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Zenobia

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'One word if it please you,' said Isaac, 'before I depart. The gentile
despises the Jew. He charges upon him usury and extortion. He accuses him
of avarice. He believes him to subsist upon the very life blood of
whomsoever he can draw into his meshes. I have known those who have firm
faith that the Jew feeds but upon the flesh and blood of Pagan and
Christian infants, whom, by necromantic power, he beguiles from their
homes. He is held as the common enemy of man, a universal robber, whom
all are bound to hate and oppress. Reward me now with your belief,
better than even the two gold talents I have earned, that all are not
such. This is the charity, and all that I would beg; and I beg it of you,
for that I love you all, and would have your esteem. Believe that in the
Jew there is a heart of flesh as well as in a dog. Believe that some
noble ambition visits his mind as well as yours. Credit it not--it is
against nature--that any tribe of man is what you make the Jew. Look upon
me, and behold the emblem of my tribe. What do you see? A man bent with
years and toil; this ragged tunic his richest garb; his face worn with
the storms of all climates; a wanderer over the earth; my home--Piso,
thou hast seen it--a single room, with my good dromedary's furniture for
my bed at night, and my seat by day; this pack my only apparent wealth.
Yet here have I now received two gold talents of Jerusalem!--what most
would say were wealth enough, and this is not the tythe of that which I
possess. What then? Is it for that I love obscurity, slavery, and a
beggar's raiment, that I live and labor thus, when my wealth would raise
me to a prince's state? Or is it that I love to sit and count my hoarded
gains? Good friends, for such you are, believe it not. You have found me
faithful and true to my engagements; believe my word also. You have heard
of Jerusalem, once the chief city of the East, where stood the great
temple of our faith, and which was the very heart of our nation, and you
know how it was beleaguered by the Romans, and its very foundations
rooted up, and her inhabitants driven abroad as outcasts, to wander over
the face of the earth, with every where a country, but no where a home.
And does the Jew, think you, sit down quietly under these wrongs?
Trajan's reign may answer that. Is there no patriotism yet alive in the
bosom of a Jew? Will every other toil and die for his country and not the
Jew? Believe me again, the prayers which go up morning, noon and night,
for the restoration of Jerusalem, are not fewer than those which go up
for Rome or Palmyra. And their deeds are not less; for every prayer there
are two acts. It is for Jerusalem! that you behold me thus in rags, and
yet rich. It is for her glory that I am the servant of all and the scorn
of all, that I am now pinched by the winters of Byzantium, now scorched
by the heats of Asia, and buried beneath the sands of the desert. All
that I have and am is for Jerusalem. And in telling you of myself, I have
told you of my tribe. What we do and are is not for ourselves, but for
oar country. Friends, the hour of our redemption draweth nigh. The
Messiah treads in the steps of Zenobia! and when the East shall behold
the disasters of Aurelian--as it will--it will behold the restoration of
that empire, which is destined in the lapse of ages to gather to itself
the glory and dominion of the whole earth.'

Saying these words, during which he seemed no longer Isaac the Jew, but
the very Prince of the Captivity himself, he turned and took his
departure.

Long and earnest conversation now ensued, in which we received from
Calpurnius the most exact accounts of his whole manner of life during
his captivity; of his early sufferings and disgraces, and his late
honors and elevation; and gave in return similar details concerning the
history of our family and of Rome, during the same period of time. I
will not pretend to set down the narrative of Calpurnius. It was
delivered with a grace which I can by no means transfer to these pages.
I trust you may one day hear it from his own lips. Neither can I tell
you how beautiful it was to see Fausta hanging upon his words, with a
devotion that made her insensible to all else--her varying color and
changing expression showing how deeply she sympathized with the
narrator. When he had ended, and we had become weary of the excitement
of this first interview, Fausta proposed that we should separate to meet
again at supper. To this we agreed.

According to the proposal of Fausta, we were again, soon as evening had
come, assembled around the table of the princely Gracchus.

When we had partaken of the luxuries of the feast, and various lighter
discourse had caused the time to pass by in an agreeable manner, I said
thus, turning to my brother:

'I would, Calpurnius, that the temper of one's mind could as easily be
changed as one's garments. You now seem to me, having put off your Persian
robes, far more like Piso than before. Your dress, though but in part
Roman and part Palmyrene, still brings you nearer. Were it wholly Roman it
were better. Is nothing of the Persian really put off, and nothing of the
Roman put on, by this change?'

