A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Zenobia

W >> William Ware >> Zenobia




'Dogs!' fiercely shouted Antiochus--who, as the Queen said these words,
her eyes fastened indignantly upon him, had slunk sulkily to his
seat--'dogs,' said he, aiming suddenly to brave the matter, 'off with
yonder carrion!--it offends the Queen.'

'Would our cousin,' said Zenobia, 'win the hearts of Palmyra, this surely
is a mistaken way. Come, let us to the palace. This spot is tainted. But
that it may he sweetened as far as may be, slaves!' she cried, 'bring to
the gates the chariot, and other remaining chattels of Antiochus!'

Antiochus, at these words, pale with the apprehensions of a cowardly
spirit, rose and strode toward the palace, from which, in a few moments,
he was seen on his way to the city.

'You may judge me needlessly harsh, Piso,' said the Queen, as we now
sauntered toward the palace, 'but truly the condition of the slave is
such, that seeing the laws protect him not, we must do something to enlist
in his behalf the spirit of humanity. The breach of courtesy, however, was
itself not to be forgiven.'

'It was a merciful fate of the slave,' said I, 'compared with what our
Roman slaves suffer. To be lashed to death, or crucified, or burned, or
flayed alive, or torn by dogs, or thrown as food for fishes, is something
worse than this quick exit of the thrall of Antiochus. You of these softer
climes are in your natures milder than we, and are more moved by scenes
like this. What would you think, Queen, to see not one, but scores or
hundreds of these miserable beings, upon bare suspicion of attempts
against their master's life, condemned, by their absolute irresponsible
possessors, to death in all its most revolting forms? Nay, even our Roman
women, of highest rank, and gentlest nurture, stand by while their slaves
are scourged, or themselves apply the lash. If under this torture they
die, it is thought of but as of the death of vermin. War has made with us
this sort of property of so cheap possession, that to destroy it is often
a useful measure of economy. By a Roman, nothing is less regarded than
life. And in truth, I see not how it can be otherwise.'

'But surely,' said Julia, 'you do not mean to defend this condition of
life. It is not like the sentiments I have heard you express,'

'I defend it only thus,' I replied: 'so long as we have wars--and when
will they cease?--there must be captives; and what can these be but
slaves? To return them to their own country, were to war to no purpose. To
colonize them were to strip war of its horrors. To make them freemen of
our own soil, were to fill the land with foes and traitors. Then if there
must be slaves, there must be masters and owners. And the absolute master
of other human beings, responsible to no one, can be no other than a
tyrant. If he has, as he must have, the power to punish at will, he will
exercise it, and that cruelly. If he has the power to kill, as he must
have, then will he kill and kill cruelly when his nature prompts. And this
his nature will prompt, or if not his nature absolutely, yet his educated
nature. Our children grow up within the sight and sound of all the horrors
and sufferings of this state of things. They use their slaves--with which,
almost in infancy, they are provided--according to their pleasure--as
dogs, as horses; they lash, they scourge them, long before they have the
strength to kill. What wonder if the boy, who, when a boy, used a slave
as his beast of burden, or his footstool, when he grows to be a man,
should use him as a mark to be shot at? The youth of Antiochus was reared
in Rome. I presume to say that his earliest play-things were slaves, and
the children of slaves. I am not surprised at his act. And such acts are
too common in Rome for this to disturb me much. The education of Antiochus
was continued and completed, I may venture also to say, at the circus. I
think the result very natural. It cannot be very different, where slavery
and the sports of the amphitheatre exist.'

'I perceive your meaning,' said Julia; 'Antiochus you affirm to be the
natural product of the customs and institutions which now prevail. It is
certainly so, and must continue so, until some new element shall be
introduced into society, that shall ultimately reform its practices, by
first exalting the sentiments and the character of the individual. Such an
element do I detect----'

'In Christianity,' said Fausta; 'this is your panacea. May it prove all
you desire; yet methinks it gives small promise, seeing it has already
been at work more than two hundred years, and has accomplished no more.'

'A close observer,' replied Julia, 'sees much of the effect of
Christianity beside that which appears upon the surface. If I err not
greatly, a few years more will reveal what this religion has been doing
these two centuries and more. Revolutions which are acted out in a day,
have often been years or centuries in preparation. An eye that will see,
may see the final issue, a long time foreshadowed in the tendencies and
character of a preceding age.'

