Even as the wife of Odenathus, Zenobia was not inactive. She is said to have urged his bold attack on Persia, and she shared the longest marches of the soldiers when the campaign began. But she was soon the sole ruler of the East, in the interest, at first, of Rome. During the Persian war Odenathus quarrelled with a relative and officer, named Mæonius, and was only prevented by the intercession of his son, Herodes, from putting him to death. Herodes was the son of Odenathus by a former wife, and would be the natural heir to his dignity. The two sons whom Zenobia had borne him, Timolaus and Herennianus, were mere boys, but Zenobia had an older son, Vaballath, by a former husband. We can understand that there would be some jealousy in the family, now that the Roman purple and a practical sovereignty of the East were conferred on the “king of Palmyra.” Zenobia could not but dislike and despise Herodes. He adopted the voluptuous ways of the East, and received from his father, as an immediate share of his heritage, the jewels, silks, and fair ladies which he had detached from the baggage of Sapor when that monarch retired before him. Yet there is no ground for the assertion that Zenobia was privy to the conspiracy which removed Odenathus and Herodes. Mæonius was consulting his own ambition, as well as appeasing his hatred, in having them assassinated. For a moment Zenobia was in a position of some anxiety, but she acted with vigour. She thrust her son Vaballath--the “Historia Augusta” at first says her two younger sons, but afterwards corrects this--before the Palmyreans as the most worthy heir of the power of Odenathus, and Mæonius passes into a significant obscurity. Vaballath was declared Augustus, and Zenobia became “Queen of the East,” as she liked to call herself. The two younger boys were entitled Cæsars. Within a short time it was felt at Rome that a new and rival power had arisen in the East. The voluptuous Gallienus could at times start from his rose-strewn couches and the arms of his mistresses, and conduct an energetic raid upon the opponents of his Empire. The victories of Odenathus seem to have inspired one of these fits of vigour. The legions in Gaul had cast off their allegiance to their degraded ruler, put his son Saloninus to death, and chosen as Emperor their able and upright commander, Cassianus Postumus. Gallienus marched against him, pressed him hard for a time, and then returned to Rome to enjoy a magnificent triumph. One hundred white oxen, with gilded horns, two hundred white lambs, several hundred lions, tigers, bears, and other animals, and twelve hundred gladiators, in superb costumes, preceded his car. The more serious Romans looked on in disdain. Some of the mimes, or comedians, dressed as Persians, and went about in the procession, staring in each other’s faces, and saying that they were “looking for the Emperor’s father.” Gallienus had them burned alive.