title: Dishonored 2

text: Based on southern Europe countries like Greece, Italy and Spain, Karnaca is warmer and sunnier than Dunwall. Reference photos were used from a variety of places to help design the city, including Cuba, Lyon and Malibu, California. The buildings in Karnaca frequently have flat roofs and more ornate windows. Photography from the 1920s was examined in order to help build a setting with a historical disposition, using reference websites like Shorpy.com and looking at the work of Agustín Casasola. Whereas "Dishonored" was largely built on the real world of 1837, "Dishonored 2" draws ideas from "the architectural forms, popular fashions, and far-out technologies" of 1851. Arkane tried to take architectural concerns into account, and considered the effect the wind would have on the way the city developed, with energy being generated by wind turbines. Level designers and level architects collaborated throughout the entire production as locations were built. In making Karnaca, a style of Art Nouveau was applied.


title: Dishonored 2

text: The developers intended to depict Karnaca as grounded environment to help the city seem as though it could exist in reality. Arkane wished to avoid what one member dubbed "the "Deus Ex" effect"—wherein man-sized vents were placed wherever the game designers felt, often in nonsensical places. The team tried to reflect practicalities of everyday life; for instance, a building would have to have some kind of toilet and a guard's placement should make in-world sense. Colonies in places such as Australia, India and Africa were investigated to comprehend the transition of people adapting from the cold climate of Dunwall to areas with a warmer constitution like Karnaca.


title: Dishonored 2

text: Designing the in-game propaganda, they studied its use in history, finding the same pattern of elements reappearing throughout the centuries. In place of the militarily inspired propaganda of the first game, "Dishonored 2" would employ a subtler approach; lavish posters for invariably canceled enterprises meant to aid the people of Serkonos were made to exhibit the nature of tyranny as practised by the Duke of Serkonos and his government. To further detail the world, the narration team would come up with fictitious products and brand names and make advertisements of them.


title: Dishonored 2

text: The game was formally announced during Bethesda's Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015 press conference by "Dishonored" co-directors Raphaël Colantonio and Harvey Smith, but was leaked the night before during a rehearsal. Lucie Minne's clay models, along with other "Dishonored" art, were featured on display at Art Ludique in an exhibit focused on French video games. "Dishonored 2" appeared again at E3 2016. An image for the game by Sergei Kolesov was featured as part of the "Into the Pixel" collection. It was released to manufacturing on 1 November and made available on 11 November. The PC version was tamper-protected by anti-piracy software Denuvo, which was cracked in June 2017 by hacker group SteamPunks.


title: Dishonored 2

text: Preordering "Dishonored 2" granted players access to the full game a day early. Bethesda announced a special collector's edition of the game as a pre-order on their online store. The collector's edition included a 13.5 inch replica of Corvo Attano's signature mask, a zinc alloy replica of Emily Kaldwin's ring, a Delilah Kaldwin propaganda poster and a metal collector's edition case for the game disc and manual. Digital bonuses were also included in the form of the Digital Imperial Assassin's Pack, which included additional in-game content. Pre-orders for console versions of the collector's edition came with a copy of "Dishonored: Definitive Edition", a remastered version of the first game for the eighth generation of consoles with all downloadable content included.


title: Dishonored 2

text: In May 2016, Bethesda announced a "Dishonored" tie-in comic miniseries and novel trilogy. The comic mini-series, published by Titan Comics and written by Gordon Rennie with art by Andrea Olimpieri and Marcelo Maiolo, consists of four issues, the first of which was published in August. The three tie-in novels are published by Titan Books, the first of which, "The Corroded Man", written by Adam Christopher, was published in September, with the second and third volumes following in 2017. In addition, a Dark Horse Comics-created artbook, "The Art of Dishonored 2", was released, launching on the same date as the game. An art contest was held over social media—from 28 June to 17 July—with five winning participants being featured in the book. A graphic novel, "The Peeress and the Price", was released on 20 February 2018. Written by Michael Moreci, drawn by Andrea Olimpieri and colorized by Mattia Iacono, it was created as a follow-up to the game.


title: Dishonored 2

text: "Dishonored 2" received later updates. A New Game Plus mode was made available on 19 December 2016, which also allows the player access to both protagonists' powers in a single playthrough. Customizable difficulty settings along with a mission-select option were postponed to 23 January 2017 for all platforms. A standalone expansion, "", was released on 15 September 2017. It follows Billie Lurk and Daud the assassin as they embark on a mission to kill the Outsider.


title: Dishonored 2

text: Emily Kaldwin's reveal as player character at E3 2015 drew attention pre-release. GamesRadar called it one of the event's biggest surprises, noting the rarity of female protagonists. Both GameSpot and "The Guardian" commented on the prominence of female player characters in 2015's E3 expo. "Game Informer" called her one of ten "most promising" new characters revealed at the expo. The game's appearance at E3 2016 gained accolades. "IGN" awarded it "Best Xbox One Game", and it was nominated "Game of the Show", "Best PlayStation 4 Game", "Best Action Game", "Best Trailer", and "Best PC Game", being the runner-up to the last of which.


title: Dishonored 2

text: "Dishonored 2" was nominated for "Best of Show", "Best Console Game", "Best PC Game" and "Best Action/Adventure Game" at the Game Critics Awards. "Game Informer" awarded the game "Best Multiplatform Game". "PC Gamer" gave the game "Best of Show". "Eurogamer" selected the game as one of the five best games at E3, highlighting the time-manipulating level and commenting "it's hard to imagine there'll be any game as intricate released this year, nor one quite so imaginative".


title: Dishonored 2

text: "Dishonored 2" received generally favorable reviews according to Metacritic. The levels "Clockwork Mansion" and "A Crack in the Slab" were singled out to considerable praise. The game has been the recipient of over one hundred Best of 2016 awards. On its release, PC players reported issues with performance such as loss of frame rate and display resolution, and system crashes. Three patches for the PC version were released to remedy the problem.


title: Dishonored 2

text: Chris Carter of Destructoid considered the stealth approach "glorious"; the heart item one of his favorite ways to be exposed to further content; the puzzles and traversal challenges demanding; and the task of becoming a better assassin rewarding. The only complaints concerned shortcomings in frame rate capabilities on the Xbox One console, "stilted voice acting and script issues, despite the compelling narrative". Electronic Gaming Monthly's Nick Plessas wrote that "Dishonored 2" "[recreates] many of the positive experiences from the previous instalment, but [requires] much greater effort on the part of the player this time around to achieve it". According to Plessas, the game's emotional substance was derived from the player character as coupled with the choices and their consequences to the story, though he was moved significantly more by the "smaller moments" of the game than the finale.


title: Dishonored 2

text: Writing for "Game Informer", Matt Bertz thought the balance between low-chaos and high-chaos play styles held an improved competence from the original game and that each approach availed thought-provoking scenarios to be solved. Each character's abilities were praised as "equally useful". Bertz disparaged the main story beats however, calling them "rushed and underdeveloped", whilst lauding the environmental storytelling. James Kozanitis at Game Revolution enjoyed playing as Emily Kaldwin the most and said that, because some elements from "Dishonored" had returned, Emily infused a fresh perspective into the overall experience. Kozanitis favored the stealthier approach, which was said to better accommodate side quests—opined as the chief incentive for playing "Dishonored 2". "GameSpot"s Scott Butterworth was satisfied with the use of weapons and observed that the sophisticated behavior patterns of the artificial intelligence (AI) rendered into "fun" experimentation, especially for stealth employment. The lack of increasing challenges was subject to criticism, with Butterworth lamenting the "underutilized" new enemies; the plot met charges of reproval for the same reason. Conversely, one quest involving time manipulation was declared a "masterpiece unto itself" and another in a clockwork-driven mansion was labeled as "mind-bending".


title: Dishonored 2

text: Lucas Sullivan of "GamesRadar" complimented its sense of place, supernatural abilities and execution, but disapproved of the character development and constraint of a number of mechanics that were otherwise "brilliant". "GamesRadar" remarked in the days following that the Clockwork Mansion mission exemplified the best of Arkane Studios' "rich, intricate level design". "IGN"s Lucy O'Brien felt the decision to allocate powers and story details between the two player characters was "smart", echoing the view that the characters' abilities were "excellently" adaptable to both play styles. She commended the level design for distinguishing each level in terms of providing unique gameplay mechanics and expressed admiration for the game world's "gorgeous, painterly aesthetic". Phil Savage, writing for "PC Gamer", stated that "at its worst, it offers a similar experience to its predecessor, which is to say, it offers tens of hours of extraordinary first-person stealth and action". "PC Gamer" later recognized the Clockwork Mansion as one of the best levels of 2016. "Polygon"s Arthur Gies noted the combat system as "improved and refined", the setting as ""Dishonored 2"s greatest inherited strength" and the AI units for their "excellent peripheral vision", yet regarded the inability to replay missions and the absence of a New Game Plus option as "possible deal-breakers". Alice Bell at "VideoGamer.com" wrote in her verdict: ""Dishonored 2" takes everything you loved about "Dishonored" and improves upon it without becoming bloated. It's a beautifully designed, layered game, stuffed with hidden gems and secret stories. Also you can stab people in mid air".


title: Dishonored 2

text: "Dishonored 2" was the fourth best-selling game in its first week of release, but the launch week sales dropped thirty-eight percent when compared with the original game, although only sales of physical copies were recorded. That same week, the game had sold the most pre-orders on Steam and was ranked sixth in overall sales. It was the seventh best-selling retail video game in the UK in its second week of release, according to Chart-Track, a fifty-two percent decrease from the first week – similar to that of its predecessor. After a reduction in cost, "Dishonored 2" re-entered the UK charts in the fourth week of May 2017, ranked in 8th place with a 1,267 percent rise in sales.


title: Zenobia

text: Septimia Zenobia (Palmyrene Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; AD 240 – c. 274) was a third-century queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Syria. Many legends surround her ancestry; she was probably not a commoner and she married the ruler of the city, Odaenathus. Her husband became king in 260, elevating Palmyra to supreme power in the Near East by defeating the Sassanians and stabilizing the Roman East. After Odaenathus' assassination, Zenobia became the regent of her son Vaballathus and held de facto power throughout his reign.


