Talk:Vaballathus

message: This article, Ghassanids, has some Arabic speakers first arriving in Syria from Yemen in the 3rd century.
So why is the ruling class in the 3rd century using the language of recent immigrants? Why are they not using Aramaic or Greek, for example?
It just seems like false etymology to me.
Varlaam (talk) 21:43, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  His name is Arabic? 

message: Is there any evidence other than the coinage that Aurelian recognized Vaballathus?  Vaballathus putting Aurelian on his coins doesn't necessarily mean that Aurelian was OK with Vaballathus's rule; it could be Vaballathus's regime basically saying that they didn't have aspirations beyond the east and were willing to be co-rulers with Aurelian -- a peace offering, if you will.  It doesn't mean it was accepted by Aurelian. --Jfruh (talk) 13:20, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mutual recognition with Aurelian? 

message: This is a reply to User:Reem898 who posted on my talk page and I believe that the discussion will be more helpful here so that other users can read. Hello. The thing is with sources about Palmyra is that you have a general and a specialized source. We have hundreds of sources (monographs by different historians) calling Zenobia an Arab, Odaenathus an Arab...etc. Yet, when you go more into details, by using specialized sources, the image changes. For example, the source used to support that Vaballathus is an Arab is The Cambridge Ancient History, volume 12. The Crisis of Empire, AD 193-337, page 515, mentioning that Vaballathus was not the first Arab to assume the purple. This is a general statement without going into any detail discussing the actual ethnicity of a Palmyrene.
Now, when using specialized sources that focus on Palmyrene ethnicity, we see that the Palmyrenes had their own ethnicity. I have summarized all the arguments of the different scholars and provided all the necessary sources in the article of Palmyra under Palmyra#Ethnicity_of_classical_Palmyra. Regarding the origins of the Palmyrenes, they were Arabs, Arameans, Amorites, amongst others. However, on their inscriptions, they only identified as Palmyrene. There was, according to the specialized academic studies, no barriers restricting mixing between tribes, so that each Palmyrene was a mix of all three. For this, I recommend reading LES NOTABLES DE PALMYRE. Yon, Jean-Baptiste. Also, Gawlikowski, Michał (2003). "Palmyra: From a Tribal Federation to a City". In Kulturkonflikte im Vorderen Orient an der Wende vom Hellenismus zur Römischen Kaiserzeit. Orient-Archäologie. Vol. 11. 
More precisely on Vaballathus and a discussion of the ethnic connotations of his name, see Macdonald - ”Les Arabes en Syrie” or “La Penetration des Arabes en Syrie”. A Question of Perceptions:
*On page 310:
"Thirdly, Dussaud uses the onomastic argument, based on the assumption that names with Arabic etymologies can only be borne by people who are ethni¬ cally Arab. He quotes Cantineau as saying that when the collection of the Palmyrene onomasticon was completed one would find « une proportion importante de noms arabes » and his statement that « la famille qui, au IIIe siècle, fournira des rois à Palmyre est arabe à en juger par ses noms : Odainat, Hairân, Wahballat » I have discussed above the dangers of using names as a guide to ethnicity."
*On page 307 (the "above" referred to in the former passage):
"Only the Jews made the exclusive worship of a particular deity the mark of membership of a community and even they had constant trouble enforcing it. Religion is much less use as a marker among polytheists, for whom it was perfectly normal to worship new or strange deities, or those of the place in which they happened to find themselves. Why, for instance, are Allât, al-‘Uzza or Manawätü 9 regarded as « Arab » or « Arabian » deities ? The fact that they were worshipped in the Hijäz half a millennium after they appear among the Nabataeans or Palmyrenes is not evidence for their origins. Is it the etymology of their names ? But, as with personal names, once a name has been coined, its use cannot be restricted to a single linguistic community."
Lastly, the ethnicity of Odaenathus, the father of Vaballathus, has been discussed by specialists and the academic conclusion is that he was a Palmyrene, so an Arab-Aramean mix. I also summarized all those arguments with the required specialised academic sources in Odaenathus#Name,_family_and_appearance. In short, we need to distinguish between a passing remark regarding the ethnicity of a Palmyrene, and actual academic research going into details and providing convincing arguments based on primary sources and academic analyzation. So, a Palmyrene is almost always of an Arab origin, and also Aramean and maybe Amorite, and a Palmyrene cannot be ascribed to or claimed by one ethnicity. The only ethnicity the Palmyrenes themselves used in their inscriptions is Palmyrene.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 20:57, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arab