Note 102 — Chapter IX · THE EUPHRATES FRONTIER AND THE PARTHIANS. (continued 2)

The numerous inscriptions of Septimius Vorodes, set up in the years 262 to 267 (Waddington, 2606–2610), and so in the lifetime of Odaenathus, all designate him as imperial procurator of the second class (ducenarius), but at the same time partly by the title ἀργαπέτης, which Persian word, current also among the Jews, signifies "lord of a castle," “viceroy” (Levy, Zeitsch. der deutschen morgenl. Gesellschaft, xviii. 90; Nöldeke, ib. xxiv. 107), partly as δικαιοδότης τῆς μητροκολωνίας, which, beyond doubt, is in substance at any rate, if not in language, the same office. Presumably we must understand by it that office on account of which the father of Odaenathus is called the “head of Tadmor” (p. 97, note 2); the one chief of Palmyra competent for martial law and for the administration of justice; only that, since extended powers were given to the position of Odaenathus, this post as a subordinate office is filled by a man of equestrian rank. The conjecture of Sachau (Zeitschr. der d. morgenl. Gesellsch. xxxv. 738) that this Vorodes is the “Wurud” of a copper coin of the Berlin cabinet, and that both are identical with the elder son of Odaenathus, Herodes, who was killed at the same time with his father, is liable to serious difficulties. Herodes and Orodes are different names (in the Palmyrene inscription, Waddington, 2610, the two stand side by side); the son of a senator cannot well fill an equestrian office; a procurator coining money with his image is not conceivable even for this exceptional state of things. Probably the coin is not Palmyrene at all. “It is,” von Sallet writes to me, "probably older than Odaenathus, and belongs perhaps to an Arsacid of the second century A.D.; it shows a head with a headdress similar to the Sassanid; the reverse, S C in a chaplet of laurel, appears imitated from the coins of Antioch."—If subsequently, after the breach with Rome in 271, on an inscription of Palmyra (Waddington, 2611) two generals of the Palmyrenes are distinguished, ὁ μέγας στρατηλάτης, the historically known Zabdas, and ὁ ἐνθάδε στρατηλάτης, Zabbaeos, the latter is, it may be presumed, just the Argapetes.