title: Zenobia

text: In 270, Zenobia launched an invasion that brought most of the Roman East under her sway and culminated with the annexation of Egypt. By mid-271 her realm extended from Ancyra, central Anatolia, to southern Egypt, although she remained nominally subordinate to Rome. However, in reaction to the campaign of the Roman emperor Aurelian in 272, Zenobia declared her son emperor and assumed the title of empress (declaring Palmyra's secession from Rome). The Romans were victorious after heavy fighting; the queen was besieged in her capital and captured by Aurelian, who exiled her to Rome, where she spent the remainder of her life.


title: Zenobia

text: Zenobia was a cultured monarch and fostered an intellectual environment in her court, which was open to scholars and philosophers. She was tolerant toward her subjects and protected religious minorities. The queen maintained a stable administration which governed a multicultural multiethnic empire. Zenobia died after 274, and many tales have been recorded about her fate. Her rise and fall have inspired historians, artists and novelists, and she is a patriotic symbol in Syria.


title: Zenobia

text: Zenobia was born c. 240–241, and bore the gentilicium (surname) Septimia. Her native Palmyrene name was Bat-Zabbai (written "Btzby" in the Palmyrene alphabet), an Aramaic name meaning "daughter of Zabbai". Such compound names for women were common in Palmyra, where the element "bt" means daughter, but the personal name that follows does not necessarily denotes the immediate father, rather referring to the ancestor of the family. In Greek—Palmyra's diplomatic and second language, used in many Palmyrene inscriptions—she used the name Zenobia. In Palmyra, when written in Greek, names such as Zabeida, Zabdila, Zabbai or Zabda were often transformed into "Zenobios" (masculine) and "Zenobia" (feminine). The element "Zabbai" from Zenobia's native name means "gift of N.N. [god]", and the name Zenobia translates to "one whose life derives from Zeus". The historian Victor Duruy believed that the queen used the Greek name as a translation of her native name, in deference to her Greek subjects. The philologist Wilhelm Dittenberger argued that the name Bat-Zabbai underwent a detortum (twist), thus resulting in the name Zenobia.


title: Zenobia

text: The ninth-century historian al-Tabari, in his highly fictionalized account, wrote that the queen's name was Na'ila al-Zabba'. Manichaean sources, reporting the visit of the apostle Addai to the region during the time of Odaenathus, called Zenobia "Queen Tadi", wife of kysr (caesar). The name given to Zenobia in those Manichaean writings seems to derive from Tadmor, Palmyra's native name, and this is supported by the Coptic "Acts Codex", where Zenobia is named Queen Thadmor.


title: Zenobia

text: No contemporary statues of Zenobia have been found in Palmyra or elsewhere, only inscriptions on statues bases survive, indicating that a statue of the queen once stood in the place; most known representations of Zenobia are the idealized portraits of her found on her coins. Sculptures of Palmyrene style were normally impersonal, unlike Greek and Roman ones: a statue of Zenobia in this style would have given an idea of her general style in dress and jewelry but would not have revealed her true appearance. British scholar William Wright visited Palmyra toward the end of the nineteenth century in a vain search for a sculpture of the queen.


title: Zenobia

text: In addition to archaeological evidence, Zenobia's life was recorded in different ancient sources but many are flawed or fabricated; the "Historia Augusta", a late-Roman collection of biographies, is the most notable (albeit unreliable) source for the era. The author (or authors) of the "Historia Augusta" invented many events and letters attributed to Zenobia in the absence of contemporary sources. Some "Historia Augusta" accounts are corroborated from other sources, and are more credible. The Byzantine chronicler Joannes Zonaras is considered an important source for the life of Zenobia.


title: Zenobia

text: Palmyrene society was an amalgam of Semitic tribes (mostly Aramean and Arab), and Zenobia cannot be identified with any one group; as a Palmyrene, she may have had both Aramean and Arab ancestry. Information about Zenobia's ancestry and immediate family connections is scarce and contradictory. Nothing is known about her mother, and her father's identity is debated. Manichaean sources mention a "Nafsha", sister of the "queen of Palmyra", but those sources are confused and "Nafsha" may refer to Zenobia herself: it is doubtful that Zenobia had a sister.


title: Zenobia

text: Apparently not a commoner, Zenobia would have received an education appropriate for a noble Palmyrene girl. The "Historia Augusta" contains details of her early life, although their veracity is dubious; according to the "Historia Augusta", the queen's hobby as a child was hunting and, in addition to her Palmyrene Aramaic mother tongue, she was fluent in Egyptian and Greek and spoke Latin. When she was about fourteen years old (ca. 255), Zenobia became the second wife of Odaenathus, the "ras" ("lord") of Palmyra. Noble families in Palmyra often intermarried, and it is probable that Zenobia and Odaenathus shared some ancestors.


title: Zenobia

text: Basing their suppositions upon archaeological evidence, various historians have suggested several men as Zenobia's father:


title: Zenobia

text: Julius Aurelius Zenobius appears on a Palmyrene inscription as a strategos of Palmyra in 231–232; based on the similarity of the names, Zenobius was suggested as Zenobia's father by the numismatist and others. The archaeologist William Waddington argued in favor of Zenobius' identification as the father, assuming that his statue stood opposite to where the statue of the queen stood in Great Colonnade. However, the linguist Jean-Baptiste Chabot pointed out that Zenobius' statue stood opposite to that of Odaenathus not Zenobia and rejected Waddington's hypothesis. The only "gentilicium" appearing on Zenobia's inscriptions was "Septimia" (not "Julia Aurelia", which she would have borne if her father's "gentilicium" was Aurelius), and it cannot be proven that the queen changed her "gentilicium" to Septimia after her marriage.


title: Zenobia

text: One of Zenobia's inscriptions recorded her as "Septimia Bat-Zabbai, daughter of Antiochus". Antiochus' identity is not definitively known: his ancestry is not recorded in Palmyrene inscriptions, and the name was not common in Palmyra. This, combined with the meaning of Zenobia's Palmyrene name (daughter of Zabbai), led scholars such as to speculate that Antiochus might have been a distant ancestor: the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes or Antiochus VII Sidetes, whose wife was the Ptolemaic Cleopatra Thea. In the historian Richard Stoneman's view, Zenobia would not have created an obscure ancestry to connect herself with the ancient Macedonian rulers: if a fabricated ancestry were needed, a more direct connection would have been invented. According to Stoneman, Zenobia "had reason to believe [her Seleucid ancestry] to be true". The historian Patricia Southern, noting that Antiochus was mentioned without a royal title or a hint of great lineage, believes that he was a direct ancestor or a relative rather than a Seleucid king who lived three centuries before Zenobia.


title: Zenobia

text: On the basis of Zenobia's Palmyrene name, Bat Zabbai, her father may have been called Zabbai; alternatively, Zabbai may have been the name of a more distant ancestor. The historian Trevor Bryce suggests that she was related to Septimius Zabbai, Palmyra's garrison leader, and he may even have been her father. The archaeologist Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau, attempting to reconcile the meaning of the name "Bat Zabbai" with the inscription mentioning the queen as daughter of Antiochus, suggested that two brothers, Zabbai and Antiochus, existed, with a childless Zabbai dying and leaving his widow to marry his brother Antiochus. Thus, since Zenobia was born out of a levirate marriage, she was theoretically the daughter of Zabbai, hence the name.


title: Zenobia

text: In the "Historia Augusta", Zenobia is said to have been a descendant of Cleopatra and claimed descent from the Ptolemies. According to the "Souda", a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, after the Palmyrene conquest of Egypt, the sophist Callinicus of Petra wrote a ten-volume history of Alexandria dedicated to Cleopatra. According to modern scholars, by Cleopatra Callinicus meant Zenobia. Apart from legends, there is no direct evidence in Egyptian coinage or papyri of a contemporary conflation of Zenobia with Cleopatra. The connection may have been invented by Zenobia's enemies to discredit her, but circumstantial evidence indicates that Zenobia herself made the claim; an imperial declaration once ascribed to Emperor Severus Alexander (died 235) was probably made by Zenobia in the name of her son Vaballathus, where the king named Alexandria "my ancestral city", which indicates a claim to Ptolemaic ancestry. Zenobia's alleged claim of a connection to Cleopatra seems to have been politically motivated, since it would have given her a connection with Egypt and made her a legitimate successor to the Ptolemies' throne. A relationship between Zenobia and the Ptolemies is unlikely, and attempts by classical sources to trace the queen's ancestry to the Ptolemies through the Seleucids are apocryphal.


title: Zenobia

text: Although some Arab historians linked Zenobia to the Queen of Sheba, their accounts are apocryphal. Medieval Arabic traditions identify a queen of Palmyra named al-Zabba', and her most romantic account comes from al-Tabari. According to al-Tabari, she was an Amalekite; her father was 'Amr ibn Zarib, an 'Amālīq sheikh who was killed by the Tanukhids. Al-Tabari identifies a sister of al-Zabba' as "Zabibah". Jadhimah ibn Malik, the Tanukhid king who killed the queen's father, was killed by al-Zabba'. According to al-Tabari, al-Zabba' had a fortress along the Euphrates and ruled Palmyra.


title: Zenobia

text: Al-Tabari's account does not mention the Romans, Odaenathus, Vaballathus or the Sassanians; focusing on the tribes and their relations, it is immersed in legends. Although the account is certainly based on the story of Zenobia, it is probably conflated with the story of a semi-legendary nomadic Arab queen (or queens). Al-Zabba' fortress was probably Halabiye, which was restored by the historic Palmyrene queen and named Zenobia.


title: Zenobia

text: During the early centuries AD, Palmyra was a city subordinate to Rome and part of the province of Syria Phoenice. In 260 the Roman emperor Valerian marched against the Sassanid Persian monarch Shapur I, who had invaded the empire's eastern regions; Valerian was defeated and captured near Edessa. Odaenathus, formally loyal to Rome and its emperor Gallienus (Valerian's son), was declared king of Palmyra. Launching successful campaigns against Persia, he was crowned King of Kings of the East in 263. Odaenathus crowned his eldest son, Herodianus, as co-ruler. In addition to the royal titles, Odaenathus received many Roman titles, most importantly "corrector totius orientis" (governor of the entire East), and ruled the Roman territories from the Black Sea to Palestine. In 267, when Zenobia was in her late twenties or early thirties, Odaenathus and his eldest son were assassinated while returning from a campaign.


title: Zenobia

text: The first inscription mentioning Zenobia as queen is dated two or three years after Odaenathus' death, so exactly when Zenobia assumed the title "queen of Palmyra" is uncertain. However, she was probably designated as queen when her husband became king. As queen consort, Zenobia remained in the background and was not mentioned in the historical record. According to later accounts, including one by Giovanni Boccaccio, she accompanied her husband on his campaigns. If the accounts of her accompanying her husband are true, according to Southern, Zenobia would have boosted the morale of the soldiers and gained political influence, which she needed in her later career.