The princess uttered this with earnestness. I have reflected upon it. And
if you, my Curtius, will look around upon the state of the empire, you
will find many things to startle you. But of this another time.

Assembled in the evening in the court of the elephant, we were made to
forget whatever had proved disagreeable during the day, while we listened
to the 'Frogs,' read by Julia and Longinus.

The following day was appointed for the chase, and early in the morning I
was waked by the braying of trumpets, and the baying of dogs. I found the
Queen already mounted and equipped for the sport, surrounded by Zabdas,
Longinus, and a few of the nobles of Palmyra. We were soon joined by Julia
and Fausta. In order to insure our sport, a tiger, made fierce by being
for some days deprived of food, had the preceding evening been let loose
from the royal collection into the neighboring forests. These forests,
abounding in game, commence immediately, as it were, in the rear of the
palace. They present a boundless continuity of crag, mountain, and wooded
plain, offering every variety of ground to those who seek the pleasures of
the chase. The sun had not been long above the horizon when we sallied
forth from the palace gates, and from the smooth and shaven fields of the
royal demesne, plunged at once into the

* * * * *

It was a moment of inexpressible horror. At the same instant, our eyes
caught the form of the famished tiger, just in the act to spring from the
crag upon the unconscious Queen. But before we had time to alarm
Zenobia--which would indeed have been useless--a shaft from an unerring
arm arrested the monster midair, whose body then tumbled heavily at the
feet of Zenobia's Arab. The horse, rearing with affright, had nearly
dashed the Queen against the opposite rocks, but keeping her seat, she
soon, by her powerful arm and complete horsemanship, reduced him to his
obedience, though trembling like a terrified child through every part of
his body. A thrust from my hunting spear quickly despatched the dying
beast. We now gathered around the Queen.

* * * * *

Hardly were we arrived at the lawn in front of the palace, when a cloud of
dust was observed to rise in the direction of the road to Palmyra, as if
caused by a body of horse in rapid movement. 'What may this mean?' said
Zenobia: 'orders were strict, that our brief retirement should not be
disturbed. This indicates an errand of some urgency.'

'Some embassy from abroad, perhaps,' said Julia, 'that cannot brook delay.
It may be from your great brother at Rome.'

While we, in a sportive humor, indulged in various conjectures, an
official of the palace announced the approach of a Roman herald,
'who craved permission to address the Queen of Palmyra.' He was
ordered to advance.

In a few moments, upon a horse covered with dust and foam, appeared the
Roman herald. Without one moment's hesitancy, he saw in Zenobia the Queen,
and taking off his helmet, said, 'that Caius Petronius, and Cornelius
Varro, ambassadors of Aurelian, were in waiting at the outer gates of the
palace, and asked a brief audience of the Queen of Palmyra, upon affairs
of deepest interest, both to Zenobia and the Emperor.'

'It is not our custom,' said Zenobia in reply, 'when seeking repose, as
now, from the cares of state, to allow aught to break it. But we will not
be selfish nor churlish. Bid the servants of your Emperor draw near, and
we will hear them.'

I was not unwilling that the messengers of Aurelian should see Zenobia
just as she was now. Sitting upon her noble Arabian, and leaning upon her
hunting spear, her countenance glowing with a higher beauty than ever
before, as it seemed to me--her head surmounted with a Parthian
hunting-cap, from which drooped a single ostrich feather, springing from a
diamond worth a nation's rental, her costume also Parthian, and revealing
in the most perfect manner the just proportions of her form--I thought I
had never seen even her, when she so filled and satisfied the eye and the
mind--and, for that moment, I was almost a traitor to Aurelian. Had Julia
filled her seat, I should have been quite so. As it was, I could worship
her who sat her steed with no less grace, upon the left of the Queen,
without being guilty of that crime. On Zenobia's right were Longinus and
Zabdas, Gracchus, and the other noblemen of Palmyra. I and Fausta were
near Julia. In this manner, just as we had come in from the chase, did we
await the ambassadors of Aurelian.

Announced by trumpets, and followed by their train, they soon wheeled into
the lawn, and advanced toward the Queen.

'Caius Petronius and Cornelius Varro,' said Zenobia, first addressing the
ambassadors, and moving toward them a few paces, 'we bid you heartily
welcome to Palmyra. If we receive you thus without form, you must take the
blame partly to yourselves, who have sought us with such haste. We put by
the customary observances, that we may cause you no delay. These whom you
see are all friends or counsellors. Speak your errand without restraint.'

