Description: Close-up of Relief at Diocletian's Camp by atufft Send Photo to a FriendOn the west end of the Main Street in Palmyra is Diocletian's Camp, named appropriately for the Roman emperor. This was used as a Praetorian (judgment hall) by Diocletian but may have been a palace for princes of Palmyra prior to Roman occupation. Palmyra was alternately independent and captured by the Romans on the outer edge of the empire. The ambitious Zenobia, who's husband mysteriously died, attempted to assert independence after the unusual capture and death of Valerian, a Roman emperor. Zenobia's realm at its height stretched from the Bosphorus to Lower Egypt, but the Palmyran empire collapsed when Zenobia was captured in the desert by Emperor Aurelian. A terrific prize, she was ceremonially taken back for display in Rome in golden chains in 274 AD. The attempt to form an independent empire betweeen Persian and Rome was for many centuries an ambition by the merchant kings of Palymra, but after Aurelian, the city began a general decline as Aleppo and Damascus became more important.