I will now briefly trace the original history of the two kingdoms of Hira and Ghassan in the north of Arabia, both of which were Arab in their origin, and exercised a constant and important influence upon the Peninsula.
These States took their rise, subsequent to the Christian era, in the migratory impulse which led so many tribes to move northward from Yemen, and transplant themselves from the shores of the Indian sea to those of the Mediterranean, and along the banks of the Euphrates. The emigration of the AZDITES, an extensive tribe descended from Cahlan the brother of Himyar, has been already fixed as having occurred about the year 120 A.D. 1. One portion moved east towards Oman; the other passed northward through Najran and the Hedjaz to Syria, but left many off-shoots by the way, some of which commingled with the Bedouin tribes of Najd, while others settled at Mecca and Medina and played a prominent part in the subsequent history of those cities.
The CODHAITE tribe, descended from Himyar 2, inhabited Mahra a country to the east of Aden, where they were ruled by their own kings. At a period probably anterior to the movement of
the Azdites, this people, pressed by the Himyarite monarchy, and labouring under the difficulties occasioned by the great commercial changes, migrated to the neighbourhood of Mecca.
There they fell out with the local tribes, and finally dispersed themselves in various directions. The Bani Aslam settled north of Medina in the valley of Wadi-al-Cora: the Bani Kaib in Dumat-al-jandal on the Syrian border: the Bani Salih on the east of Palestine: the Bani Yazid in Mesopotamia: and the Tyam Allat in Bahrein. The dispersion took place towards the close of the second century.
About the same time, the BANI IYAD and other off-shoots of the famous Meccan tribe 3 (the ancestors of the Coreish,) spread themselves eastward in the Peninsula.
From each of these sources, certain bands of Azdite, Codhaite, and Meccan, Arabs, wandered towards Bahrein, where opposed in their eastward progress by the Persian Gulph, they combined together about the year 190 A.D., and, guided by the coast and by the southern bank of the Euphrates, alighted on the site of HIRA, a few miles north-west of the more modern Cufa. There, attracted by the rich and well watered vicinity, the strangers took up their abode, and about A.D. 200 laid the foundations of the city. The Arsacide monarchy was then crumbling under revolt and disastrous war; and the young colony, swelled by needy adventurers and desperate refugees from Arabia, grew unmolested rapidly into an important State. Another city not far distant from Hira, called Anbar, was either founded, or havinig been previously in existence was taken possession of; by the Arabs 4.
It appears that there was at first both an Adzits and a Codhaite chief, the former at Anbar, the latter at Hira. The rule of MALIK the Azdite was terminated by his son, who in the darkness mistook him for an enemy, and killed him with an arrow. The dying father repeated these touching lines; -
"Day after day I instructed him in the art of shooting; And, when his arm became strong, he tunmed against me his bow."
The incident shows with what detail even at that remote period the history of Hira has been preserved. As we advance, the detail becomes closer and more certain. The position of Hira, adjoining the empire of Persia, and on the highway to Syria, induced an early civilization and acquaintance with letters. Arab
poets frequented the court of Hira, and their effusions were prized and preserved. There was thus abundant opportunity of poetical as well as of public record; and both having been conveyed down to the era of Islam, the history of this kingdom deserves our confidence.
The parricide fled to Oman; and another son, JODZEIMA, succeeded to the government. During his reign the Sassanide dynasty arose in strength upon the ruins of the Arsacide. The Codhaite chief with his Bedonin followers spurned the claims of Persia upon their allegiance, and departed to Syria.
Thus Jodzeima and the Azdite party were left in undivided possession of Hira, which with its Arab tribes 5 became the willing vasal of the Persian king.
Jodzeima made frequent incursions into Arabia, and in one of them was overtaken and beaten by the army of the Himyar monarch, Hassan Tobba. But his greatest and most continued efforts were directed against the Arab allies of the Roman Empire in Syria.
As Persia looked for the allegiance of Hira and the eastern tribes, so Rome claimed as her allies or retainers the Arabs of Western Syria. In the struggle between the empires, the two Syrian tribes and the Mesopotamian Arabs were wont to fight on their respective sides. Thus rivalry and frequent warfare sprang up, fomented by the private enmities of the Arab clans, and often receiving unexpected illustration in the pages of Roman history.
It was after the middle of the second century, according to Arabian authority, that the Roman Emperor (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,) invested the chief of the Bani Samayda, Odenath with the sovereignty of Syrian Arabia. The third or fourth in descent from him was Amr son of Tzarib, whose kingdom extended to the Euphrates and embraced a portion of Mesopotamia. He waged war in the middle of the third century, with various success, against Jodzeima king of Hira, by whom he was at length killed.
His widow, 6 Zeid, avenged the death of Amr by inviting Jodzeima under pretence of marriage to her capital, where she put him to death. The Arab annals abound with marvellous tales of Zebba. She possessed a tunnel below the Euphrates, and on either bank a fortress, one commanded by herself, the other by her sister Zeinab. Her summer residence was Tadmor, or Palmyra.
The successor of Jodzeima (Amr son of Adi) resolved to revenge his murder, and by a stratagem introduced into the queen's citadel 2,000 warriors concealed as merchandize in
in bags lining across the backs of camels. Taken by surprise, Zebba fled to her river fortresses and, having in vain endeavoured to escape by one or the other, destroyed herself with a subtle poison which she always carried in a ring 7. With Zebba the dynasty of Odzeina fell into obscurity.
These details leave little doubt of the identity of Odenathus and his wife Zenobia of classical fame, with the Amr and Zebba of Arabic history. The family of Odenath, honoured with many immunities and illustrated by the royal suname of Septimius Severus, revolted against Rome, and about the middle of the third century declared Palmyra an independent government. Septimius Odenath, after hesitating betwixt the allegiance of Rome and Persia and on the captivity of Valerian inclining towards Sapor, at length entered upon a decisive struggle with Persia, and in several engagements vanquished the Persian armies, ravaged Mesopotamia, and covered himself with glory. By artful movements in a critical period of civil discord, he rendered essential service to the Emperor Gallienus, and was elevated as his colleague to the imperial purple. He was assassinated at Emessa by his nephew Maeonius 8.
But Zenobia killed the murderer
and after a short but splendid reign, and an opposition to the Roman army far from contemptible, fled from Palmyra and was made prisoner as she reached the Euphrates.
It can hardly be doubted tinat the Arabs and the Romans have styled the same hero by different appellations - the former by his proper name of Amr, the latter by his patronymic Odenath. As little need we hesitate to recognise in Zebba of Tadmor the Zenobia of Palmyra: beauty, chastity, commercial riches, acquaintance with the
tongues of Syria, Greece, Italy and Egypt, and many other particulars common to both, point to one and the same individual 9. The Arabian Zebba perished in a fruitless attempt to escape from her river battlements; the Roman heroine was captured as she was about to cross the Euphrates in a boat. But the Arabs mistook the enemy of Zenobia; it was not the king of Him, but the Emperor of Rome 10.
We return to Jedzeima, the Prince of Hira. His daughter married Adi son of Rabia, the Lakhmite king of Yemen, (who emigrated with his family to Irac 205 A.D. 11 ) and
