Zenobia; or, the Fall of Palmyra by William Ware (latest ebook reader TXT) 📖

by exclamations of admiration or pity, or of indignation at Aurelian for so using her. But this happened not long. For when the Emperor's pride had been sufficiently gratified, and just there where he came over against the steps of the capitol, he himself, crowned as he was with the diadem of universal empire, descended from his chariot, and, unlocking the chains of gold that bound the limbs of the Queen, led and placed her in her own chariot--that chariot in which she had fondly hoped herself to enter Rome in triumph--between Julia and Livia. Upon this the air was rent with the grateful acclamations of the countless multitudes. The Queen's countenance brightened for a moment as if with the expressive sentiment, 'The gods bless you!' and was then buried in the folds of her robe. And when after the lapse of many minutes it was again raised and turned toward the people, every one might see that tears burning hot had coursed her cheeks, and relieved a heart which else might well have burst with its restrained emotion. Soon as the chariot which held her had disappeared upon the other side of the capitol, I extricated myself from the crowd and returned home. It was not till the shades of evening had fallen, that the last of the procession had passed the front of the capitol, and the Emperor reposed within the walls of his palace. The evening was devoted to the shows of the theatres.

Seven days succeeding this first day of the triumph have been devoted to games and shows. I attended them not, but escaping from the tumult and confusion of the city, passed them in a very different manner--you will at once conjecture where and with whom. It was indeed as you suppose in the society of Zenobia, Julia, and Livia.

What the immediate destination of the Queen was to be I knew not, nor did any seem to know even so late as the day of the triumph. It was only known that her treatment was to be lenient. But on the day after, it became public in the city, that the Emperor had bestowed upon her his magnificent villa, not far from Hadrian's at Tibur, and at the close of the first day of the triumph a chariot of Aurelian in waiting had conveyed her there. This was to me transporting news, as it will be to you.

On the evening of that day I was at Tibur. Had I been a son or a brother, the Queen could not have received me with more emotion. But I leave it to you to imagine the first moments of our interview. When our greetings were over, the first thought, at least the first question, of Zenobia was, concerning you and Gracchus. All her inquiries, as well as those of Julia, I was happily able to answer in the most exact manner, out of the fulness of your letter. When I had finished this agreeable duty, the Queen said,

'Our happiness were complete, as now it can be, could Fausta and Gracchus be but added to our numbers. I shall hope, in the lapse of days or months, to entice them away for a season from their melancholy home. And yet what better can I offer them here? There they behold their city in ruins; here their Queen. There they already detect some tokens of reviving life; here they would have before them but the picture of decay and approaching death. But these things I ought not to say. Piso, you will be glad to learn the purposes of Aurelian concerning Palmyra. He has already set apart large sums for the restoration of its walls and temples; and what is more and better, he has made Gracchus governor of the city and province, with liberal promises of treasure to carry into effect whatever designs he may conceive as most likely to people again the silent streets, and fill them with the merchants of the East and the West.'

'Aurelian, I am persuaded,' I replied, 'will feel upon him the weight of the strongest motives to do all that he can to repair the injuries he has inflicted. Then too, in addition to this, his nature is generous.'

'It is so,' said Julia. 'How happy if he had been less subject to his passions! The proofs of a generous nature you see here, Piso, every where around us. This vast and magnificent palace, with its extensive grounds, has he freely bestowed upon us; and here, as your eye has already informed you, has he caused to be brought and arranged every article of use or luxury found in the palace of Palmyra, and capable of transportation.'

'I could hardly believe,' I said, 'as I approached the great entrance, and beheld objects so familiar--still more, when I came within the walls and saw around me all that I had seen in Palmyra, that I was indeed in the vicinity of Rome, and had not been by some strange power transported suddenly to Asia. In the rash violence of Aurelian in Syria, and in this reparation, both here and there, of the evil he has committed to the farthest extent possible, you witness a genuine revelation of his character. Would that principle rather than passion were the governing power of his life!'

Although I have passed many days at Tibur, yet have I seen but little of Zenobia. She is silent and solitary. Her thoughts are evidently never with the present, but far back among the scenes of her former life. To converse is an effort. The lines of grief have fixed themselves upon her countenance; her very form and manner are expressive of a soul bowed and subdued by misfortune. Her pride seems no longer, as on the day of the triumph, to bear her up. It is Zenobia before me, but--like her own beautiful capital--it is Zenobia in ruins. That she suffers too from the reproaches of a mind now conscious of its errors I cannot doubt. She blames Aurelian, but I am persuaded she blames with no less severity herself. It is, I doubt not, the image of her desolated country rising before her, that causes her so often in the midst of discourse with us, or when she has been sitting long silent, suddenly to start and clasp her hands, and withdraw weeping to her apartments, or the seclusion of the garden.

