Julius Aurelius Zenobius appears on a Palmyrene inscription as a strategos of Palmyra in 231–232; based on the similarity of the names, Zenobius was suggested as Zenobia's father by the numismatist Alfred von Sallet and others. The archaeologist William Waddington argued in favor of Zenobius' identification as the father, assuming that his statue stood opposite to where the statue of the queen stood in Great Colonnade. However, the linguist Jean-Baptiste Chabot pointed out that Zenobius' statue stood opposite to that of Odaenathus not Zenobia and rejected Waddington's hypothesis. The only "gentilicium" appearing on Zenobia's inscriptions was "Septimia" (not "Julia Aurelia", which she would have borne if her father's "gentilicium" was Aurelius), and it cannot be proven that the queen changed her "gentilicium" to Septimia after her marriage.