Zenobia

The widow of Septimius Odenathus, she reigned as Queen of Palmyra from 267 to 272 as regent for her infant son Vaballathus. Something of a militant, she embarked on a campaign of conquests that eventually saw her as the ruler of much of Syria and Asia Minor. Her professed goal was to defend the Eastern portion of the Empire from Sassanid Empire, supposedly for the good of Rome, but really for her own power. By playing off Persia to the east against Rome to the west, she hoped to dominate them both.

In 269, she crushed an Egyptian who challenged Roman rule and proclaimed herself Queen of Egypt. She claimed to be descended from Cleopatra VII of Egypt and Mark Antony (and many modern historians believe she was), as well as Dido (the supposed founding queen of Carthage, according to the Aeneid) and declared herself the political heiress of both.

The Roman emperor Aurelian, with his policy of re-uniting the Roman Empire and acutely aware of the danger Zenobia posed, led a military campaign that resulted in the conquest of her kingdom in 272. Zenobia and her son were captured as they fled to seek aid from Persia. Aurelian brought her to Rome and paraded her in his triumph in 274, bond in gold chains. Aurelian, impressed by her beauty and dignity, later freed her, and granted her a villa in Tibur (now Tivoli, Italy), where she spent the rest of her life as a philosopher and socialite. Some historians (ancient and modern) believe she married a Roman senator and that they had children, so the line continued at  least into the 4th century.