The success of Odenathus was in great measure ascribed to her incomparable prudence and fortitude. Their splendid victories over the Great King, whom they twice pursued as far as the gates of Ctesiphon, laid the foundation of their united fame and power. The armies which they commanded and the provinces which they had saved acknowledged not any other sovereigns than their invincible chiefs. The senate and people of Rome revered a stranger who had avenged their captive emperor, and even the insensible son of Valerian accepted Odenathus for his legitimate colleague. After a successful expedition against the Gothic plunderers of Asia the Palmyrenian prince returned to the city of Emesa in Syria. Invincible in war, he was there cut off by domestic treason, and his favorite amusement of hunting was the cause, or at least the occasion, of his death. His nephew Mæonius presumed to dart his javelin before that of his uncle; and, though admonished of his error, repeated his insolence. As a monarch and as a sportsman Odenathus was provoked, took away his horse--a mark of ignominy among barbarians--and chastised his rash youth by a short confinement. The offense was soon forgot, but the punishment was remembered; and Mæonius, with a few daring associates, assassinated his uncle in the midst of a great entertainment. Herod, the son of Odenathus, though not of Zenobia, a young man of soft and effeminate temper, was killed with his father. But Mæonius obtained only the pleasures of revenge by this bloody deed. He had scarcely time to assume the title of Augustus before he was sacrificed by Zenobia to the memory of her husband. With the assistance of his most faithful friends she immediately filled the vacant throne and governed with manly counsels Palmyra, Syria, and the East above five years. By the death of Odenathus, that authority was at an end which the senate had granted him only as a personal distinction; but his widow, disdaining both the senate and Gallienus, obliged one of the Roman generals who was sent against her to retreat into Europe with the loss of his army and his reputation.