col. Palm.
mil. XXVIII.
.IGRIII J. Cantineau,Inventaire des Inscriptions de PalmyreIII (), no. .
.IGRIII OGIS CISII.,InventaireIII, no. .