Palmyra's most famous ruler was a queen who briefly carved an empire out of Rome's own territory, centuries before the temple built to honour the city's gods was destroyed by a very different kind of conqueror.
A queen who broke from Rome
In the third century CE, Zenobia, ruling Palmyra as regent for her young son, led a rebellion against Roman authority, rapidly expanding Palmyrene control over Egypt and large parts of Roman Syria and Anatolia before the emperor Aurelian defeated her forces and captured the city in 272 CE, ending Palmyra's brief period as the centre of an independent breakaway power.
What ISIS destroyed
During its occupation of Palmyra beginning in 2015, Islamic State fighters destroyed the Temple of Bel, one of the best-preserved major religious structures from the ancient world, along with the Arch of Triumph and other monuments, filming and publicising the destruction as a deliberate ideological statement rather than incidental war damage.
As this entry's companion article covers
The archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad, who was killed after refusing to disclose the locations of hidden antiquities to the occupying forces, is addressed directly in this entry's companion article rather than repeated here.