Septimius Antiochus (

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

: Άντίοχος; died after 273) was a

Roman usurper Roman usurpers were individuals or groups of individuals who obtained or tried to obtain power by force and without legitimate legal authority. Usurpation was endemic during the Roman imperial era, especially from the crisis of the third centu ...

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

during the

3rd century The 3rd century was the period from AD 201 (represented by the Roman numerals CCI) to AD 300 (CCC) in accordance with the Julian calendar. In this century, the Roman Empire saw a crisis, starting with the assassination of the Roman Emperor ...

. In 272 AD, Emperor

Aurelian Aurelian (; ; 9 September ) was a Roman emperor who reigned from 270 to 275 AD during the Crisis of the Third Century. As emperor, he won an unprecedented series of military victories which reunited the Roman Empire after it had nearly disinte ...

had defeated the breakaway Kingdom of Palmyra; its king,

Vaballathus Septimius Vaballathus (Palmyrene Aramaic: ; "Gift of 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 regent mother Zenobia, who led a revolt ag ...

, and his mother,

Zenobia Septimia Zenobia (Greek: Ζηνοβία, Palmyrene Aramaic: , ; 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 ...

, were in Roman captivity. In 273 AD, another rebellion against Roman rule broke out in Palmyra. The rebels first approached Aurelian's governor, Marcellinus, about becoming emperor, but he pretended to consider the offer while sending a letter to Aurelian warning of the rebellion. While the rebels waited, they decided to elevate Septimius Antiochus, the reputed son of Zenobia, to the purple. When the emperor received Marcellinus' letter, he acted quickly, and the city was restored to Roman rule in the spring of 273. Aurelian punished the city severely, but is said to have spared Antiochus. Antiochus claimed to be descended from Queen

Cleopatra VII Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...

of Egypt and the kings of Syria. There is some doubt about his relationship to Zenobia. He may be unrelated, claiming kinship for political purposes; he may be her father, also named Antiochus; he may actually be her biological son, or possibly an adopted son; he may be a son of Zenobia by someone other than Odaenathus, in which case he would have been quite young, perhaps as young as five.

References

Sources

Zosimus, ''Historia Nova'' 1,60-61
Palmyrene monarchs Septimii Year of birth unknown Palmyrene Empire 3rd-century people Sons of empresses regnant {{AncientRome-bio-stub