title: Zenobia

text: According to the "Historia Augusta", Odaenathus was assassinated by a cousin named Maeonius. In the "Historia Augusta", Odaenathus' son from his first wife was named Herodes and was crowned co-ruler by his father. The "Historia Augusta" claims that Zenobia conspired with Maeonius for a time because she did not accept her stepson as his father's heir (ahead of her own children). The "Historia Augusta" does not suggest that Zenobia was involved in the events leading to her husband's murder, and the crime is attributed to Maeonius' moral degeneration and jealousy. This account, according to the historian Alaric Watson, can be dismissed as fictional. Although some modern scholarship suggests that Zenobia was involved in the assassination due to political ambition and opposition to her husband's pro-Roman policy, she continued Odaenathus' policies during her first years on the throne.


title: Zenobia

text: In the "Historia Augusta ", Maeonius was emperor briefly before he was killed by his soldiers, however, no inscriptions or evidence exist for his reign. At the time of Odaenathus' assassination, Zenobia might have been with her husband; according to chronicler George Syncellus, he was killed near Heraclea Pontica in Bithynia. The transfer of power seems to have been smooth, since Syncellus reports that the time from the assassination to the army handing the crown to Zenobia was one day. Zenobia may have been in Palmyra, but this would have reduced the likelihood of a smooth transition; the soldiers might have chosen one of their officers, so the first scenario of her being with her husband is more likely. The historical records are unanimous that Zenobia did not fight for supremacy and there is no evidence of delay in the transfer of the throne to Odaenathus and Zenobia's son, the ten-year-old Vaballathus. Although she never claimed to rule in her own right and acted as a regent for her son, Zenobia held the reins of power in the kingdom, and Vaballathus was kept in his mother's shadow, never exercising real power.


title: Zenobia

text: The Palmyrene monarchy was new; allegiance was based on loyalty to Odaenathus, making the transfer of power to a successor more difficult than it would have been in an established monarchy. Odaenathus tried to ensure the dynasty's future by crowning his eldest son co-king, but both were assassinated. Zenobia, left to secure the Palmyrene succession and retain the loyalty of its subjects, emphasized the continuity between her late husband and his successor (her son). Vaballathus (with Zenobia orchestrating the process) assumed his father's royal titles immediately, and his earliest known inscription records him as King of Kings.


title: Zenobia

text: Odaenathus controlled a large area of the Roman East, and held the highest political and military authority in the region, superseding that of the Roman provincial governors. His self-created status was formalized by Emperor Gallienus, who had little choice but to acquiesce. Odaenathus's power relative to that of the emperor and the central authority was unprecedented and elastic, but relations remained smooth until his death. His assassination meant that the Palmyrene rulers' authority and position had to be clarified, which led to a conflict over their interpretation. The Roman court viewed Odaenathus as an appointed Roman official who derived his power from the emperor, but the Palmyrene court saw his position as hereditary. This conflict was the first step on the road to war between Rome and Palmyra.


title: Zenobia

text: Odaenathus' Roman titles, such as "dux Romanorum", "corrector totius orientis" and "imperator totius orientis" differed from his royal eastern ones because the Roman ranks were not hereditary. Vaballathus had a legitimate claim to his royal titles, but had no right to the Roman ones—especially "corrector" (denoting a senior military and provincial commander in the Roman system), which Zenobia used for her son in his earliest known inscriptions with "King of Kings". Although the Roman emperors accepted the royal succession, the assumption of Roman military rank antagonized the empire. Emperor Gallienus may have decided to intervene in an attempt to regain central authority; according to the "Historia Augusta", praetorian prefect Aurelius Heraclianus was dispatched to assert imperial authority over the east and was repelled by the Palmyrene army. The account is doubtful, however, since Heraclianus participated in Gallienus' assassination in 268. Odaenathus was assassinated shortly before the emperor, and Heraclianus would have been unable to be sent to the East, fight the Palmyrenes and return to the West in time to become involved in the conspiracy against the emperor.


title: Zenobia

text: The extent of Zenobia's territorial control during her early reign is debated; according to the historian Fergus Millar, her authority was confined to Palmyra and Emesa until 270. If this was the case, the events of 270 (which saw Zenobia's conquest of the Levant and Egypt) are extraordinary. It is more likely that the queen ruled the territories controlled by her late husband, a view supported by Southern and the historian , and backed by ancient sources (such as the Roman historian Eutropius, who wrote that the queen inherited her husband's power). The "Historia Augusta" also mentioned that Zenobia took control of the East during Gallienus' reign. Further evidence of extended territorial control was a statement by the Byzantine historian Zosimus, who wrote that the queen had a residence in Antioch.


title: Zenobia

text: There is no recorded unrest against the queen accompanying her ascendance in ancient sources hostile to her, indicating no serious opposition to the new regime. The most obvious candidates for opposition were the Roman provincial governors, but the sources do not say that Zenobia marched on any of them or that they tried to remove her from the throne. According to Hartmann, the governors and military leaders of the eastern provinces apparently acknowledged and supported Vaballathus as the successor of Odaenathus. During Zenobia's early regency, she focused on safeguarding the borders with Persia and pacifying the Tanukhids in Hauran. To protect the Persian borders, the queen fortified many settlements on the Euphrates (including the citadels of Halabiye—later called Zenobia—and Zalabiye). Circumstantial evidence exists for confrontations with the Sassanid Persians; probably in 269, Vaballathus assumed the victory title of "Persicus Maximus" (the great victor in Persia); this may be connected to an unrecorded battle against a Persian army trying to control northern Mesopotamia.


title: Zenobia

text: In 269, while Claudius Gothicus (Gallienus' successor) was defending the borders of Italy and the Balkans against Germanic invasions, Zenobia was cementing her authority; Roman officials in the East were caught between loyalty to the emperor and Zenobia's increasing demands for allegiance. The timing and rationale of the queen's decision to use military force to strengthen her authority in the East is unclear; scholar Gary K. Young suggested that Roman officials refused to recognize Palmyrene authority, and Zenobia's expeditions were intended to maintain Palmyrene dominance. Another factor may have been the weakness of Roman central authority and its corresponding inability to protect the provinces, which probably convinced Zenobia that the only way to maintain stability in the East was to control the region directly. The historian Jacques Schwartz tied Zenobia's actions to her desire to protect Palmyra's economic interests, which were threatened by Rome's failure to protect the provinces. Also, according to Schwartz, the economic interests conflicted; Bostra and Egypt received trade which would have otherwise passed through Palmyra. The Tanukhids near Bostra and the merchants of Alexandria probably attempted to rid themselves of Palmyrene domination, triggering a military response from Zenobia.


title: Zenobia

text: In the spring of 270, while Claudius was fighting the Goths in the mountains of Thrace, Zenobia sent her general Septimius Zabdas to Bostra (capital of the province of Arabia Petraea); the queen's timing seems intentional. In Arabia the Roman governor ("dux"), Trassus (commanding the Legio III Cyrenaica), confronted the Palmyrenes and was routed and killed. Zabdas sacked the city, and destroyed the temple of Zeus Hammon, the legion's revered shrine. A Latin inscription after the fall of Zenobia attests to its destruction: "The temple of Iuppiter Hammon, destroyed by the Palmyrene enemies, which ... rebuilt, with a silver statue and iron doors (?)". The city of Umm el-Jimal may have also been destroyed by the Palmyrenes in connection with their efforts to subjugate the Tanukhids.


title: Zenobia

text: After his victory, Zabdas marched south along the Jordan Valley and apparently met little opposition. There is evidence that Petra was attacked by a small contingent which penetrated the region. Arabia and Judaea were eventually subdued. Palmyrene dominance of Arabia is confirmed by many milestones bearing Vaballathus' name. Syrian subjugation required less effort because Zenobia had substantial support there, particularly in Antioch, Syria's traditional capital. The invasion of Arabia coincided with the cessation of coin production in Claudius' name by the Antiochean mint, indicating that Zenobia had begun tightening her grip on Syria. By November 270, the mint began issuing coinage in Vaballathus' name.


title: Zenobia

text: The Arabian milestones presented the Palmyrene king as a Roman governor and commander, referring to him as "vir clarissimus rex consul imperator dux Romanorum". The assumption of such titles was probably meant to legitimize Zenobia's control of the province, not yet a usurpation of the imperial title. Until now, Zenobia could say that she was acting as a representative of the emperor (who was securing the eastern lands of the empire) while the Roman monarch was preoccupied with struggles in Europe. Although Vaballathus' use of the titles amounted to a claim to the imperial throne, Zenobia could still justify them and maintain a mask of subordination to Rome; an ""imperator"" was a commander of troops, not the equal of an emperor (""imperator caesar"").


title: Zenobia

text: The invasion of Egypt is sometimes explained by Zenobia's desire to secure an alternative trade route to the Euphrates, which was cut because of the war with Persia. This theory ignores the fact that the Euphrates route was only partially disrupted, and overlooks Zenobia's ambition. The date of the campaign is uncertain; Zosimus placed it after the Battle of Naissus and before Claudius' death, which sets it in the summer of 270. Watson, emphasizing the works of Zonaras and Syncellus and dismissing Zosimus' account, places the invasion in October 270 (after Claudius' death). According to Watson, the occupation of Egypt was an opportunistic move by Zenobia (who was encouraged by the news of Claudius' death in August). The appearance of the Palmyrenes on Egypt's eastern frontier would have contributed to unrest in the province, whose society was fractured; Zenobia had supporters and opponents among local Egyptians.


title: Zenobia

text: The Roman position was worsened by the absence of Egypt's prefect, Tenagino Probus, who was battling pirates. According to Zosimus, the Palmyrenes were helped by an Egyptian general named Timagenes; Zabdas moved into Egypt with 70,000 soldiers, defeating an army of 50,000 Romans. After their victory, the Palmyrenes withdrew their main force and left a 5,000-soldier garrison. By early November, Tenagino Probus returned and assembled an army; he expelled the Palmyrenes and regained Alexandria, prompting Zabdas to return. The Palmyrene general aimed a thrust at Alexandria, where he seems to have had local support; the city fell into Zabdas' hands, and the Roman prefect fled south. The last battle was at the Babylon Fortress, where Tenagino Probus took refuge; the Romans had the upper hand, since they chose their camp carefully. Timagenes, with his knowledge of the land, ambushed the Roman rear; Tenagino Probus committed suicide, and Egypt became part of Palmyra. In the "Historia Augusta " the Blemmyes were among Zenobia's allies, and Gary K. Young cites the Blemmyes attack and occupation of Coptos in 268 as evidence of a Palmyrene-Blemmyes alliance.