'It will be long, very long,' Julia has said to me, 'before Zenobia will recover from this grief--if indeed she ever do. Would that the principles of that faith, which we have learned to believe and prize, were also hers! Life would then still place before her a great object, which now she wants. The past absorbs her wholly--the future is nothing. She dwells upon glories that are departed forever, and is able to anticipate no other, or greater, in this world--nor with certainty in any beyond it.'

I said, 'But doubtless she throws herself at this season upon her Jewish faith and philosophy. She has ever spoken of it with respect at least, if not with affection.'

'I do not,' Julia replied, 'think that her faith in Judaism is of much avail to her. She has found pleasure in reading the sacred books of the Jews, and has often expressed warmly her admiration of the great principles of moral living and of religious belief found in them; but I do not think that she has derived from them that which she conceives to be the sum of all religion and philosophy, a firm belief and hope of immortality. I am sure she has not. She has sometimes spoken as if such a belief possessed likelihood, but never as if she entertained it in the way the Christian does.'

* * * * *

You will rejoice, dear Fausta, to learn that Zenobia no longer opposes me; but waits with impatience for the day when I shall be an inmate of her palace.

What think you is the news to-day in Rome? No other and no less than this--which you may well suppose has for some time been no news to me--that Livia is to be Empress! It has just been made public by authority; and I despatch my letter that you may be immediately informed of it. It has brought another expression upon the countenance of Zenobia.

Curtius and Lucilia have this moment come in, and full of these tidings interrupt me--they with Portia wish to be remembered to you with affection. I shall soon write again--telling you then especially of my interviews with Aurelian, and of Probus. Farewell.

Note.

Piso, it will be observed, makes no mention of, nor allusion to, the story recorded by the historian Zosimus, of the Queen's public accusation of Longinus and the other principal persons of Palmyra, as authors of the rebellion, in order to save her own life. It is well known that Zenobia, chiefly on the authority of this historian, has been charged with having laid upon Longinus and her other counsellors, all the blame of the revolt, as if she had been driven by them against her will into the course she pursued. The words of Zosimus are as follows:

'Emisam rediit et Zenobiam cum suis complicibus pro tribunali stitit. Illa causas exponens, et eulpa semet eximens multos alios in medium protulit, qui cam veluti fæminam seduxissent; quorum in numero et Longinus erat.--Itidem alii quos Zenobia detulerat suppliciis adficiebatur.'

This is suspicious upon the face of it. As if Aurelian needed a formal tribunal and the testimony of Zenobia to inform him who the great men of Palmyra were, and her chief advisers. Longinus, at least, we may suppose, was as well known as Zenobia. But if there was a formal tribunal, then evidence was heard--and not upon one side only, but both. If therefore the statements of Zenobia were false, there were Longinus and the other accused persons, with their witnesses, to make it appear so. If they were true--if she had been overruled--led--or driven--by her advisers, then it was not unreasonable that punishment--if some must suffer--should fall where it did.

But against Zosimus may be arrayed the words of Aurelian himself, in a letter addressed to the Roman senate, and preserved by Pollio. He says,

'Nec ego illi (Zenobiæ) vitam conservassem nisi cam scissem multum Rom:
Reip. profuisse, quum sibi vel liberis suis Orientis servaret imperium.'

Aurelian here says that he would not have spared her life but for one reason, namely, that she had done such signal service to the republic, when either for herself or for her children she had saved the empire in the East. Aurelian spared her life, if he himself is to be believed, because of services rendered to Rome, NOT because by the accusation of others she had cleared herself of the charge of rebellion. Her life was never in any danger, if this be true; and unless it were, she of course had no motive to criminate Longinus in the manner related by Zosimus.

Longinus and his companions suffered therefore, not in consequence of any special accusation--it was not needed for their condemnation--but as a matter of course, because they were leaders and directors of the revolt. It was the usage of war.

Why are Pollio (the biographer of Zenobia) and Vopiscus (the biographer of Aurelian) and Zonaras all silent respecting so remarkable a point of the history of Zenobia? Pollio does not hesitate to say that she had been thought by some to have been partner in the crime of murdering Odenatus and his son Herod--a charge which never found credit in any quarter. Such a biographer surely would not have passed over in silence the unutterable baseness of Zenobia in the accusation of Longinus, if he had ever heard of it and had esteemed it to have come to him as well vouched at least as the other story. Omission under such circumstances is good evidence that it came to him not so well vouched--that is, not vouched at all.

Supposing Zenobia to have been guilty of the crime laid to her charge, could Aurelian have treated her afterwards in the way he did? He not only took her to Rome and gave her a palace at Tibur, and the state of a Queen, but according to some, [Footnote: Filiam (Zenobiæ) unam uxorem duxisse Aurellanum; cæteras nobilibus Romanis despondisee.--Zonoras, lib. xii. p. 480.] married one of her daughters. Could he have done all this had she been the mean, base and wicked woman Zosimus makes her out to be? The history of this same eastern expedition furnishes a case somewhat in point, and which may serve to show in what light he would probably have regarded Zenobia. Tyana, a city of Asia Minor,