Summary
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Queen Zenobia, a famous military leader of the ancient world. Born in around 240 AD, Zenobia was Empress of the Palmyrene Empire in the Middle East. A highly educated, intelligent and militarily accomplished leader, she claimed descent from Dido and Cleopatra and spoke many languages, including Egyptian. Zenobia led a rebellion against the Roman Empire and conquered Egypt before being finally defeated by the Emperor Aurelian. Her story captured the imagination of many Renaissance writers, and has become the subject of numerous operas, poems and plays.
With:
Edith Hall Professor of Classics at King's College, London
Kate Cooper Professor of Ancient History at the University of Manchester
Richard Stoneman Honorary Visiting Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter.
Producer: Thomas Morris.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
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| 0:46.7 | Hello in this history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire |
| 0:50.8 | Edward Gibbon wrote, Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of empire, |
| 0:57.0 | but Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate |
| 1:05.2 | and manners of Asia. |
| 1:06.7 | She equalled in beauty her ancestor Cleopatra and far suppress that, |
| 1:10.7 | far surpass that princess in chastity and valor. |
| 1:14.0 | Sonobia was a warrior queen who ruled the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria. |
| 1:18.3 | In the third century AD she led a rebellion against the Roman Empire, conquered Egypt and briefly ruled a substantial empire of her own. |
| 1:25.0 | Her reign lasted only a few years before her defeat and capture by the Emperor Aurelian, |
| 1:29.0 | but she left a lasting impression on historians and later writers. The ruins of a capital |
| 1:34.0 | Palmyra survived today in a region of Syria ravaged by today's civil wars. |
| 1:38.1 | With me to discuss Queens and Obia are Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at Kings College London, Kate Cooper, Professor of |
| 1:45.6 | Ancient History at the University of Manchester and Richard Stoneman, Honorary Visiting Professor |
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