'We come,' replied Petronius, 'as you may surmises great Queen, upon no
pleasing errand. Yet we cannot but persuade ourselves, that the Queen of
Palmyra will listen to the proposals of Aurelian, and preserve the good
understanding which has lasted so long between the West and the East.
There have been brought already to your ears, if I have been rightly
informed, rumors of dissatisfaction on the part of our Emperor, with the
affairs of the East, and of plans of an eastern expedition. It is my
business now to say, that these rumors have been well founded. I am
further to say, that the object at which Aurelian has aimed, in the
preparations he has made, is not Persia, but Palmyra.'

'He does us too much honor,' said Zenobia, her color rising, and her eye
kindling; 'and what, may I ask, are specifically his demands, and the
price of peace?'

'For a long series of years,' replied the ambassador, 'the wealth of Egypt
and the East, as you are aware, flowed into the Roman treasury. That
stream has been diverted to Palmyra. Egypt, and Syria, and Bithynia, and
Mesopotamia, were dependants upon Rome, and Roman provinces. It is
needless to say what they now are. The Queen of Palmyra was once but the
Queen of Palmyra; she is now Queen of Egypt and of the East--Augusta of
the Roman empire--her sons styled and arrayed as Cæsars. By whatever
consent of former emperors these honors have been won or permitted, it is
not, we are required to say, with the consent of Aurelian. By whatever
service in behalf of Rome they may, in the judgment of some, be thought to
be deserved, in the judgment of Aurelian the reward exceeds greatly the
value of the service rendered. But while we would not be deemed insensible
to those services, and while he honors the greatness and the genius of
Zenobia, he would, he conceives, be unfaithful to the interests of those
who have raised him to his high office, if he did not require that in the
East, as in the West, the Roman empire should again be restored to the
limits which bounded it in the reigns of the virtuous Antonines. This he
holds essential to his own honor, and the glory of the Roman world.'

'You have delivered yourself, Caius Petronius,' replied the Queen, in a
calm and firm voice, 'as it became a Roman to do, with plainness, and as I
must believe, without reserve. So far I honor you. Now hear me, and as you
hear, so report to him who sent you. Tell Aurelian that what I am, I have
made myself; that the empire which hails me Queen has been moulded into
what it is by Odenatus and Zenobia; it is no gift, but an inheritance--a
conquest and a possession; it is held, not by favor, but by right of birth
and power; and that when he will give away possessions or provinces which
he claims as his or Rome's, for the asking, I will give away Egypt and
the Mediterranean coast. Tell him that as I have lived a queen, so, the
gods helping, I will die a queen,--that the last moment of my reign and
my life shall be the same. If he is ambitious, let him be told that I am
ambitious too--ambitious of wider and yet wider empire--of an unsullied
fame, and of my people's love. Tell him I do not speak of gratitude on the
part of Rome, but that posterity will say, that the Power which stood
between Rome and Persia, and saved the empire in the East, which avenged
the death of Valerian, and twice pursued the king of kings as far as the
gates of Ctesiphon, deserved some fairer acknowledgment than the message
you now bring, at the hands of a Roman emperor.'

'Let the Queen,' quickly rejoined Petronius, but evidently moved by what
he had heard, 'let the Queen fully take me. Aurelian purposes not to
invade the fair region where I now am, and where my eyes are rejoiced by
this goodly show of city, plain and country. He hails you Queen of
Palmyra! He does but ask again those appendages of your greatness, which
have been torn from Rome, and were once members of her body.'

'Your emperor is gracious indeed!' replied the Queen, smiling; 'if he may
hew off my limbs, he will spare the trunk!--and what were the trunk
without the limbs?'

'And is this,' said Petronius, his voice significant of inward grief,
'that which I must carry back to Rome? Is there no hope of a better
adjustment?'

'Will not the Queen of Palmyra delay for a few days her final answer?'
added Varro: 'I see, happily, in her train, a noble Roman, from whom, as
well as from us, she may obtain all needed knowledge of both the
character and purposes of Aurelian. We are at liberty to wait her
pleasure.'

'You have our thanks, Romans, for your courtesy, and we accept your
offer; although in what I have said, I think I have spoken the sense of
my people.'

'You have indeed, great Queen,' interrupted Zabdas with energy.

