Note 91 — Chapter IX · THE EUPHRATES FRONTIER AND THE PARTHIANS. (continued 2)

In the inscription Waddington 2603 = Vogué 23, which the guild of gold and silver workers of Palmyra set up in the year 257 to Odaenathus he is called ὁ λαμπρότατος ὑπατικός, and so vir consularis, and in Greek δεσπότης, in Syriac mâran. The former designation is not a title of office, but a statement of the class in which he ranked; so vir consularis stands not unfrequently after the name quite like vir clarissimus (C. I. L. x. p. 1117 and elsewhere), and ὁ λαμπρότατος ὑπατικός is found alongside of and before official titles of various kinds, e.g. that of the proconsul of Africa (C. I. Gr. 2979, where λαμπρότατος is absent), of the imperial legate of Pontus and Bithynia (C. I. Gr. 3747, 3748, 3771) and of Palestine (C. I. Gr. 4151), of the governor of Lycia and Pamphylia (C. I. Gr. 4272); it is only in the age after Constantine that it is in combination with the name of the province employed as an official title (e.g. C. I. Gr. 2596, 4266e). From this, therefore, no inference is to be drawn as to the legal position of Odaenathus. Likewise, in the Syriac designation of “lord,” we may not find exactly the ruler; it is also given to a procurator (Waddington 2606 = Vogué 25).