I love how the first six miniatures are so all over the place in terms of time period and location. After finishing up in Scotland in the last post, we now jump on the Bad Squiddo blimp and land in Ancient Palmyra. Not today Palmyra unfortunately, as it is mostly destroyed. Dangit.

Empress Zenobia! 240 – 274[disputed]. This is a period I do not know a huge amount about… yet, so please do bear with me, and let me know what I get wrong! 300 years after Cleopatra, one of Zenobia’s claims to fame was that she was a descendent of the Egyptian Queen. Not a bad person to associate with in her situation, known for power and beauty!

Married to King Odaenathus, they ruled together successfully until his untimely demise – by poison. There were many suspects but the truth will never be known, so all we have is speculation. One suspect was Zenobia herself. What were her motives? Well his son by a previous marriage was above her in succession, and not long after the death she placed their son Vaballathus as King, with herself the Queen Regent. He was only 10 years old and most people have seen Game of Thrones by now and know how that goes.

Not much time passed before she decided to go against the Roman rule and forge an empire of her own. Zenobia forged a mighty campaign that saw the Palmyran Empire expand and engulf most of the Roman East, in a relatively short period of time. She was certainly not a passive leader and was reputed to be an expert on horseback and combat, and right there on the battlefield. An especially important victory was that of Egypt, where Rome’s supply of grain was from. Rome had been otherwise distracted around this time by other conflicts but then it turned it’s eye to Zenobia.

During this time, she had had currency minted with her own face on it, which I hard relate to as someone who keeps getting miniatures of herself sculpted. Annie coin?

Emperor Aurelian took exception to this challenger of Rome and a series of conflicts took place, which ended with Zenobia escaping on camelback but inevitably being captured. The rest is unknown – some say she took her own life a ‘la Cleopatra, others she was paraded through the streets draped in heavy jewellery in a mocking fashion. Another rumour is that she lived out the rest of her life fairly quietly married to a Roman, and had several more children. What do you think?

There is much more to her militaristic exploits but this is supposed to be a brief summary so I cut it short, but there is plenty of information out there if you were further interested. She appeared to be loved by the people, a good ruler, and ambitious and successful military leader, but Rome gets everyone in the end (Until it doesn’t)

Designing the Miniature

This has been a ride! Zenobia was the first miniature for this project that I attempted to design. It didn’t go down too great but really just needed some tweaks. I’ll show the first image with what I’ve changed it to.

Aside from the obvious difference of me figuring out sketching on a tablet better, it’s a much better design right? Also there are two years between these. I had a nice chat with Alan Marsh, our main sculptor (who will be doing all the community minis) about my terrible sketches, and he said he actually prefers the rougher, less accurate ones where he can “see my workings” at it conveys movement and what I’m going for better than anything too refined.

The pose looks a bit weird, I get it! It’s because it is based on this statue of Emperor Augustus, which looks much better from this side angle, I was originally looking at more of a face on and it didn’t show how the arm goes forward quite a bit.

In the changes to my design I’ve lifted the arm to make it less awkward and added more elements of Augustus such as the sceptre and robe. I entirely removed the armour, as it was a while ago I can’t remember why I decided on that armour, but I was determined to how her combat prestige. Now I believe this can be done without literal armour and weapons, but definitely an alternative figure down the line of her in full Palmyran battle gear would be brilliant, and of course a mounted version (camel or horse though?).

Why the Emperor pose? Women are often depicted quite conservative in this era of statue, and Zenobia was an Empress, though not officially recognised by Rome, she earned that! I’ve designed this figure to look perhaps as she would like to see her self portrayed, even though it was her son she was calling Caeser. It’s like a very very belated present for her! That arm forward pose is very much associated with military leaders, and has been in many eras (just look at Napoleon on that rearing horse!) so I wanted to reference that.

The head and torso are heavily based on this tomb statue called “The Beauty of Palmyra”. There are fantastically preserved tomb statues from Palmyra of this era, and the women often have this elaborate headpiece and veil. While Zenobia may have worn a different crown as leader, I really wanted to pay tribute to the people of Palmyra, such as this unknown lady, and the mixture of Palmyran and Roman influence I think, well, looks cool. This statue is the most elaborate I have found, so that is what I am basing it on. I appear to not be the first, as other artwork such as that by Angus Mcbride also seems to have been heavily influenced by it. And I’m all about that recognisable symbolism.

The robe has been simplified to more of a toga style wrap over a sleeveless vest. She is decorated in the bangles from the statue as well as a higher arm band in homage to her hero Cleopatra.

There are heckloads of jewellery because – she’s an Empress! Don’t worry about the detail, you’d be able to paint it gold then run a wash over it and BOOM, beautiful.

I believe my MK2 Zenobia is a vast improvement with not too many changes, what do you think? – Annie.