'Yet I owe it to my trusty counsellor, the great Longinus,' continued the
Queen, 'and who now thinks not with me, to look farther into the
reasons--which, because they are his, must be strong ones---by which he
supports an opposite judgment.'

'Those reasons have now,' said the Greek, 'lost much or all of their
force,'--Zabdas smiled triumphantly--'yet still I would advocate delay.'

'Let it be so then,' said the Queen; 'and in the meanwhile, let the
ambassadors of Aurelian not refuse the hospitalities of the Eastern Queen.
Our palace is yours, while it shall please you to remain.'

'For the night and the morning, we accept your offers; then, as strangers
in this region, we would return to the city, to see better than we have
yet done the objects which it presents. It seemed to us, on a hasty
glance, surrounded by its luxuriant plains, like the habitation of gods.
We would dwell there a space.'

'It shall be as you will. Let me now conduct you to the palace.'

So saying, Zenobia, putting spurs to her horse, led the way to the palace,
followed by a long train of Romans and Palmyrenes. The generous
hospitality of the tables closed the day and wore away the night.




Letter VII.



You will be glad to learn, my Curtius, that the time has now come, when I
may with reason look for news from Isaac, or for his return. It was his
agreement to write of his progress, so soon as he should arrive at
Ecbatana. But since he would consume but a very few days in the
accomplishment of his task, if, the gods helping, he should be able to
accomplish it at all, I may see him even before I hear from him, and, O
day thrice happy! my brother perhaps with him. Yet am I not without
solicitude, even though Calpurnius should return. For how shall I meet
him?--as a Persian, or a Roman?--as a friend, or an enemy? As a brother, I
can never cease to love him; as a public enemy of Rome, I may be obliged
to condemn him.

You have indeed gratified me by what you have said concerning the public
works in which the emperor is now engaged. Would that the erection of
temples and palaces might draw away his thoughts from the East. The new
wall, of so much wider sweep, with which he is now enclosing the city, is
well worthy the greatness of his genius. Yet do we, my Curtius, perceive
in this rebuilding and strengthening of the walls of Rome, no indication
of our country's decline? Were Rome vigorous and sound, as once, in her
limbs, what were the need of this new defence about the heart? It is to me
a confession of weakness, rather than any evidence of greatness and
strength. Aurelian achieves more for Rome by the strictness of his
discipline, and his restoration of the ancient simplicity and severity
among the troops, than he could by a triple wall about the metropolis.
Rome will then already have fallen, when a Gothic army shall have
penetrated so far as even to have seen her gates. The walls of Rome are
her living and moving walls of flesh. Her old and crumbling ramparts of
masonry, upon which we have so often climbed in sport, rolling down into
the surrounding ditch huge masses, have ever been to me, when I have
thought of them, pregnant signs of security and power.

The ambassadors, Petronius and Varro, early on the morning succeeding
their interview with the Queen, departed for the city. They were soon
followed by Zenobia and her train of counsellors and attendants. It had
been before agreed that the princess, Fausta, and myself, should remain
longer at the palace, for the purpose of visiting, as had been proposed,
the aged Christian hermit, whose retreat is among the fastnesses of the
neighboring mountains. I would rather have accompanied the Queen, seeing
it was so certain that important interviews and discussions would take
place, when they should be all returned once more to the city. I suppose
this was expressed in my countenance, for the Queen, as she took her seat
in the chariot, turned and said to me: 'We shall soon see you again in the
city. A few hours in the mountains will be all that Julia will require;
and sure I am that the wisdom of St. Thomas will more than repay you for
what you may lose in Palmyra. Our topics will relate but to worldly
aggrandizement--yours to more permanent interests.'

How great a pity that the love of glory has so fastened upon the heart of
this wonderful woman; else might she live, and reign, and die the object
of universal idolatry. But set as her heart is upon conquest and universal
empire throughout the East, and of such marvellous power to subdue every
intellect, even the strongest, to her will, I can see nothing before her
but a short and brilliant career, ending in ruin, absolute and complete.
Zenobia has not, or will not allow it to be seen that she has, any proper
conception of the power of Rome. She judges of Rome by the feeble
Valerian, and the unskilful Heraclianus, and by their standard measures
such men as Aurelian, and Probus, and Carus. She may indeed gain a single
battle, for her genius is vast, and her troops well disciplined and brave.
But the loss of a battle would be to her the loss of empire, while to Rome
it would be but as the sting of a summer insect. Yet this she does not or
will not see. To triumph over Aurelian is, I believe, the vision that
dazzles, deludes, and will destroy her.