title: Zenobia

text: Only Zosimus mentioned two invasions, contrasting with many scholars who argue in favor of an initial invasion and no retreat (followed by a reinforcement, which took Alexandria by the end of 270). During the Egyptian campaign, Rome was entangled in a succession crisis between Claudius' brother Quintillus and the general Aurelian. Egyptian papyri and coinage confirm Palmyrene rule in Egypt; the papyri stopped using the regnal years of the emperors from September to November 270, due to the succession crisis. By December regnal dating was resumed, with the papyri using the regnal years of the prevailing emperor Aurelian and Zenobia's son Vaballathus. Egyptian coinage was issued in the names of Aurelian and the Palmyrene king by November 270. There is no evidence that Zenobia ever visited Egypt.


title: Zenobia

text: Although the operation may have commenced under Septimius Zabbai, Zabdas' second-in-command, the invasion of Asia Minor did not fully begin until Zabdas' arrival in the spring of 271. The Palmyrenes annexed Galatia and, according to Zosimus, reached Ancyra. Bithynia and the Cyzicus mint remained beyond Zenobia's control, and her attempts to subdue Chalcedon failed. The Asia Minor campaign is poorly documented, but the western part of the region did not become part of the queen's authority; no coins with Zenobia or Vaballathus' portraits were minted in Asia Minor, and no royal Palmyrene inscriptions have been found. By August 271 Zabdas was back in Palmyra, with the Palmyrene empire at its zenith.


title: Zenobia

text: Zenobia ruled an empire of different peoples; as a Palmyrene, she was accustomed to dealing with multilingual and multicultural diversity since she hailed from a city which embraced many cults. The queen's realm was culturally divided into eastern-Semitic and Hellenistic zones; Zenobia tried to appease both, and seems to have successfully appealed to the region's ethnic, cultural and political groups. The queen projected an image of a Syrian monarch, a Hellenistic queen and a Roman empress, which gained broad support for her cause.


title: Zenobia

text: Zenobia turned her court into a center of learning, with many intellectuals and sophists reported in Palmyra during her reign. As academics migrated to the city, it replaced classical learning centers such as Athens for Syrians. The best-known court philosopher was Longinus, who arrived during Odaenathus' reign and became Zenobia's tutor in "paideia" (aristocratic education). Many historians, including Zosimus, accused Longinus of influencing the queen to oppose Rome. This view presents the queen as malleable, but, according to Southern, Zenobia's actions "cannot be laid entirely at Longinus' door". Other intellectuals associated with the court included Nicostratus of Trapezus and Callinicus of Petra.


title: Zenobia

text: From the second to the fourth centuries, Syrian intellectuals argued that Greek culture did not evolve in Greece but was adapted from the Near East. According to Iamblichus, the great Greek philosophers reused Near Eastern and Egyptian ideas. The Palmyrene court was probably dominated by this school of thought, with an intellectual narrative presenting Palmyra's dynasty as a Roman imperial one succeeding the Persian, Seleucid and Ptolemaic rulers who controlled the region in which Hellenistic culture allegedly originated. Nicostratus wrote a history of the Roman Empire from Philip the Arab to Odaenathus, presenting the latter as a legitimate imperial successor and contrasting his successes with the disastrous reigns of the emperors.


title: Zenobia

text: Zenobia embarked on several restoration projects in Egypt. One of the Colossi of Memnon was reputed in antiquity to sing; the sound was probably due to cracks in the statue, with solar rays interacting with dew in the cracks. The historian Glen Bowersock proposed that the queen restored the colossus ("silencing" it), which would explain third-century accounts of the singing and their disappearance in the fourth.


title: Zenobia

text: Zenobia followed the Palmyrene paganism, where a number of Semitic gods, with Bel at the head of the pantheon, were worshipped. Zenobia accommodated Christians and Jews, and ancient sources made many claims about the queen's beliefs; Manichaean sources alleged that Zenobia was one of their own; a manuscript dated to 272 mentions that the Queen of Palmyra supported the Manichaeans in establishing a community in Abidar, which was under the rule of a king named Amarō, who could be the Lakhmid king Amr ibn Adi. It is more likely, however, that Zenobia tolerated all cults in an effort to attract support from groups marginalized by Rome.


title: Zenobia

text: Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria wrote that Zenobia did not "hand over churches to the Jews to make them into synagogues"; although the queen was not a Christian, she understood the power of bishops in Christian communities. In Antioch—considered representative of political control of the East and containing a large Christian community—Zenobia apparently maintained authority over the church by bringing influential clerics, probably including Paul of Samosata, under her auspices. She may have bestowed on Paul the rank of "ducenarius" (minor judge); he apparently enjoyed the queen's protection, which helped him keep the diocesan church after he was removed from his office as bishop of Antioch by a synod of bishops in 268.


title: Zenobia

text: Less than a hundred years after Zenobia's reign, Athanasius of Alexandria called her a "Jewess" in his "History of the Arians". In 391, archbishop John Chrysostom wrote that Zenobia was Jewish; so did a Syriac chronicler around 664 and bishop Bar Hebraeus in the thirteenth century. According to French scholar Javier Teixidor, Zenobia was probably a proselyte; this explained her strained relationship with the rabbis. Teixidor believed that Zenobia became interested in Judaism when Longinus spoke about the philosopher Porphyry and his interest in the Old Testament. Although Talmudic sources were hostile to Palmyra because of Odaenathus' suppression of the Jews of Nehardea, Zenobia apparently had the support of some Jewish communities (particularly in Alexandria). In Cairo, a plaque originally bearing an inscription confirming a grant of immunity to a Jewish synagogue in the last quarter of the first millennium BC by King Ptolemy Euergetes (I or II) was found. At a much later date, the plaque was re-inscribed to commemorate the restoration of immunity "on the orders of the queen and king". Although it is undated, the letters of the inscription date to long after Cleopatra and Anthony's era; Zenobia and her son are the only candidates for a king and a queen ruling Egypt after the Ptolemies.


title: Zenobia

text: The historian E. Mary Smallwood wrote that good relations with the diaspora community did not mean that the Jews of Palestine were content with Zenobia's reign, and her rule was apparently opposed in that region. The Terumot tells the story of the amoraim Rabbi "Ammi" and Rabbi "Samuel bar Nahmani", who visited Zenobia's court and asked for the release of a Jew ("Zeir bar Hinena") detained on her orders. The queen refused, saying: "Why have you come to save him? He teaches that your creator performs miracles for you. Why not let God save him?" During Aurelian's destruction of Palmyra, Palestinian conscripts with "clubs and cudgels" (who may have been Jews) played a vital role in Zenobia's defeat and the destruction of her city.


title: Zenobia

text: There is no evidence of Zenobia's birth as a Jew; the names of her and her husband's families belonged to the Aramaic onomasticon (collection of names). The queen's alleged patronage of Paul of Samosata (who was accused of "Judaizing"), may have given rise to the idea that she was a proselyte. Only Christian accounts note Zenobia's Jewishness; no Jewish source mentions it.


title: Zenobia

text: The queen probably spent most of her reign in Antioch, Syria's administrative capital. Before the monarchy, Palmyra had the institutions of a Greek city (polis) and was ruled by a senate which was responsible for most civil affairs. Odaenathus maintained Palmyra's institutions, as did Zenobia; a Palmyrene inscription after her fall records the name of Septimius Haddudan, a Palmyrene senator. However, the queen apparently ruled autocratically; Septimius Worod, Odaenathus' viceroy and one of Palmyra's most important officials, disappeared from the record after Zenobia's ascent. The queen opened the doors of her government to Eastern nobility. Zenobia's most important courtiers and advisers were her generals, Septemius Zabdas and Septimius Zabbai; both of whom were generals under Odaenathus and received the "gentilicium" (surname) "Septimius" from him.


title: Zenobia

text: Odaenathus respected the Roman emperor's privilege of appointing provincial governors, and Zenobia continued this policy during her early reign. Although the queen did not interfere in day-to-day administration, she probably had the power to command the governors in the organization of border security. During the rebellion, Zenobia maintained Roman forms of administration, but appointed the governors herself (most notably in Egypt, where Julius Marcellinus took office in 270 and was followed by Statilius Ammianus in 271).


title: Zenobia

text: Zenobia initially avoided provoking Rome by claiming for herself and her son the titles, inherited from Odaenathus, of subject of Rome and protector of its eastern frontier. After expanding her territory, she seems to have tried to be recognized as an imperial partner in the eastern half of the empire and presented her son as subordinate to the emperor. In late 270, Zenobia minted coinage bearing the portraits of Aurelian and Vaballathus; Aurelian was titled "emperor", and Vaballathus "king". The regnal year in early samples of the coinage was only Aurelian's. By March 271, despite indicating Aurelian as the paramount monarch by naming him first in the dating formulae, the coinage also began bearing Vaballathus' regnal year. By indicating in the coinage that Vaballathus' reign began in 267 (three years before the emperor's), Vaballathus appeared to be Aurelian's senior colleague.


title: Zenobia

text: The emperor's blessing of Palmyrene authority has been debated; Aurelian's acceptance of Palmyrene rule in Egypt may be inferred from the Oxyrhynchus papyri, which are dated by the regnal years of the emperor and Vaballathus. No proof of a formal agreement exists, and the evidence is based solely on the joint coinage- and papyri-dating. It is unlikely that Aurelian would have accepted such power-sharing, but he was unable to act in 271 due to crises in the West. His apparent condoning of Zenobia's actions may have been a ruse to give her a false sense of security while he prepared for war. Another reason for Aurelian's tolerance may have been his desire to ensure a constant supply of Egyptian grain to Rome; it is not recorded that the supply was cut, and the ships sailed to Rome in 270 as usual. Some modern scholars, such as , suggest that Claudius Gothicus had concluded a formal agreement with Zenobia which Aurelian ignored.


