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 cit ...
, Hairan I had two half-brothers,
Hairan II and
Vaballathus.
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
Septimius Worod was a Palmyrene official and a viceroy for king Odaenathus of Palmyra. He was given the surname Septimius by his monarch.
Worod ( Orodes) is an Iranian name; it is theorized that he was a Parthian refugee in the Palmyrene court (f ...
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 Orontes (; from Ancient Greek , ) or Asi ( ar, العاصي, , ; tr, Asi) is a river with a length of in Western Asia that begins in Lebanon, flowing northwards through Syria before entering the Mediterranean Sea near Samandağ in Turkey.
A ...
.
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
Joannes or John Zonaras ( grc-gre, Ἰωάννης Ζωναρᾶς ; 1070 – 1140) was a Byzantine Greek historian, chronicler and theologian who lived in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey). Under Emperor Alexios I Komnenos he hel ...
, wrote that a cousin
Maeonius was the murderer while the unreliable ''
Historia Augusta
The ''Historia Augusta'' (English: ''Augustan History'') is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers from 117 to 284. Supposedly modeled on the si ...
'' 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
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
Michael Sommer (born 15 January 1952) is a German trade unionist leader. He served for 12 years as the chairman of the German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB).
Early life and career
Born in Büderich, now part of Meerbusch, North Rhine-Wes ...
(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