No sooner had the Queen and her train departed, than, mounting our horses,
we took our way, Julia, Fausta, and myself, through winding valleys and
over rugged hills, toward the hermit's retreat. Reaching the base of what
seemed an almost inaccessible crag, we found it necessary to leave our
horses in the care of attendant slaves, and pursue the remainder of the
way on foot. The hill which we now had to ascend was thickly grown over
with every variety of tree and bush, with here and there a mountain stream
falling from rock to rock, and forcing its way to the valley below. The
sultry heat of the day compelled us frequently to pause, as we toiled up
the side of the hill, seating ourselves, now beneath the dark shadows of a
branching cedar or the long-lived terebinth, and now on the mossy banks of
a descending brook. The mingled beauty and wildness of the scene, together
with such companions, soon drove the Queen, Rome, and Palmyra, from my
thoughts. I could not but wish that we might lose our way to the hermit's
cave, that by such means our walk might be prolonged.

'Is it, I wonder,' said Fausta, 'the instruction of his religion which
confines this Christian saint to these distant solitudes? What a
singular faith it must be which should drive all who embrace it to the
woods and rocks! What would become of our dear Palmyra, were it to be
changed to a Christian city? The same event, I suppose, Julia, would
change it to a desert.'

'I do not think Christianity prescribes this mode of life, though. I do
not know but it may permit it,' replied the princess. 'But of this, the
Hermit will inform us. He may have chosen this retreat on account of his
extreme age, which permits him no longer to engage in the affairs of an
active life.'

'I trust for the sake of Christianity it is so,' added Fausta; 'for I
cannot conceive of a true religion inculcating, or even permitting
inactivity. What would become of the world, if it could be proved that the
gods required us to pass our days in retired contemplation?'

'Yet it cannot be denied,' said Julia, 'that the greatest benefactors of
mankind have been those who have in solitude, and with patient labor,
pursued truth till they have discovered it, and then revealed it to shed
its light and heat upon the world.'

'For my part,' replied Fausta, 'I must think that they who have sowed and
reaped, have been equal benefactors. The essential truths are instinctive
and universal. As for the philosophers, they have, with few exceptions,
been occupied as much about mere frivolities as any Palmyrene lady at her
toilet. Still, I do not deny that the contemplative race is a useful one
in its way. What I say is, that a religion which enjoined a solitary life
as a duty, would be a very mischievous religion. And what is more, any
such precept, fairly proved upon it, would annihilate all its claims to a
divine origin. For certainly, if it were made a religious duty for one man
to turn an idle, contemplative hermit, it would be equally the duty of
every other, and then the arts of life by which we subsist would be
forsaken. Any of the prevalent superstitions, if we may not call them
religions, were better than this.'

'I agree with you entirely,' said Julia; 'but my acquaintance with the
Christian writings is not such as to enable me to say with confidence that
they contain no such permission or injunction. Indeed some of them I have
not even read, and much I do not fully understand. But as I have seen and
read enough to believe firmly that Christianity is a divine religion, my
reason teaches me that it contains no precept such as we speak of.'

We had now, in the course of our walk, reached what we found to be a broad
and level ledge, about half way to the summit of the hill. It was a spot
remarkable for a sort of dark and solemn beauty, being set with huge
branching trees, whose tops were woven into a roof, through which only
here and there the rays of the fierce sun could find their way. The turf
beneath, unincumbered with any smaller growth of tree or shrub, was
sprinkled with flowers that love the shade. The upper limit of this level
space was bounded by precipitous rocks, up which ascent seemed difficult
or impossible, and the lower by similar ones, to descend which seemed
equally difficult or impossible.

'If the abode of the Christian is hereabouts,' we said, 'it seems well
chosen both for its security and the exceeding beauty of the various
objects which greet the eye.'

'Soon as we shall have passed that tumbling rivulet,' said Julia, 'it
will come into view.'

Upon a rude bridge of fallen trunks of trees, we passed the stream as it
crossed our path, and which then shooting over the edge of the precipice,
was lost among the rocks and woods below. A cloud of light spray fell upon
us as we stood upon the bridge, and imparted a most refreshing coolness.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.