title: Zenobia

text: An inscription, found in Palmyra and dated to August 271, called Zenobia "eusebes" (the pious); this title, used by Roman empresses, could be seen as a step by the queen toward an imperial title. Another contemporary inscription called her "sebaste", the Greek equivalent of "empress" (Latin: "Augusta"), but also acknowledged the Roman emperor. A late-271 Egyptian grain receipt equated Aurelian and Vaballathus, jointly calling them "Augusti". Finally, Palmyra officially broke with Rome; the Alexandrian and Antiochian mints removed Aurelian's portrait from the coins in April 272, issuing new tetradrachms in the names of Vaballathus and Zenobia (who were called "Augustus" and "Augusta", respectively).


title: Zenobia

text: The assumption of imperial titles by Zenobia signaled a usurpation: independence from, and open rebellion against, Aurelian. The timeline of events and why Zenobia declared herself empress is vague. In the second half of 271, Aurelian marched to the East, but was delayed by the Goths in the Balkans; this may have alarmed the queen, driving her to claim the imperial title. Zenobia also probably understood the inevitability of open conflict with Aurelian, and decided that feigning subordination would be useless; her assumption of the imperial title was used to rally soldiers to her cause. Aurelian's campaign seems to have been the main reason for the Palmyrene imperial declaration and the removal of his portrait from its coins.


title: Zenobia

text: The usurpation, which began in late March or early April 272, ended by August. Aurelian spent the winter of 271–272 in Byzantium, and probably crossed the Bosporus to Asia Minor in April 272. Galatia fell easily; the Palmyrene garrisons were apparently withdrawn, and the provincial capital of Ancyra was regained without a struggle. All the cities in Asia Minor opened their doors to the Roman emperor, with only Tyana putting up some resistance before surrendering; this cleared the path for Aurelian to invade Syria, the Palmyrene heartland. A simultaneous expedition reached Egypt in May 272; by early June Alexandria was captured by the Romans, followed by the rest of Egypt by the third week of June. Zenobia seems to have withdrawn most of her armies from Egypt to focus on Syria—which, if lost, would have meant the end of Palmyra.


title: Zenobia

text: In May 272, Aurelian headed toward Antioch. About north of the city, he defeated the Palmyrene army (led by Zabdas) at the Battle of Immae. As a result, Zenobia, who waited in Antioch during the battle, retreated with her army to Emesa. To conceal the disaster and make her flight safer, she spread reports that Aurelian was captured; Zabdas found a man who resembled the Roman emperor and paraded him through Antioch. The following day, Aurelian entered the city before marching south. After defeating a Palmyrene garrison south of Antioch, Aurelian continued his march to meet Zenobia in the Battle of Emesa.


title: Zenobia

text: The 70,000-strong Palmyrene army, assembled on the plain of Emesa, nearly routed the Romans. In an initial thrill of victory they hastened their advance, breaking their lines and enabling the Roman infantry to attack their flank. The defeated Zenobia headed to her capital on the advice of her war council, leaving her treasury behind. In Palmyra, the queen prepared for a siege; Aurelian blockaded food-supply routes, and there were probably unsuccessful negotiations. According to the "Augustan History", Zenobia said that she would fight Aurelian with the help of her Persian allies; however, the story was probably fabricated and used by the emperor to link Zenobia to Rome's greatest enemy. If such an alliance existed, a much-larger frontier war would have erupted; however, no Persian army was sent. As the situation worsened, the queen left the city for Persia intending on seeking help from Palmyra's former enemy; according to Zosimus, she rode a "female camel, the fastest of its breed and faster than any horse".


title: Zenobia

text: Aurelian, learning about Zenobia's departure, sent a contingent which captured the queen before she could cross the Euphrates to Persia; Palmyra capitulated soon after news of Zenobia's captivity reached the city in August 272. Aurelian sent the queen and her son to Emesa for trial, followed by most of Palmyra's court elite (including Longinus). According to the "Augustan History" and Zosimus, Zenobia blamed her actions on her advisers; however, there are no contemporary sources describing the trial, only later hostile Roman ones. The queen's reported cowardice in defeat was probably Aurelian's propaganda; it benefited the emperor to paint Zenobia as selfish and traitorous, discouraging the Palmyrenes from hailing her as a hero. Although Aurelian had most of his prisoners executed, he spared the queen and her son to parade her in his planned triumph.


title: Zenobia

text: Zenobia's fate after Emesa is uncertain since ancient historians left conflicting accounts. Zosimus wrote that she died before crossing the Bosporus on her way to Rome; according to this account, the queen became ill or starved herself to death. The generally unreliable chronicler, John Malalas, wrote that Aurelian humiliated Zenobia by parading her through the eastern cities on a dromedary; in Antioch, the emperor had her chained and seated on a dais in the hippodrome for three days before the city's populace. Malalas concluded his account by writing that Zenobia appeared in Aurelian's triumph and was then beheaded.


title: Zenobia

text: Most ancient historians and modern scholars agree that Zenobia was displayed in Aurelian's 274 triumph; Zosimus was the only source to say that the queen died before reaching Rome, making his account questionable. A public humiliation (as recounted by Malalas) is a plausible scenario, since Aurelian would probably have wanted to publicize his suppression of the Palmyrene rebellion. Only Malalas, however, describes Zenobia's beheading; according to the other historians, her life was spared after Aurelian's triumph. The "Augustan History" recorded that Aurelian gave Zenobia a villa in Tibur near Hadrian's Villa, where she lived with her children. Zonaras wrote that Zenobia married a nobleman, and Syncellus wrote that she married a Roman senator. The house she reportedly occupied became a tourist attraction in Rome.


title: Zenobia

text: The queen owed her elevated position to her son's minority. To celebrate Herodianus' coronation, a statue was erected in Palmyra in 263. According to the inscription on the base of the statue, it was commissioned by Septimius Worod, then the "duumviri" (magistrate) of Palmyra, and Julius Aurelius, the Queen's "procurator" (treasurer). According to the historian David Potter, Zenobia is the queen mentioned, and the inscription is an evidence for the usage of the title by her during Odaenathus' lifetime. An inscription on a milestone on the road between Palmyra and Emesa, dated to Zenobia's early reign, identifies her as "illustrious queen, mother of the king of kings"; this was the first inscription giving her an official position. A lead token from Antioch also identifies Zenobia as queen.


title: Zenobia

text: The earliest confirmed attestation of Zenobia as queen in Palmyra is an inscription on the base of a statue erected for her by Zabdas and Zabbai, dated to August 271 and calling her "most illustrious and pious queen". On an undated milestone found near Byblos, Zenobia is titled "Sebaste". The queen was never acknowledged as sole monarch in Palmyra, although she was the "de facto" sovereign of the empire; she was always associated with her husband or son in inscriptions, except in Egypt (where some coins were minted in Zenobia's name alone). According to her coins, the queen assumed the title of "Augusta" (empress) in 272, and reigned under the regnal name Septimia Zenobia Augusta.


title: Zenobia

text: Aside from Vaballathus, it is unclear if Zenobia had other children, and their alleged identities are subject to scholarly disagreements. The image of a child named Hairan (II) appears on a seal impression with that of his brother Vaballathus; no name of a mother was engraved and the seal is undated. Odaenathus' son Herodianus is identified by Udo Hartmann with Hairan I, a son of Odaenathus who appears in Palmyrene inscriptions as early as 251. David S. Potter, on the other hand, suggested that Hairan II is the son of Zenobia and that he is Herodianus instead of Hairan I. Nathanael Andrade maintained that Hairan I, Herodianus, and Hairan II are the same person, rejecting the existence of a second Hairan.


title: Zenobia

text: A controversial Palmyrene inscription mentions the mother of the King Septimius Antiochus; the name of the queen is missing, and Dittenberger refused to fill the gap with Zenobia's name, but many scholars, such as Grace Macurdy considered that the missing name is Zenobia. Septimius Antiochus may have been Vaballathus' younger brother, or was presented in this manner for political reasons; Antiochus was proclaimed emperor in 273, when Palmyra revolted against Rome for a second time. If Antiochus was a son of Zenobia, he was probably a young child not fathered by Odaenathus; Zosimus described him as insignificant, appropriate for a five-year-old boy. On the other hand, Macurdy, citing the language Zosimus used when he described him, considered it more plausible that Antiochus was not a son of Zenobia, but a family relation who used her name to legitimize his claim to the throne.


title: Zenobia

text: The names of Herennianus and Timolaus were mentioned as children of Zenobia only in the "Historia Augusta". Herennianus may be a conflation of Hairan and Herodianus; Timolaus is probably a fabrication, although the historian suggested that he might have been Vaballathus. According to the "Historia Augusta", Zenobia's descendants were Roman nobility during the reign of Emperor Valens (reigned 364–375). Eutropius and Jerome chronicled the queen's descendants in Rome during the fourth and fifth centuries. They may have been the result of a reported marriage to a Roman spouse or offspring who accompanied her from Palmyra; both theories, however, are tentative. Zonaras is the only historian to note that Zenobia had daughters; he wrote that one married Aurelian, who married the queen's other daughters to distinguished Romans. According to Southern, the emperor's marriage to Zenobia's daughter is a fabrication. Another descent claim is the relation of saint Zenobius of Florence (337–417) with the queen; the Girolami banking family claimed descent from the fifth century saint, and the alleged relation was first noted in 1286. The family also extended their roots to Zenobia by claiming that the saint was a descendant of her.


title: Zenobia

text: An evaluation of Zenobia is difficult; the queen was courageous when her husband's supremacy was threatened and by seizing the throne, she protected the region from a power vacuum after Odaenathus' death. According to Watson, she made what Odaenathus left her a "glittering show of strength". In the view of Watson, Zenobia should not be seen as a total powermonger, nor as a selfless hero fighting for a cause; according to the historian David Graf, "She took seriously the titles and responsibilities she assumed for her son and that her program was far more ecumenical and imaginative than that of her husband Odenathus, not just more ambitious".


title: Zenobia

text: Zenobia has inspired scholars, academics, musicians and actors; her fame has lingered in the West, and is supreme in the Middle East. As a heroic queen with a tragic end, she stands alongside Cleopatra and Boudica. The queen's legend turned her into an idol, that can be reinterpreted to accommodate the needs of writers and historians; thus, Zenobia has been by turns a freedom fighter, a hero of the oppressed and a national symbol. The queen is a female role model; according to the historian Michael Rostovtzeff, Catherine the Great liked to compare herself to Zenobia as a woman who created military might and an intellectual court. During the 1930s, thanks to an Egyptian-based feminist press, Zenobia became an icon for women's-magazine readers in the Arabic-speaking world as a strong, nationalistic female leader.