'Whatever of the Persian there was about me,' replied Calpurnius, 'I am
free to say I have laid aside with my Persian attire. I was a Persian not
by choice and preference, I need scarcely assure you, but by a sort of
necessity, just as it was with my costume. I could not procure Roman
clothes if I would. I could not help too putting off the Roman--seeing how
I was dealt by--and putting on the Persian. Yet I part with whatever of
the Persian has cleaved to me without reluctance--would it were so that I
could again assume the Roman--but that can never be. But Isaac has already
told you all.'

'Isaac has indeed informed me in his letter from Ecbatana, that you had
renounced your country, and that it was the expectation of war with Rome
that alone had power to draw you from your captivity. But I have not
believed that you would stand by that determination. The days of
republican patriotism I know are passed, but even now under the empire our
country has claims and her children owe her duties.'

'The figure is a common one,' Calpurnius answered, 'by which our country
is termed a parent, and we her children. Allow it just. Do I owe obedience
to an unjust or tyrannical parent? to one who has abandoned me in
helplessness or exposed me in infancy? Are not the natural ties then
sundered?'

'I think not,' I replied; 'no provocation nor injury can justify a
parricidal blow. Our parent is our creator--in some sense a God to us. The
tie that binds us to him is like no other tie; to do it violence, is not
only a wrong, but an impiety.'

'I cannot think so,' he rejoined. 'A parent is our creator, not so much
for our good as his own pleasure. In the case of the gods this is
reversed: they have given us being for our advantage, not theirs. We lie
under obligation to a parent then, only as he fulfils the proper duties of
one. When he ceases to be virtuous, the child must cease to respect. When
he ceases to be just, or careful, or kind, the child must cease to love.
And from whomsoever else then the child receives the treatment, becoming a
parent, that person is to him the true parent. It is idle to be governed
by names rather than things; it is more, it is mischievous and injurious.'

'I still am of opinion,' I replied, 'that nature has ordained what I have
asserted to be an everlasting and universal truth, by the instincts which
she has implanted. All men, of all tribes, have united in expressions of
horror against him who does violence to his parents. And have not the
poets truly painted, when they have set before us the parricide, forever
after the guilty act, pursued by the Furies, and delivered over to their
judicial torments?'

'All instincts,' he replied, 'are not to be defended: some animals devour
their own young as soon as born. Vice is instinctive. If it be instinctive
to honor, and love, and obey a vicious parent, to be unresisting under the
most galling oppression, then I say, the sooner reason usurps the place of
instinct the safer for mankind. No error can be more gross or hurtful,
than to respect vice because of the person in whom it is embodied, even
though that person be a parent. Vice is vice, injustice is injustice,
wrong is wrong, wheresoever they are found; and are to be detested and
withstood. But I might admit that I am in an error here; and still
maintain my cause by denying the justice of the figure by which our
country is made our parent, and our obligations to her made to rest on the
same ground. It is mere fancy, it is a nullity, unless it be true, as I
think it is, that it has been the source of great mischiefs to the world,
in which case it cannot be termed a nullity, but something positively
pernicious. What age of the world can be named when an insane devotion to
one's country has not been the mother of war upon war, evil upon evil,
beyond the power of memory to recount? Patriotism, standing for this
instinctive slavery of the will, has cursed as much as it has blessed
mankind. Men have not reasoned, they have only felt: they have not
inquired, is the cause of my country just--but is it her cause? That has
ever been the cry in Rome. "Our country! our country!--right or wrong--our
country!" It is a maxim good for conquest and despotism; bad, for peace
and justice. It has made Rome mistress of the world, and at the same time
the scourge of the world, and trodden down into their own blood-stained
soil the people of many a clime, who had else dwelt in freedom. I am no
Roman in this sense, and ought never to have been. Admit that I am not
justified in raising my hand against the life of a parent--though if I
could defend myself against violence no otherwise, I should raise that
hand--I will never allow that I am to approve and second with my best
blood all the acts of my country; but when she errs am bound, on the other
hand, to blame, and if need be oppose. Why not? What is this country? Men
like myself. Who enact the decrees by which I am to be thus bound?
Senators, no more profoundly wise perhaps, and no more irreproachably
virtuous, than myself. And do I owe their judgments, which I esteem false,
a dearer allegiance than I do to my own, which I esteem right and true?
Never: such patriotism is a degradation and a vice. Rome, Lucius, I think
to have dealt by me and the miserable men who, with me, fell into the
hands of Sapor, after the manner of a selfish, cold-hearted, unnatural
parent, and I renounce her, and all allegiance to her. I am from this hour
a Palmyrene, Zenobia is my mother, Palmyra my country.'

