Septimius Herodianus or Hairan I ( 240 – 267) was a son and co-king of
Odaenathus of
Palmyra
Palmyra (; Palmyrene: () ''Tadmor''; ar, تَدْمُر ''Tadmur'') is an ancient city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early secon ...
. Through his father's marriage to
Zenobia
Septimia Zenobia ( Palmyrene Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; AD 240 – c. 274) was a third-century queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Syria. Many legends surround her ancestry; she was probably not a commoner and she married the ruler of the city ...
, Hairan I had two half-brothers,
Hairan II
Hairan II was a Palmyrene prince, the son of king Odaenathus and, possibly, his second wife Zenobia.
Seal RTP 736
The existence of Hairan was established by the discovery of a lead seal (code named RTP 736). The seal bears the images of two pri ...
and
Vaballathus
Septimius Vaballathus ( Palmyrene Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; ar, وهب اللات, translit=Wahb Allāt; 259 – c. 274 AD) was emperor of the Palmyrene Empire centred at Palmyra in the region of Syria. He came to power as a child under his ...
.
Life
Hairan was born to Odaenathus and his first (unnamed) wife, and was chosen early in his father's career to be his successor. In 251 he was mentioned in an inscription together with his father as senators and exarchs of Palmyra. Hairan was crowned king by his father; the evidence for the crowning is a dedication found inscribed on a statue base from Palmyra which is undated. However, the dedication was made by
Septimius Worod as the duumviri of Palmyra, an office occupied by Worod between 263 and 264. Hence, the coronation took place c. 263. The dedication implied that Hairan defeated a Persian army on the
Orontes River.
The inscription celebrating Hairan's coronation called him Herodianus.
It is possible that Hairan of the 251 inscription is not the same as Herodianus of the 263 dedication,
but this is not accepted by Udo Hartmann who concludes that the reason for the difference in the spelling is due to the language used in the inscription (Herodianus being the Greek version),
meaning that Odaenathus' eldest son and co-king was Hairan Herodianus.
Hairan was probably murdered with his father in 267. It is uncertain who murdered them. The Byzantine chronicler,
Joannes Zonaras, wrote that a cousin
Maeonius
Maeonius (died c. 267), or Maconius, was a short-lived ruler of Palmyra.
Life
He was the nephew (according to Zonaras xii.24) or the cousin (according to '' Historia Augusta'', which lists him among the Thirty Tyrants) of Odaenathus of Palm ...
was the murderer while the unreliable ''
Historia Augusta'' suggested that Odaenathus' wife Zenobia was an instigator. Another possibility is that the murders were organized by Emperor
Gallienus
Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus (; c. 218 – September 268) was Roman emperor with his father Valerian from 253 to 260 and alone from 260 to 268. He ruled during the Crisis of the Third Century that nearly caused the collapse of the empi ...
who feared that Odaenathus was becoming too powerful.
See also
*
History of ancient Rome
The history of Rome includes the history of the city of Rome as well as the civilisation of ancient Rome. Roman history has been influential on the modern world, especially in the history of the Catholic Church, and Roman law has influenced ma ...
References
Sources
* Thorsten Fleck: ''Das Sonderreich von Palmyra. Seine Geschichte im Spiegel der römischen Münzprägung''. In: Geldgeschichtliche Nachrichten 199 (September 2000), pp 245–252.
* : ''Das palmyrenische Teilreich ({{Ill, Oriens et Occidens, de 2)''. Stuttgart 2001.
* Ted Kaizer: ''Odaenathus von Palmyra''. In:
Michael Sommer (Hg.): ''Politische Morde. Vom Altertum bis zur Gegenwart''. Darmstadt 2005, pp 73–79.
267 deaths
3rd-century Arabs
Palmyrene Empire
Ancient Roman murder victims
Thirty Tyrants (Roman)
Rulers of Palmyra
3rd-century monarchs in the Middle East
Septimii
3rd-century murdered monarchs