Odaenathus, the king of Palmyra from , has been identified by modern scholars as the subject of sculptures, seal impressions, and mosaic pieces. His city was part of the Roman Empire, and he came to dominate the Roman East when in 260 he defeated ShapurI, the Sasanian emperor of Persia, who had invaded the Roman Empire. Odaenathus besieged the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon in 263, and although the city did not fall, the campaign led to a full restoration of Roman provinces taken by ShapurI. In the aftermath of his Persian war, Odaenathus assumed the title King of Kings, which was a challenge to the Persian monarch's claims of authority in the region. Odaenathus ruled the Roman East unopposed with imperial consent. In 267, he was assassinated alongside his eldest son Herodianus while conducting a campaign against Germanic raiders in Bithynia; he was succeeded by his son Vaballathus under the regency of the widow queen Zenobia.
Palmyrene portraits were usually abstract, depicting little individuality. Most reported portraits of Odaenathus are undated and have no inscriptions, making identification speculative. Generally, the criteria for determining whether a piece represents the king are its material (imported marble, in contrast to local limestone) and iconography, such as the presence of royal attributes (crowns or diadems). Several limestone head portraits from Palmyra were identified by several twentieth-century scholars as depicting Odaenathus, based on criteria such as the size of the portrait and the presence of a wreath; the latter element was not special in Palmyrene portraits, as priests were also depicted with wreaths. More recent research on the limestone portraits indicates that these pieces were probably funerary objects depicting private citizens.
Two marble heads, both reflecting a high level of individuality, are more likely to be portraits of the king. The first marble sculpture depicts a man in a royal diadem, and the second shows the king in an eastern royal tiara. Two Palmyrene tesserae, depicting a bearded king wearing a diadem and an earring, are also likely to be depictions of Odaenathus, and two mosaic panels have been identified as possibly depicting him: one of them portrays a rider (probably Odaenathus) killing a Chimera, which fits a prophecy in the thirteenth Sibylline Oracle that includes an account contemporary to Odaenathus, prophesying that he will kill ShapurI, who is described as a beast.
Background
Odaenathus belonged to an important Palmyrene family and was elected as "ras" (lord) of Palmyra by the city's council in the 240s. As a Roman city on the borders with Persia, Palmyra was affected by the constant war between the two empires, which culminated in 260 with the defeat and capture of the Roman emperor Valerian by the Persian Sasanian emperor ShapurI in the Battle of Edessa. Following the defeat of Rome, Odaenathus declared himself king of Palmyra, and attacked ShapurI causing him to retreat from Syria. Odaenathus was made the effective ruler of the Roman East by Gallienus, the son and successor of Valerian, who appointed Odaenathus a Corrector totius orientis (righter of the entire East). In 263 Odaenathus besieged the Persian capital Ctesiphon, and evicted the Persians from the Roman provinces they had conquered. In the same year he assumed the title of King of Kings and declared his son Herodianus co-ruler. The title was traditionally held by Near Eastern Parthian and Sassanian monarchs, and by adopting it Odaenathus indicated that he considered his dynasty (not the Sassanian) the legitimate successor of the Parthians. Odaenathus was assassinated alongside Herodianus in 267 while campaigning against Germanic raiders in Heraclea Pontica, a city in Bithynia; the perpetrator and motives are unclear. Odaenathus' widow, Zenobia, declared herself regent to their son Vaballathus, who succeeded his father.
Clearly attributed busts or statues of Odaenathus have not survived, and the king did not mint coins bearing his image. A few small clay tesserae were found in Palmyra with impressions of the king and his name, but no large-scale portrait has been confirmed through inscriptions (limiting knowledge of Odaenathus' appearance). In general, Palmyrene sculptures are rudimentary portraits; although individuality was not abandoned, most pieces exhibit little difference among figures of a similar age and gender.
Limestone sculptures
Several large head sculptures have been suggested by scholars to be depictions of the king:
In Copenhagen and Istanbul
Two head sculptures, one at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum in Copenhagen (code NCG 1121) and the other at the İstanbul Archaeology Museums (code D111.6), are nearly identical and appear to have been crafted by the same sculptor. Both portraits are made of limestone; the Copenhagen head is tall and the Istanbul piece is in height. Both heads are worked in the round; the Copenhagen sculpture is more detailed at the back than the Istanbul one, and both depict their subject wearing a wreath. The Copenhagen sculpture has a miniature bust in the middle of the wreath; although the Istanbul sculpture probably had the same feature, it is uncertain due to a deep abrasion. The eyes of the Copenhagen head (in which the eyelashes are depicted with very thin incisions) are hollowed, to hold glass paste or other material; the irises and pupils are engraved in the Istanbul head. Inlaid eyes are rare in Palmyrene sculptures.