'But,' I could not but still urge, 'should no distinction be made between
your country and her emperor? Is the country to rest under the imputation
which is justly perhaps cast upon him? That were hardly right. To renounce
Gallienus, were he now emperor, were a defensible act: But why Rome or
Aurelian?'

'I freely grant, that had a just emperor been put upon the throne, a man
with human feelings, the people, had he projected our rescue or revenge,
would have gone with him. But how is their conduct to be defended during
the long reign of the son of Valerian? Was such a people as the people of
Rome to conform their minds and acts to a monster like him? Was that the
part of a great nation? Is it credible that the senate and the people
together, had no power to compel Gallienus to the performance of his
duties to his own father, and the brave legions who fell with him? Alas!
they too wanted the will.'

'O not so, Calpurnius,' I rejoined; 'Gallienus wished the death or
captivity of his father, that he might reign. To release him was the last
act that wretch could have been urged to do. And could he then have been
made to interpose for the others? He might have been assassinated, but all
the power of Rome could not have compelled him to a war, the issue of
which might have been, by the rescue of Valerian, to lose him his throne.'

'Then he should have been assassinated. Rome owed herself a greater duty
than allegiance to a beast in human form.'

'But, Galpurnius, you now enjoy your liberty. Why consider so curiously
whence it comes? Besides, you have, while in Persia, dwelt in comfort, and
at last even in magnificence. The Prince himself has been your companion
and friend.'

'What was it,' he replied, 'what was it, when I reflected upon myself, but
so much deeper degradation, to find that in spite of myself I was every
day sinking deeper and deeper in Persian effeminacy? What was it but the
worst wretchedness of all to feel as I did, that I, a Roman and a Piso,
was losing my nature as I had lost my country? If any thing served to turn
my blood into one hot current of bitterness and revenge, it was this. It
will never cool till I find myself, sword in hand, under the banners of
Zenobia. Urge me no more: it were as hopeful an endeavor to stem the
current of the Euphrates, as to turn me from my purpose. I have reasoned
with you because you are a brother, not because you are a Roman.'

'And I,' I replied, 'can still love you, because you are a brother, nor
less because you are also a Palmyrene. I greet you as the head of our
house, the elder heir of an illustrious name. I still will hope, that when
these troubles cease, Rome may claim you as her own.'

'No emperor,' he answered, 'unless he were a Piso, I fear, would permit a
renegade of such rank ever to dwell within the walls of Rome. Let me
rather hope, that when this war is ended, Portia may exchange Rome for
Palmyra, and that here, upon this fair and neutral ground, the Pisos may
once more dwell beneath the same roof.'

'May it be so,' said Gracchus; 'and let not the heats of political
opposition change the kindly current of your blood, nor inflame it. You,
Lucius Piso, are to remember the provocations of Calpurnius, and are to
feel that there was a nobleness in that sensibility to a declension into
Persian effeminacy that, to say the least, reflects quite as much honor
upon the name of Piso, and even Roman, as any loyalty to an emperor like
Gallienus, or that senate filled with his creatures. And you, Calpurnius
Piso, are to allow for that instinctive veneration for every thing Roman
which grows up with the Roman, and even in spite of his better reason
ripens into a bigotry that deserves the name of a crime rather than a
virtue, and are to consider, that while in you the growth of this false
sentiment has been checked by causes, in respect to which you were the
sport of fortune, so in Lucius it has been quickened by other causes over
which he also was powerless. But to utter my belief, Lucius I think is now
more than half Palmyrene, and I trust yet, if committed as he has been to
the further tuition of our patriot Fausta, will be not only in part, but
altogether of our side.'

