Palmyra is an ancient city in central Syria whose wealth came from trade caravans on the Silk Road. Its merchants built colonies across the Roman Empire, and the city produced distinctive art and monumental architecture, including the Great Colonnade and the Temple of Bel. In the 260s it was ruled by King Odaenathus, who defeated the Sasanian emperor, and then by his widow Zenobia, who rebelled against Rome and set up the Palmyrene Empire. Roman emperor Aurelian destroyed the city in 273, and it was later rebuilt at a smaller size. Its inhabitants spoke Palmyrene Aramaic and used Greek for trade and diplomacy.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.