title: Zenobia

text: Her most lasting legacy is in Syria, where the queen is a national symbol. Zenobia became an icon for Syrian nationalists; she had a cult following among Western-educated Syrians, and an 1871 novel by journalist was entitled "Zenobia malikat Tadmor" ("Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra"). Syrian nationalist Ilyas Matar, who wrote Syria's first history in Arabic in 1874, ("al-'Uqud al-durriyya fi tarikh al-mamlaka al-Suriyya"; "The Pearl Necklace in the History of the Syrian Kingdom"), was fascinated by Zenobia and included her in his book. To Matar, the queen kindled hope for a new Zenobia who would restore Syria's former grandeur. Another history of Syria was written by Jurji Yanni in 1881, in which Yanni called Zenobia a "daughter of the fatherland", and yearned for her "glorious past". Yanni described Aurelian as a tyrant who deprived Syria of its happiness and independence by capturing its queen.


title: Zenobia

text: In modern Syria, Zenobia is regarded as a patriotic symbol; her image appeared on banknotes, and in 1997 she was the subject of the television series Al-Ababeed ("The Anarchy"). The series was watched by millions in the Arabic-speaking world. It examined the Israeli–Palestinian conflict from a Syrian perspective, where the queen's struggle symbolized the Palestinians' struggle to gain the right of self-determination. Zenobia was also the subject of a biography by Mustafa Tlass, Syria's former minister of defense and one of the country's most prominent figures.


title: Zenobia

text: Harold Mattingly called Zenobia "one of the most romantic figures in history". According to Southern, "The real Zenobia is elusive, perhaps ultimately unattainable, and novelists, playwrights and historians alike can absorb the available evidence, but still need to indulge in varied degrees of speculation."


title: Zenobia

text: She has been the subject of romantic and ideologically-driven biographies by ancient and modern writers. The "Augustan History" is the clearest example of an ideological account of Zenobia's life, and its author acknowledged that it was written to criticize the emperor Gallienus. According to the "Augustan History", Gallienus was weak because he allowed a woman to rule part of the empire and Zenobia was a more able sovereign than the emperor. The narrative changed as the "Augustan History" moved on to the life of Claudius Gothicus, a lauded and victorious emperor, with the author characterizing Zenobia's protection of the eastern frontier as a wise delegation of power by Claudius. When the "Augustan History" reached the biography of Aurelian, the author's view of Zenobia changed dramatically; the queen is depicted as a guilty, insolent, proud coward; her wisdom was discredited and her actions deemed the result of manipulation by advisers.


title: Zenobia

text: Zenobia's "staunch" beauty was emphasized by the author of the "Augustan History", who ascribed to her feminine timidity and inconsistency (the reasons for her alleged betrayal of her advisers to save herself). The queen's sex posed a dilemma for the "Augustan History" since it cast a shadow on Aurelian's victory. Its author ascribed many masculine traits to Zenobia to make Aurelian a conquering hero who suppressed a dangerous Amazon queen. According to the "Augustan History", Zenobia had a clear, manly voice, dressed as an emperor (rather than an empress), rode horseback, was attended by eunuchs instead of ladies-in-waiting, marched with her army, drank with her generals, was careful with money (contrary to the stereotypical spending habits of her sex) and pursued masculine hobbies such as hunting. Giovanni Boccaccio wrote a fanciful 14th-century account of the queen in which she is a tomboy in childhood who preferred wrestling with boys, wandering in the forests and killing goats to playing like a young girl. Zenobia's chastity was a theme of these romanticized accounts; according to the "Augustan History", she disdained sexual intercourse and allowed Odaenathus into her bed only for conception. Her reputed chastity impressed some male historians; Edward Gibbon wrote that Zenobia surpassed Cleopatra in chastity and valor. According to Boccaccio, Zenobia safeguarded her virginity when she wrestled with boys as a child.


title: Zenobia

text: Seventeenth-century visitors to Palmyra rekindled the Western world's romantic interest in Zenobia. This interest peaked during the mid-nineteenth century, when Lady Hester Stanhope visited Palmyra and wrote that its people treated her like the queen; she was reportedly greeted with singing and dancing, and Bedouin warriors stood on the city's columns. A procession ended with a mock coronation of Stanhope under the arch of Palmyra as "queen of the desert". William Ware, fascinated by Zenobia, wrote a fanciful account of her life. Twentieth-century novelists and playwrights, such as Haley Elizabeth Garwood and Nick Dear, also wrote about the queen.


title: Complaint tablet to Ea-nasir

text: The complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir ( 81) is a clay tablet that was sent to ancient Ur, written . It is a complaint to a merchant named Ea-nasir from a customer named Nanni. Written in Akkadian cuneiform, it is considered to be the oldest known written complaint. It is currently kept in the British Museum.


title: Complaint tablet to Ea-nasir

text: Ea-nasir travelled to Dilmun to buy copper and returned to sell it in Mesopotamia. On one particular occasion, he had agreed to sell copper ingots to Nanni. Nanni sent his servant with the money to complete the transaction. The copper was considered by Nanni to be sub-standard and not accepted.


title: Complaint tablet to Ea-nasir

text: In response, Nanni created the cuneiform letter for delivery to Ea-nasir. Inscribed on it is a complaint to Ea-nasir about a copper delivery of the incorrect grade, and issues with another delivery; Nanni also complained that his servant (who handled the transaction) had been treated rudely. He stated that, at the time of writing, he had not accepted the copper, but had paid the money for it.


title: Complaint tablet to Ea-nasir

text: The tablet was discovered and acquired by Sir Leonard Woolley, leading a joint expedition of the University of Pennsylvania and the British Museum from 1922 to 1934 in the Sumerian city of Ur.


title: Complaint tablet to Ea-nasir

text: Other tablets have been found in the ruins believed to be Ea-nasir's dwelling. These include a letter from a man named Arbituram who complained he had not received his copper yet, while another says he was tired of receiving bad copper.


title: Federal law enforcement in the United States

text: The federal government of the United States empowers a wide range of law enforcement agencies to maintain law and public order related to matters affecting the country as a whole.


text: While the majority of federal law enforcement employees work for the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, there are dozens of other federal law enforcement agencies under the other executive departments, as well as under the legislative and judicial branches of the federal government.


text: Different federal law enforcement authorities have authority under different parts of the United States Code (U.S.C.). Most are limited by the U.S. Code to investigating matters that are explicitly within the power of the federal government. There are exceptions, with some agencies and officials enforcing codes of U.S. states and tribes of Native Americans in the United States. Some federal investigative powers have become broader in practice, especially since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act in October 2001.


text: The United States Department of Justice was formerly the largest and is still the most prominent, collection of federal law enforcement agencies. It has handled most law enforcement duties at the federal level and includes the United States Marshals Service (USMS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), and others.


text: However, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) became the department with the most sworn armed Federal law enforcement officers and agents upon its creation in 2002 in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks when it incorporated agencies seen as having roles in protecting the country against terrorism. This included large agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the U.S. Secret Service (USSS), the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) (created by combining the former agencies of the United States Border Patrol, United States Customs Service, and the United States Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) into a single agency within the DHS).


text: Federal law enforcement in the United States is more than two hundred years old. For example, the Postal Inspection Service can trace its origins back to 1772, while the U.S. Marshals Service dates to 1789.


text: Other agencies, such as the FBI, are relatively recent, being founded in the early twentieth century. Other agencies have been reformed, such as the ATF which was started only in 1972, but had its origins in 1886.


text: Some federal law enforcement agencies have been formed after mergers of other agencies, over the years. This includes the CBP and the ATF.


text: Military law enforcement, although federal, consists of both active duty and civilian officers, with "DOD Police" referring to any civilian engaged in police duties for the DOD or the US Armed Forces.


title: Old French

text: Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligible yet diverse, spoken in the northern half of France.


title: Old French

text: These dialects came to be collectively known as the , contrasting with the in the south of France. The mid-14th century witnessed the emergence of Middle French, the language of the French Renaissance in the Île de France region; this dialect was a predecessor to Modern French. Other dialects of Old French evolved themselves into modern forms (Poitevin-Saintongeais, Gallo, Norman, Picard, Walloon, etc.), each with its own linguistic features and history.


title: Old French

text: The region where Old French was spoken natively roughly extended to the northern half of the Kingdom of France and its vassals (including parts of the Angevin Empire, which during the 12th century remained under Anglo-Norman rule), and the duchies of Upper and Lower Lorraine to the east (corresponding to modern north-eastern France and Belgian Wallonia), but the influence of Old French was much wider, as it was carried to England and the Crusader states as the language of a feudal elite and commerce.


title: Old French

text: The area of Old French in contemporary terms corresponded to the northern parts of the Kingdom of France (including Anjou and Normandy, which in the 12th century were ruled by the Plantagenet kings of England), Upper Burgundy and the duchy of Lorraine. The Norman dialect was also spread to England and Ireland, and during the crusades, Old French was also spoken in the Kingdom of Sicily, and in the Principality of Antioch and the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Levant.


title: Old French

text: As part of the emerging Gallo-Romance dialect continuum, the were contrasted with the (the emerging Occitano-Romance group, at the time also called Provençal), adjacent to the Old French area in the south-west, and with the Gallo-Italic group to the south-east. The Franco-Provençal group developed in Upper Burgundy, sharing features with both French and Provençal; it may have begun to diverge from the as early as the 9th century and is attested as a distinct Gallo-Romance variety by the 12th century.


title: Old French

text: Some modern languages are derived from Old French dialects other than Classical French, which is based on the Île-de-France dialect. They include


title: Old French

text: Angevin, Berrichon, Bourguignon-Morvandiau, Champenois, Franc-Comtois, Gallo, Lorrain, Norman, Picard, Poitevin, Saintongeais and Walloon.


title: Old French

text: Beginning with Plautus' time (254–184 ), one can see phonological changes between Classical Latin and what is called Vulgar Latin, the common spoken language of the Western Roman Empire. Vulgar Latin differed from Classical Latin in phonology and morphology as well as exhibiting lexical differences; however, they were mutually intelligible until the 7th century when Classical Latin 'died' as a daily spoken language, and had to be learned as a second language (though it was long thought of as the formal version of the spoken language). Vulgar Latin was the ancestor of the Romance languages, including Old French.


