Note 110 — Chapter IX · THE EUPHRATES FRONTIER AND THE PARTHIANS. (continued 2)

Whether Zenobia claimed for herself formal joint-rule, cannot be certainly determined. In Palmyra she names herself still after the rupture with Rome merely βασιλίσση (Waddington, 2611, 2628), in the rest of the empire she may have laid claim to the title Augusta, Σεβαστή; for, though there are no coins of Zenobia from the period prior to the breach with Rome, yet on the one hand the Alexandrian inscription with βασιλίσσης καὶ βασιλέως προσταξάντων (Eph. epigr. iv. p. 25, p. 33) cannot lay any claim to official redaction, and on the other hand the inscription of Byblos, C. I. Gr. 4503 b = Waddington, n. 2611, gives in fact to Zenobia the title Σεβαστή alongside of Claudius or Aurelian, while it refuses it to Vaballathus. This is so far intelligible, as Augusta was an honorary designation, Augustus an official one, and thus that might well be conceded to the woman which was refused to the man.