DBA Armies

This list covers the whole period of Palmyran independence. Palmyra was an Arab trading city on the route to Parthia. In 260 AD, the capture of the Roman emperor Valerian by the Sassanids gave the Palmyran ruler Odenathus his chance. After defeating the Sassanids and putting down a usurping Roman general, he was given command of the eastern Roman army by the western emperor Gallienus. After his murder in 267 AD, his widow Zenobia occupied the Roman provinces of Egypt and Asia Minor and proclaimed her young son emperor in 271 AD. Her army (at first commanded by her husband’s old general Zabdas) was defeated by Aurelian’s Romans in two epic battles in 272 AD; in which the charge of cataphract lancers in complete iron armour on fully iron or bronze scale armoured horses was foiled by the Roman Illyrian-type light horse, and the excellent Palmyran foot archers could not stop advancing legionaries. The list is based on contemporary accounts and archaeological finds from Palmyra and Dura Europos, the most important of which being the horse armour from Dura and the Dura synagogue fresco, which shows two kinds of light horse (one in blue tunic and red trousers and charging with lances and the other horse archers with bow only) as well as swordsmen in hooded mail shirts. References: Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome P. Barker, Palmyra and its Empire R. Stoneman, Queen of the East A. Baron (novel), Warrior of Rome series H. Sidebottom (novels).