Minneapolis Institute of Art

Rhadamistus Lowering Zenobia into the Araxes River

François-Nicolas Chifflart

Date

1856

Medium

Black chalk and charcoal heightened with white chalk on gray-green wove paper

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

The tale of Zenobia involves incest, intrigue, murder, and sacrifice. Zenobia was the daughter of Mithridates, the king of Armenia, and his wife, who was Mithridates’ niece and the daughter of the king of Iberia. Zenobia’s husband, Rhadamistus, also a son of the Iberian king, was thus the brother or half-brother of her mother. What could go wrong? In the year 51 CE, Rhadamistus smothered Mithridates to death and usurped his throne. He made Zenobia his queen and ruled Armenia from 51 to 55 CE, though his tenuous grasp on power led to his ouster by the neighboring Parthians. Rhadamistus and the pregnant Zenobia were driven out of Armenia, toward Iberia. The journey proved too arduous for Zenobia. Preferring an honorable death to the shame of capture, she begged Rhadamistus to kill her. Admiring her heroism, he stabbed her with his scimitar, then laid her in the current of the Araxe River. Rhadamistus fled home to Iberia. Barely alive, Zenobia was discovered by shepherds, who delivered her to the safety of the Parthian king. Meanwhile, Rhadamistus’s father had his son executed as a traitor. France, Europe

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