The Roman province of Syria included the cities (Antioch, Beirut, Damascus, Laodicea, Sidon); four client kingdoms (Arabia, Commagene, Judaea, Nabataea); Ituraea (a fluctuating area in southwest Syria); and other minor principalities. Commagene was annexed to the province in AD 72; Ituraea partly in 24 BC, and partly in AD 93. Judaea became a separate province in AD 70; Nabataea in AD 105. Septimius Severus (65; r.193-211) split the province into north (Syria-Coele, opposed to the previous usage) and south (Syria-Phoenice).
In 55 BC the Roman triumvir, Crassus (c.115-53 BC), was appointed governor of Syria with a large force destined for the invasion of Parthia. In 53 BC the Parthians inflicted a heavy defeat on the Romans at Carrhae. Gaius Cassius Longinus (before 85-42 BC), a quaestor under Crassus, led the survivors back to Syria, where he governed for two years defending Syria from the attacks of Orodes II (r.57-38 BC).
As a frontier land bordering Parthia, with the Syrian Desert at its back, Syria became the most heavily-armed province in the eastern Mediterranean. Its military strength accounted for its status as an imperial consular province, always governed by someone of high rank. By the end of the second century AD six legions (about 30,000 men) were stationed in Syria to oppose the Parthians, who were replaced from AD 224 by the Persians of the Sassanian Dynasty.
In the first century AD Palmyra (=Tadmor) was an important city of Syria located along the caravan routes linking Persia with the Mediterranean ports of Roman Syria and Phoenicia. Valerian (c.60; r.253-260) appointed Odenathus (d.c.267), a prince of Palmyra, as governor of Syria. In 260 Valerian was captured by Shapur-I (r.241-72). Odaenathus organised a force and defeated Shapur’s army while the latter was withdrawing across the Euphrates. In the early 260s Odaenathus helped clear the Persians from Roman Mesopotamia and raided as far as Ctesiphon. When Odaenathus was assassinated by his nephew Maconius, his wife Zenobia (c.34; r.267-273) ruled Palmyra on behalf of her son, Vabalathus (d.272).
Zenobia rebelled against Roman authority and with the help of Cassius Longinus (c.213-273) took over Bosra and lands as far west as Egypt, establishing the short-lived Palmyrene Empire (260-273). Next she took Antioch and large sections of Asia Minor in the north. In 273 Aurelian (c.60; r.270-275) restored Roman control. Palmyra was besieged and sacked, never to recover her former glory.
Border warfare in the mid-fourth century was both regular and destructive, with both sides making thrusts into eastern Mesopotamia. An abortive invasion of Iraq in 363 led to the ceding of Nisibis and a wide track of eastern Mesopotamia to Persia. But the shortening of the frontier and the establishment of a more convenient division of Armenia between Rome and Persia in 384 contributed to long truces up to the sixth century.
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