Editing Zenobia (section)

=====Culture=====
[[File:Colossi of Memnon May 2015 2.JPG|thumb|alt=Two huge statues of seated figures|The right [[Colossi of Memnon|colossus of Memnon]] was probably restored by Zenobia.]]
Zenobia turned her court into a center of learning, with many intellectuals and sophists reported in Palmyra during her reign.{{sfn|Andrade|2013|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=y6IaBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA335 335]}} As academics migrated to the city, it replaced classical learning centers such as Athens for Syrians.{{sfn|Andrade|2013|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=y6IaBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA335 335]}} The best-known court philosopher was [[Cassius Longinus (philosopher)|Longinus]],{{sfn|Southern|2008|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=DqMrR29Cc7MC&pg=PA95 95]}} who arrived during Odaenathus' reign and became Zenobia's tutor in ''[[paideia]]'' (aristocratic education).{{sfn|Southern|2008|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=DqMrR29Cc7MC&pg=PA96 96]}}{{sfn|Andrade|2013|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=y6IaBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA335 335]}} Many historians, including Zosimus, accused Longinus of influencing the queen to oppose Rome.{{sfn|Schneider|1993|p= 19}}{{sfn|Southern|2008|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=DqMrR29Cc7MC&pg=PA96 96]}} This view presents the queen as malleable,{{sfn|Southern|2008|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=DqMrR29Cc7MC&pg=PA96 96]}} but, according to Southern, Zenobia's actions "cannot be laid entirely at Longinus' door".{{sfn|Southern|2008|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=DqMrR29Cc7MC&pg=PA97 97]}} Other intellectuals associated with the court included [[Nicostratus of Trapezus]] and Callinicus of Petra.{{sfn|Andrade|2013|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=y6IaBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA336 336]}}

From the second to the fourth centuries, Syrian intellectuals argued that [[Ancient Greece#Culture|Greek culture]] did not evolve in [[Greece]] but was adapted from the [[Near East]].{{sfn|Andrade|2013|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=y6IaBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA336 336]}} According to [[Iamblichus]], the great Greek philosophers reused Near Eastern and Egyptian ideas.{{sfn|Andrade|2013|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=y6IaBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA337 337]}} 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.{{sfn|Andrade|2013|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=y6IaBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA337 337]}} 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.{{sfn|Andrade|2013|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=y6IaBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA336 336]}}

Zenobia embarked on several restoration projects in Egypt.{{sfn|Bowersock|1984|p= [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/basp/0599796.0021.001/38:4?page=root;size=100;view=image 32]}} 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.{{sfn|Bagnall|2004 |p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=5ig4uQC20_IC&pg=PA195 195]}} 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.{{sfn|Bowersock|1984|pp= 31, 32}}