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

for a long time resisted all his attempts to reduce it. At length it was betrayed into his hands by one of its chief citizens, Heraclammon. How did Aurelian receive and treat him after entering the city? Let Vopiscus reply: 'Nam et Heraclammon proditorem patriæ suse sapiens victor occidit.'--'Heraclammon who betrayed his country the conqueror wisely slew.' But this historian has preserved a letter of Aurelian, in which he speaks of this same traitor:

'Aurelianus Aug: Mallio Chiloni. Occidi passus sum cujus quasi beneficio Tyanam recepi. Ego vero proditorem amare non potui; et libenter tuli quod eum milites occiderunt: neque enim mihi fidem servare potuisset qui patriæ non pepercit,' etc. He permits Heraclammon to be slain because he could not love a traitor, and because one who had betrayed his country could not be trusted--while Zenobia, if Zosimus is to be believed, whose act was of the same kind--only infinitely more base--he receives and crowns with distinguished honor, and marries her daughter!

'Zosime pretend,' says Tillemont, 'que ce fut Zenobie mesme qui se déchargea sur eux des choses don't on l'accusoit, (ce qui répondroit bien mal a cette grandeur d'ame qu'on lay attribue.')--Hist, des Emp. t. II. p. 212.

The evidence of Zosimus is not of so high a character as justly to weigh against a strong internal improbability, or the silence of other historians. Gibbon says of him, 'In good policy we must use the service of Zosimus without esteeming him or trusting him,' and repeatedly designates him as 'credulous,' 'partial,' 'disingenuous.' By Tillemont he is called a 'bad authority.'

Nothing would seem to be plainer, than that Aurelian spared Zenobia because she was a woman; because she was a beautiful and every way remarkable woman; and as he himself says, because she had protected and saved the empire in the East; and that he sacrificed Longinus and the other chief men of Palmyra, because such was the usage of war.

Page 122. Piso speaks of the prowess of Aurelian, and of the songs sung in the camp in honor of him. Vopiscus has preserved one of these.

'Mille mille, mille, decollavimus,
Unus homo mille decollavimus,
Mille vivat qui mille occidit.
Tantum vini habet nemo
Quantum fudit sanguinis. 'Mille Sarmatas, mille Francos
Semel et semel occidimus
Mille Persas quærimus.'

The two letters on pages 135 and 137, it will be observed, are nearly the same as those found in Vopiscus.

On page 172, Aurelian is designated by a soldier under the nick-name of 'Hand-to-his-Sword.' Vopiscus also mentions this as a name by which he was known in the army. 'Nam quum essent in exercitu duo Aureliani tribuni, hic, et alius qui cum Valeriano captus est, huic signum (cognomen) exercitus apposuerat "Mannus ad ferrum,"' &c.

Page 280. Piso represents Aurelian as wearing a crown. He was the first since the Tarquins who had dared to invest his brow with that symbol of tyranny. So says Aurelius Victor. 'Iste primus apud Romanos Diadema capiti innexuit; gemmisque et aurata omni veste, quod adhuc fere incognitum Romanis moribus videbatur, usus est.'

On the same page, in the account of the triumph, a chariot of Zenobia is stated to have been exhibited, in which it was her belief that she should enter Rome in triumph, which indeed had been made for that very purpose. This singular fact is confirmed by Vopiscus--'tertius, (currus) quem sibi Zenobia composuerat sperans se urbem Romanam cum eo visuram; quod eam non fefellit, nam cum eo urbem ingressa est victa et triumphata.'

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Zenobia, by William Ware