title: Old French

text: By the late 8th century, when the Carolingian Renaissance began, native speakers of Romance idioms continued to use Romance orthoepy rules while speaking and reading Latin. When the most prominent scholar of Western Europe at the time, English deacon Alcuin, was tasked by Charlemagne with improving the standards of Latin writing in France, not being a native Romance speaker himself, he prescribed a pronunciation based on a fairly literal interpretation of Latin spelling. For example, in a radical break from the traditional system, a word such as ⟨viridiarium⟩ 'orchard' now had to be read aloud precisely as it was spelled rather than */verdʒjær/ (later spelled as ).


title: Old French

text: Such a radical change had the effect of rendering Latin sermons completely unintelligible to the general romance-speaking public, which prompted officials a few years later, at the Third Council of Tours, to instruct priests to read sermons aloud in the old way, in or 'plain Roman[ce] speech'.


title: Old French

text: As there was now no unambiguous way to indicate whether a given text was to be read aloud as Latin or Romance, various attempts were made in France to devise a new orthography for the latter; among the earliest examples are parts of the Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia (see below).


title: Old French

text: Some Gaulish words influenced Vulgar Latin and, through this, other Romance languages. For example, classical Latin was uniformly replaced in Vulgar Latin by 'nag, work horse', derived from Gaulish (cf. Welsh , Breton ), yielding , Occitan (), Catalan , Spanish , Portuguese , Italian , Romanian , and, by extension, English "cavalry" and "chivalry" (both via different forms of [Old] French).


title: Old French

text: An estimated 200 words of Gaulish etymology survive in Modern French, for example , 'oak tree', and , 'plough'.


title: Old French

text: Within historical phonology and studies of language contact, various phonological changes have been posited as caused by a Gaulish substrate, although there is some debate. One of these is considered certain, because this fact is clearly attested in the Gaulish-language epigraphy on the pottery found at la Graufesenque ( 1st century). There, the Greek word (written in Latin) appears as . The consonant clusters /ps/ and /pt/ shifted to /xs/ and /xt/, e.g. > "*kaxsa" > "caisse" ( Italian ) or "captīvus" > "*kaxtivus" > (mod. "chétif"; cf. Irish "cacht" 'servant'; ≠ Italian , Portuguese , Spanish ). This phonetic evolution is common in its later stages with the shift of the Latin cluster /kt/ in Old French ( > "fait", ≠ Italian , Portuguese , Spanish ; or "lactem"* > "lait", ≠ Italian , Portuguese , Spanish ). This means that both /pt/ and /kt/ must have first merged into /kt/ in the history of Old French, after which this /kt/ shifted to /xt/. In parallel, /ps/ and /ks/ merged into /ks/ before shifting to /xs/, apparently under Gaulish influence.


title: Old French

text: The Celtic Gaulish language is thought to have survived into the 6th century in France, despite considerable cultural Romanization. Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French, with effects including loanwords and calques (including , the word for "yes"), sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence, and influences in conjugation and word order. A computational study from 2003 suggests that early gender shifts may have been motivated by the gender of the corresponding word in Gaulish.


title: Old French

text: The pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax of the Vulgar Latin spoken in Roman Gaul in late antiquity was modified by the Old Frankish language, spoken by the Franks who settled in Gaul from the 5th century and conquered the future Old French-speaking area by the 530s.


title: Old French

text: The Old Frankish language had a definitive influence on the development of Old French, which partly explains why the earliest attested Old French documents are older than the earliest attestations in other Romance languages (e.g. Strasbourg Oaths, Sequence of Saint Eulalia). It is the result of an earlier gap created between Classical Latin and its evolved forms, which slowly reduced and eventually severed the intercomprehensibility between the two. The Old Low Franconian influence is also believed to be responsible for the differences between the "langue d'oïl" and the "langue d'oc" (Occitan), being that various parts of Northern France remained bilingual between Latin and Germanic for some time, and these areas correspond precisely to where the first documents in Old French were written.


title: Old French

text: This Germanic language shaped the popular Latin spoken here and gave it a very distinctive identity compared to the other future Romance languages. The very first noticeable influence is the substitution of the Latin melodic accent by a Germanic stress and its result was diphthongization, differentiation between long and short vowels, the fall of the unaccented syllable and of the final vowels:


title: Old French

text: Additionally, two phonemes that had long since died out in Vulgar Latin were reintroduced: and (> "g(u)-", ONF "w-" cf. Picard "w-"):


title: Old French

text: In contrast, the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish words of Germanic origin borrowed from French or directly from Germanic retain ~ , e.g. It, Sp. "guerra" 'war', alongside in French "guerre"). These examples show a clear consequence of bilingualism, that sometimes even changed the first syllable of the Latin words. One example of a Latin word influencing an loan is "framboise" 'raspberry', from "frambeise", from "*brāmbesi" 'blackberry' (cf. Dutch "braambes", "braambezie"; akin to German "Brombeere", English dial. "bramberry") blended with LL "fraga" or "fraie" 'strawberry', which explains the replacement > and in turn the final "-se" of "framboise" added to "fraie" to make "freise", modern "fraise" (≠ Wallon "frève", Occitan "fraga", Romanian "fragă", Italian "fragola", "fravola" 'strawberry').


title: Old French

text: Mildred Pope (1934) estimated that perhaps still 15% of the vocabulary of Modern French derives from Germanic sources (while the proportion was larger in Old French, because the Middle-French language borrowed heavily from Latin and Italian).


title: Old French

text: The earliest documents said to be written in the Gallo-Romance that prefigures French – after the Reichenau and Kassel glosses (8th and 9th centuries) – are the Oaths of Strasbourg (treaties and charters into which King Charles the Bald entered in 842):


title: Old French

text: The second-oldest document in Old French is the Eulalia sequence, which is important for linguistic reconstruction of Old French pronunciation due to its consistent spelling.


title: Old French

text: The royal House of Capet, founded by Hugh Capet in 987, inaugurated the development of northern French culture in and around Île-de-France, which slowly but firmly asserted its ascendency over the more southerly areas of Aquitaine and Tolosa (Toulouse); however, the Capetians' "langue d'oïl", the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of all of France until after the French Revolution.


title: Old French

text: In the Late Middle Ages, the Old French dialects diverged into a number of distinct "langues d'oïl", among which Middle French proper was the dialect of the Île-de-France region.


title: Old French

text: During the Early Modern period, French was established as the official language of the Kingdom of France throughout the realm, including the "langue d'oc"-speaking territories in the south.


title: Old French

text: It was only in the 17th to 18th centuries – with the development especially of popular literature of the "Bibliothèque bleue" – that a standardized Classical French spread throughout France alongside the regional dialects.


title: Old French

text: The material and cultural conditions in France and associated territories around the year 1100 triggered what Charles Homer Haskins termed the "Renaissance of the 12th century", resulting in a profusion of creative works in a variety of genres. Old French gave way to Middle French in the mid-14th century, paving the way for early French Renaissance literature of the 15th century.


title: Old French

text: The earliest extant French literary texts date from the ninth century, but very few texts before the 11th century have survived. The first literary works written in Old French were saints' lives. The "Canticle of Saint Eulalie", written in the second half of the 9th century, is generally accepted as the first such text.


title: Old French

text: At the beginning of the 13th century, Jean Bodel, in his "Chanson de Saisnes", divided medieval French narrative literature into three subject areas: the Matter of France or Matter of Charlemagne; the Matter of Rome (romances in an ancient setting); and the Matter of Britain (Arthurian romances and Breton lais). The first of these is the subject area of the "chansons de geste" ("songs of exploits" or "songs of (heroic) deeds"), epic poems typically composed in ten-syllable assonanced (occasionally rhymed) "laisses". More than one hundred "chansons de geste" have survived in around three hundred manuscripts. The oldest and most celebrated of the "chansons de geste" is "The Song of Roland" (earliest version composed in the late 11th century).


title: Old French

text: Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube in his "Girart de Vienne" set out a grouping of the "chansons de geste" into three cycles: the "Geste du roi" centering on Charlemagne, the "Geste de Garin de Monglane" (whose central character was William of Orange), and the "Geste de Doon de Mayence" or the "rebel vassal cycle", the most famous characters of which were Renaud de Montauban and Girart de Roussillon.


title: Old French

text: A fourth grouping, not listed by Bertrand, is the "Crusade cycle", dealing with the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath.


title: Old French

text: Jean Bodel's other two categories—the "Matter of Rome" and the "Matter of Britain"—concern the French romance or "roman". Around a hundred verse romances survive from the period 1150–1220. From around 1200 on, the tendency was increasingly to write the romances in prose (many of the earlier verse romances were adapted into prose versions), although new verse romances continued to be written to the end of the 14th century.


title: Old French

text: The most important romance of the 13th century is the "Romance of the Rose", which breaks considerably from the conventions of the chivalric adventure story.


title: Old French

text: Medieval French lyric poetry was indebted to the poetic and cultural traditions in Southern France and Provence—including Toulouse and the Aquitaine region—where "langue d'oc" was spoken (Occitan language); in their turn, the Provençal poets were greatly influenced by poetic traditions from the Hispano-Arab world.


title: Old French

text: Lyric poets in Old French are called "trouvères" – etymologically the same word as the "troubadours" of Provençal or langue d'oc (from the verb "trobar" "to find, to invent").


title: Old French

text: By the late 13th century, the poetic tradition in France had begun to develop in ways that differed significantly from the troubadour poets, both in content and in the use of certain fixed forms. The new poetic (as well as musical: some of the earliest medieval music has lyrics composed in Old French by the earliest composers known by name) tendencies are apparent in the "Roman de Fauvel" in 1310 and 1314, a satire on abuses in the medieval church, filled with medieval motets, lais, rondeaux and other new secular forms of poetry and music (mostly anonymous, but with several pieces by Philippe de Vitry, who would coin the expression "ars nova" to distinguish the new musical practice from the music of the immediately preceding age). The best-known poet and composer of "ars nova" secular music and chansons of the incipient Middle French period was Guillaume de Machaut.


title: Old French

text: Discussions about the origins of non-religious theater ("théâtre profane") – both drama and farce—in the Middle Ages remain controversial, but the idea of a continuous popular tradition stemming from Latin comedy and tragedy to the 9th century seems unlikely.


title: Old French

text: Most historians place the origin of medieval "drama" in the church's liturgical dialogues and "tropes". Mystery plays were eventually transferred from the monastery church to the chapter house or refectory hall and finally to the open air, and the vernacular was substituted for Latin. In the 12th century one finds the earliest extant passages in French appearing as refrains inserted into liturgical dramas in Latin, such as a Saint Nicholas (patron saint of the student clercs) play and a Saint Stephen play.


