Queen Zenobia

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.6 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2013

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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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0:44.0	Hello in this history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire
0:47.5	Edward Gibbon wrote
0:49.0	Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women
0:52.0	who have sustained with glory the weight of empire,
0:54.6	but Zunobia is perhaps the only female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed
1:00.8	on her sex by the climate and manners of Asia.
1:03.7	She equalled in beauty her ancestor Cleopatra and far surpassed
1:07.7	that princess in chastity and valor.
1:11.0	Sanobia was a warrior queen who ruled the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria.
	...

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