The columns of the Great Colonnade at Palmyra had consoles which held statues of notable Palmyrenes. The Danish rabbi and scholar David Jakob Simonsen proposed that the Copenhagen head was part of a console statue of a Palmyrene who was honoured by the city. The archaeologist Frederik Poulsen considered that the wreath on the Copenhagen head is reminiscent of portraits of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, and the long face is similar to portraits of Emperor Maximinus Thrax. The archaeologist Valentin Müller, based on the Copenhagen head's moving posture, forehead, and a characteristic fold between the nose and mouth, proposed that it was sculpted during the time of Emperor Decius (reigned 249–251).
King Odaenathus was the son of Hairan, as attested by many inscriptions. In earlier scholarship, a character designated "OdaenathusI", whose existence was deduced from a sepulchral inscription in Palmyra recording the lineage of the tomb's owner (the supposed Odaenathus I), was considered the father of Hairan and grandfather of King Odaenathus (who was designated OdaenathusII). In a 1976 article, the archaeologist Harald Ingholt proposed a date range of 230–250 for the Copenhagen and Istanbul heads, a decade earlier or later also possible. Ingholt concluded that the heads should be dated to 250, and represented OdaenathusI, without excluding the possibility that they might represent OdaenathusII or his father Hairan. In 1985, the archaeologist Michael Gawlikowski proved that OdaenathusI was identical to King Odaenathus, which is confirmed by an inscription securely attributed to the king, recording his lineage, the same as that mentioned in the earlier known sepulchral inscription. Based on the conclusions of Gawlikowski, the archaeologist Ernest Will assigned the Copenhagen portrait to King Odaenathus.
The archaeologist Klaus Parlasca rejected Ingholt's hypothesis regarding the honorary function of the portraits, and considered the two heads fragments of a funeral kline (sarcophagus lid). The archaeologist Jean-Charles Balty noted the relative incompleteness of the rear of both portraits and the thickness of the necks, indicating that the heads were not intended to be seen in profile. This supports Parlasca's theory that the heads were part of a monumental, frontal kline in the exedra (semicircular recess) of a tomb; an example of such composition is the hypogeum (underground tomb) of the Palmyrene noble Shalamallat, which has a similar sculpture on the lid of a sarcophagus. The historian Udo Hartmann considered Ingholt's arguments unconvincing, and his identification arbitrary. The archaeologist Eugenia Equini Schneider agreed with Simonsen and Ingholt that the heads had an honorary function, but (based on their iconography) dated them to the late second or early third century.
From the hexagonal tomb
Three head sculptures were excavated in 1994 from a hexagonal tomb in Palmyra's northern necropolis by its head of antiquities, Khaled al-As'ad, and moved to the city's museum. According to Balty, the heads are full replicas, intended to represent the same person; their similarities are not the result of a workshop's standards. They resemble the heads in the Copenhagen and Istanbul museums, chiefly differing in hairstyle.
One of the hexagonal tomb portraits, code B2726/9163, is tall and was identified as a portrait of the king by the archaeologist Michel Fortin. Balty disagreed with Fortin's identification, stating that their discovery in a tomb and their material (limestone) support identification as funerary portraits. Gawlikowski suggested that the heads depicted three men from the same family, and considered that their excavation from a tomb, and their remarkable resemblance to the portraits in Copenhagen and Istanbul, confirm that the latter two were also funerary, and not honorary, objects.
In Damascus museum
The sculpted head (code C1519) can be compared with dated Palmyrene funerary portraits and contemporary Roman portraiture and suggests a mid-third-century crafting date. It is tall, and the nose and most of the mouth are abraded. The sculpture represents an older man, with deep wrinkles on the forehead. The face is impersonal; the engraved eyes look straight at the viewer but are motionless, distant, and devoid of expression. The head is crowned by a laurel wreath with a cabochon gem in its centre. The sculpture has a minimum of individuality: the modelling of the face lacks articulation, the eyes are expressionless, and the facial hair is rigid and stylized. The portrait is influenced by a standard artistic model. The massive square skull is similar to the model used for Emperor Gallienus' portraits, so Gallienus' model may have been modified to incorporate features typical of Palmyrene portraiture. The piece was tentatively identified as depicting the king by the archaeologist Johannes Kollwitz, but Parlasca considered it a fragment of a funeral kline.
Benaki Museum
A limestone head sculpture, tall, is at the Benaki Museum in Athens under inventory number 36361. The head was acquired commercially in 1989, and no information about its exact excavation location in Syria is known; it was moved to the museum a decade later. The limestone material and many similarities to the portraits in Copenhagen and Istanbul make Palmyra the most likely place of origin.
The face is severely damaged, and many parts of the wreath and nose are broken. The portrait is characterized by the proportions and elongated construction of the head. Its laurel wreath is incomplete, stopping just behind the ears. A miniature bust whose head is damaged is in the centre of the wreath, above the forehead. The eyes are large, and framed by sharp eyelids. The facial features of the man depicted indicate advanced age, and his expression is reminiscent of portraits depicting Roman emperors, philosophers and priests. The back of the portrait is unfinished and the neck is massive and thick. Due to the resemblance of the Benaki head to the portraits at the Copenhagen and Istanbul museums, the archaeologist Stavros Vlizos proposed that the man belonged to the family of Odaenathus.
Limestone portraits: conclusion