Timolaus of Palmyra

There are doubts as to the existence of Timolaus. Some authors suggest that he may be a fabrication,^[3][4] a de facto individual (whose name, recorded here in Latinized form, has the Palmyrene variant Taimallat), or a distortion of the name Vaballathus.^[5]

Nothing is known about his life, having been mentioned only in 267, in the context of the murder of Odaenathus and Hairan I. The versions of the events are many, but in one of them, presented by the Historia Augusta (which also cites two other versions), his murderer was Maeonius, a cousin or nephew of Odaenathus, having carried out the crime at the behest of Zenobia. According to the source, Zenobia resented that Hairan II (Herenian) and Timolaus were in a lower position than her godson and therefore orders Maeonius to kill them.^[6]

The Historia Augusta mentions that Zenobia assumed the throne on their behalf, dressed them in purple, as emperors, and led them in public meetings which she attended in the likeness of Dido, Semiramis, and Cleopatra. The HA itself indicates that how they died is uncertain and presents two versions: in the first, they were killed by Aurelian at the time of the conquest of the Palmyrene Empire (272); in the second, they died of natural causes, as there were still at the time the work was written (4th century), noble descendants of Zenobia in Rome.

The HA further asserts that such was Timolaus' eagerness for Roman studies that, in a short time, he allegedly fulfilled the declaration of his professor of languages, who said that he was indeed capable of making him the greatest of Latin rhetoricians.^[7]

• Southern, Pat (2008). Empress Zenobia Palmyra's Rebel Queen. London, NY: Continuum.
• Watson, Alaric (2004). Aurelian and the Third Century. New York; London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-90815-8.
• Dodgeon, Michael H; Lieu, Samuel N. C. (2002). The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars (Part I, 226–363 AD). London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-00342-3.