title: Old French

text: An early French dramatic play is "Le Jeu d'Adam" (c. 1150) written in octosyllabic rhymed couplets with Latin stage directions (implying that it was written by Latin-speaking clerics for a lay public).


title: Old French

text: A large body of fables survive in Old French; these include (mostly anonymous) literature dealing with the recurring trickster character of Reynard the Fox. Marie de France was also active in this genre, producing the "Ysopet" (Little Aesop) series of fables in verse. Related to the fable was the more bawdy "fabliau", which covered topics such as cuckolding and corrupt clergy. These "fabliaux" would be an important source for Chaucer and for the Renaissance short story ("conte" or "nouvelle").


title: Old French

text: Among the earliest works of rhetoric and logic to appear in Old French were the translations of "Rhetorica ad Herennium" and Boethius' "De topicis differentiis" by John of Antioch in 1282.


title: Old French

text: Old French was constantly changing and evolving; however, the form in the late 12th century, as attested in a great deal of mostly poetic writings, can be considered standard. The writing system at this time was more phonetic than that used in most subsequent centuries. In particular, all written consonants (including final ones) were pronounced, except for "s" preceding non-stop consonants and "t" in "et", and final "e" was pronounced . The phonological system can be summarised as follows:


title: Old French

text: In Old French, the nasal vowels were not separate phonemes but only allophones of the oral vowels before a nasal consonant. The nasal consonant was fully pronounced; "bon" was pronounced ( ). Nasal vowels were present even in open syllables before nasals where Modern French has oral vowels, as in "bone" ( "bonne" ).


title: Old French

text: In addition to diphthongs, Old French had many instances of hiatus between adjacent vowels because of the loss of an intervening consonant. Manuscripts generally do not distinguish hiatus from true diphthongs, but modern scholarly transcription indicates it with a diaeresis, as in Modern French:


title: Old French

text: Presented below is the first laisse of "The Song of Roland" along with a broad transcription reflecting reconstructed pronunciation circa 1050 C.E.


title: Old French

text: Old French maintained a two-case system, with a nominative case and an oblique case, for longer than some other Romance languages as Spanish and Italian did. Case distinctions, at least in the masculine gender, were marked on both the definite article and the noun itself. Thus, the masculine noun "li veisins" 'the neighbour' was declined as follows:


title: Old French

text: In later Old French, the distinctions had become moribund. As in most other Romance languages, it was the oblique case form that usually survived to become the Modern French form: "l'enfant" "the child" represents the old oblique (Latin accusative "īnfantem"); the nominative was "li enfes" ( "īnfāns"). There are some cases with significant differences between nominative and oblique forms (derived from Latin nouns with a stress shift between the nominative and other cases) in which either it is the nominative form that survives or both forms survive with different meanings:


title: Old French

text: In a few cases in which the only distinction between forms was the nominative "-s" ending, the "-s" was preserved. An example is "fils" "son" (< Latin nominative "fīlius"). The fact that the "-s" in the word is still pronounced today is irregular, but has to do with the later developments, namely the Middle French and Early Modern French system of pausal pronunciations.


title: Old French

text: As in Spanish and Italian, the neuter gender was eliminated, and most old neuter nouns became masculine. Some Latin neuter plurals (which ended in "-a") were reanalysed as feminine singulars: "gaudium" was more widely used in the plural form "gaudia", which was taken for a singular in Vulgar Latin and ultimately led to "la joie", "joy" (feminine singular).


title: Old French

text: Class I is derived from the Latin first declension. Class Ia mostly comes from Latin feminine nouns in the third declension. Class II is derived from the Latin second declension. Class IIa generally stems from second-declension nouns ending in "-er" and from third-declension masculine nouns; in both cases, the Latin nominative singular did not end in "-s", which is preserved in Old French.


title: Old French

text: The classes show various analogical developments: Class I nominative plural "-es" from the accusative instead of "-∅" ("-e" after a consonant cluster) in Class I nominative plural ( "-ae", although there is evidence to suggest this analogy had already occurred in VL), "li pere" instead of "*li peres" ( "illi patres") in Class IIa nominative plural, modelled on Class II, etc.


title: Old French

text: Class III nouns show a separate stem in the nominative singular that does not occur in any of the other forms:


title: Old French

text: Regular feminine forms of masculine nouns are formed by adding an "-e" to the masculine stem (unless the masculine stem already ends in "-e"). For example, "bergier" (shepherd) becomes "bergiere" ( "berger" and "bergère").


title: Old French

text: Adjectives agree in terms of number, gender and case with the noun that they are qualifying. Thus, a feminine plural noun in the nominative case requires any qualifying adjectives to be feminine, plural and nominative. For example, in "femes riches", "riche" has to be in the feminine plural form.


title: Old French

text: Class I adjectives have a feminine singular form (nominative and oblique) ending in "-e". They can be further subdivided into two subclasses, based on the masculine nominative singular form. Class Ia adjectives have a masculine nominative singular ending in "-s":


title: Old French

text: For Class Ib adjectives, the masculine nominative singular ends in "-e", like the feminine. There are descendants of Latin second- and third-declension adjectives ending in "-er" in the nominative singular:


title: Old French

text: Class III adjectives have a stem alternation, resulting from stress shift in the Latin third declension and a distinct neuter form:


title: Old French

text: In later Old French, Classes II and III tended to be moved across to Class I, which was complete by Middle French. Modern French thus has only a single adjective declension, unlike most other Romance languages, which have two or more.


title: Old French

text: Verbs in Old French show the same extreme phonological deformations as other Old French words; however, morphologically, Old French verbs are extremely conservative in preserving intact most of the Latin alternations and irregularities that had been inherited in Proto-Romance. Old French has much less analogical reformation than Modern French has and significantly less than the oldest stages of other languages (such as Old Spanish) despite that the various phonological developments in Gallo-Romance and Proto-French led to complex alternations in the majority of commonly-used verbs.


title: Old French

text: For example, the verb "laver" "to wash" ( "lavāre") is conjugated "je lef", "tu leves", "il leve" in the present indicative and "je lef", "tu les", "il let" in the present subjunctive, in both cases regular phonological developments from Latin indicative "lavō", "lavās", "lavat" and subjunctive "lavem", "lavēs", "lavet". The following paradigm is typical in showing the phonologically regular but morphologically irregular alternations of most paradigms:


title: Old French

text: Modern French, on the other hand, has "je lave", "tu laves", "il lave" in both indicative and subjunctive, reflecting significant analogical developments: analogical borrowing of unstressed vowel /a/, analogical "-e" in the first singular (from verbs like "j'entre", with a regular "-e" ) and wholesale replacement of the subjunctive with forms modelled on "-ir"/"-oir"/"-re" verbs. All serve to eliminate the various alternations in the verb paradigm. Even modern "irregular" verbs are not immune from analogy: For example, "je vif", "tu vis", "il vit" ("vivre" "to live") has yielded to modern "je vis", "tu vis", "il vit", eliminating the unpredictable "-f" in the first-person singular.


title: Old French

text: The simple past also shows extensive analogical reformation and simplification in Modern French, as compared with Old French.


title: Old French

text: The Latin pluperfect was preserved in very early Old French as a past tense with a value similar to a preterite or imperfect. For example, the Sequence of Saint Eulalia (878 AD) has past-tense forms such as "avret" (< "habuerat"), "voldret" (< "voluerat"), alternating with past-tense forms from the Latin perfect (continued as the modern "simple past"). Old Occitan also preserved this tense, with a conditional value; Spanish still preserves this tense (the "-ra" imperfect subjunctive), as does Portuguese (in its original value as a pluperfect indicative).


title: Old French

text: In Latin, stress was determined automatically by the number of syllables in a word and the weight (length) of the syllables. That resulted in certain automatic stress shifts between related forms in a paradigm, depending on the nature of the suffixes added. For example, in "pensō" "I think", the first syllable was stressed, but in "pensāmus" "we think", the second syllable was stressed. In many Romance languages, vowels diphthongized in stressed syllables under certain circumstances but not in unstressed syllables, resulting in alternations in verb paradigms: Spanish "pienso" "I think" vs. "pensamos" "we think" ("pensar" "to think"), or "cuento" "I tell" vs. "contamos" "we tell" ("contar" "to tell").


title: Old French

text: In the development of French, at least five vowels diphthongized in stressed, open syllables. Combined with other stress-dependent developments, that yielded 15 or so types of alternations in so-called strong verbs in Old French. For example, diphthongized to before nasal stops in stressed, open syllables but not in unstressed syllables, yielding "aim" "I love" ( "amō") but "amons" "we love" ( "amāmus").


title: Old French

text: In Modern French, the verbs in the "-er" class have been systematically levelled. Generally, the "weak" (unstressed) form predominates, but there are some exceptions (such as modern "aimer"/"nous aimons"). The only remaining alternations are in verbs like "acheter"/"j'achète" and "jeter"/"je jette", with unstressed alternating with stressed and in (largely-learned) verbs like "adhérer/j'adhère", with unstressed alternating with stressed . Many of the non-"er" verbs have become obsolete, and many of the remaining verbs have been levelled; however, a few alternations remain in what are now known as irregular verbs, such as "je tiens", "nous tenons"; "je dois", "nous devons" and "je meurs", "nous mourons".


title: Old French

text: Some verbs had a more irregular alternation between different-length stems, with a longer, stressed stem alternating with a shorter, unstressed stem. That was a regular development stemming from the loss of unstressed intertonic vowels, which remained when they were stressed:


title: Old French

text: Both stems have become full verbs in Modern French: "déjeuner" "to have lunch" and "dîner" "to dine". Furthermore, "déjeuner" does not derive directly from "je desjun" (< "*disi(ēi)ūnō", with total loss of unstressed "-ēi-"). Instead, it comes from "desjeüner", based on the alternative form "je desjeün" (< "*disiē(i)ūnō", with loss of only "-i-", likely influenced by "jeûner" "to fast" < "jeüner" < "je jeün" "I fast" < "iē(i)ūnō": "iē-" is an initial rather than intertonic so the vowel "-ē-" does not disappear).


title: Old French

text: Adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections are generally invariable. Pronouns are usually declinable.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: The siege of Vicksburg (May 18 – July 4, 1863) was the final major military action in the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate Army of Mississippi, led by Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton, into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.