Talk:Portraits of Odaenathus

Claim of "defeat of Shapur"

There are two obviously unsourced errors in this article.

Firstly the title "king of kings" was not copied from the Seleucids, it was a title the Achaemenid kings used for the first time, so did the subsequent Iranian empires; the Parthians and Sassanids. The Seleucids inherited this title after Alexander put the title on himself. The Palmyrans adopted many of the Persian customs, art and architecture, this was the reason for Odaenathus to adopt the title.

Secondly the claim in the article that Shapur got defeated by Odaenathus is without any source. Shapur never got defeated by Odaenathus in any battle. The paragraph below is from Kaveh Farrokh's book "Sassanian elite cavalry" regarding this:

"The Palmyrans had adopted Iranian riding costume and their cavalry forces were similar to those of the Sassanians, in that they used armored cavalry and lance-fighting techniques. Odenathus successfully attacked Shapur’s baggage train in Syria in c. AD 260/261 and pushed the Sassanians back into Persia. The successes of the Palmyrans against the Sassanians have been exaggerated by contemporary Roman, and some contemporary Western and Arab historians; Odenathns was not able to destroy the Sassanian military machine, or capture the capital Ctesiphon, nor did he succeed in freeing the recently captured Valerian from captivity. Nevertheless, the Sassanians proved unable to subdue the Palmyrans; they campaigned indecisively against them until AD 265. From the Sassanian perspective, however, this was a minor setback in comparison to the overwhelming victories against Rome’s best field armies. It was the elite lance-armed charging Savaran who proved decisive in the battles of Misiche, Barbalissos, and Carrhae-Edessa. It is interesting that Roman sources are mostly silent about these defeats (except regarding Valerian), a fact attributed to the Romans’ “tight control over media coverage”". 81.170.233.133 (talk) 14:30, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Regarding king of kings: correct, the Seleucids did not assume it, but it is incorrect that it was first assumed by the Achaemenids. The title, like many things different Iranian kingdoms had, was taken from Mesopotamia. The first king to assume the title was Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria (reigned 1233-1197 BC), where the title is: šar šarrāni.
Regarding the defeat: this is a long academic discussion that you can read here Odaenathus#Modern_scepticism.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 18:44, 25 April 2021 (UTC)