'In the mean time, let us rejoice,' said Fausta, 'that the noble
Calpurnius joins our cause. If we may judge by the eye, the soft life of a
Persian Satrap has not quite exhausted the native Roman vigor.'

'I have never intermitted,' replied Calpurnius, 'martial exercises:
especially have I studied the whole art of horsemanship, so far as the
chase and military discipline can teach it. It is in her cavalry, as I
learn, that Zenobia places her strength: I shall there, I trust, do her
good service.'

'In the morning,' said Fausta, 'it shall be my office to bring you before
our Queen.'

'And now, Fausta,' said Gracchus,'bring your harp, and let music perfect
the harmony which reason and philosophy have already so well begun;
music--which for its power over our souls, may rather be held an influence
of the gods, a divine breathing, than any thing of mortal birth.'

'I fear,' said Fausta, as she touched the instrument--the Greek and not
the Jewish harp--'I shall still further task your philosophy; for I can
sing nothing else than the war-song, which is already heard all through
the streets of Palmyra, and whose author, it is said, is no less than our
chief spirit, Longinus. Lucius, you must close your ears.'

'Never, while your voice sounds, though bloody treason were the
only burden.'

'You are a gentle Roman.'

Then after a brief but fiery prelude, which of itself struck by her
fingers was enough to send life into stones, she broke forth into a
strain, abrupt and impassioned, of wild Pindaric energy, that seemed the
very war-cry of a people striking and dying for liberty. Her voice,
inspired by a soul too large for mortal form, rang like a trumpet through
the apartment, and seemed to startle the gods themselves at their feast.
As the hymn moved on to its perfect close, and the voice of Fausta
swelled with the waxing theme, Calpurnius seemed like one entranced;
unconsciously he had left his seat, and there, in the midst of the room,
stood before the divine girl converted to a statue. As she ceased, the
eyes of Calpurnius fell quickly upon me, with an expression which I
instantly interpreted, and should have instantly returned, but that we
were all alike roused out of ourselves by the loud shouts of a multitude
without the palace, who apparently had been drawn together by the
far-reaching tones of Fausta's voice, and who, as soon as the last
strings of the harp were touched, testified their delight by reiterated
and enthusiastic cries.

'When Zabdas and Zenobia fail,' said Calpurnius, 'you, daughter of
Gracchus, may lead the armies of your country by your harp and voice; they
would inspire not less than the fame of Cæsar or Aurelian.'

'But be it known to you. Piso,' said Gracchus, 'that this slight girl can
wield a lance or a sword, while centaur-like she grows to the animal she
rides, as well as sweep these idle strings.'

'I will learn of her in either art,' replied my brother. 'As I acknowledge
no instinct which is to bind me to an unjust parent, but will give honor
only where there is virtue, so on the field of war I will enlist under any
leader in whom I behold the genius of a warrior, be that leader man or
woman, boy or girl.'

'I shall be satisfied,' said Fausta, 'to become your teacher in music,
that is, if you can learn through the force of example alone. Take now
another lesson. Zenobia shall teach you the art of war.'

With these words she again passed her fingers over her harp, and after
strains of melting sweetness, prolonged till our souls were wholly subdued
to the sway of the gentler emotions, she sang in words of Sappho, the
praise of love and peace, twin-sisters. And then as we urged, or named to
her, Greek or Roman airs which we wished to hear, did she sing and play
till every sense was satisfied and filled.

It needs not so much sagacity as I possess to perceive the effect upon my
brother of the beauty and powers of Fausta. He speaks with difficulty when
he addresses her, and while arguing or conversing with me or Gracchus, his
eye seeks her countenance, and then falls as it encounters hers, as if he
had committed some crime. Fausta, I am sure, is not insensible to the many
rare and striking qualities of Calpurnius: but her affections can be given
only where there is a soul of very uncommon elevation. Whether Calpurnius
is throughout that, which he seems to be, and whether he is worthy the
love of a being like Fausta, I know not yet, though I am strong in faith
that it is so. In the mean time, a mutual affection is springing up and
growing upon the thin soil of the fancy, and may reach a quick and rank
luxuriance before it shall be discovered that there is nothing more
substantial beneath. But why indulge a single doubt? only, I suppose,
because I would rather Rome should fall than that any harm come to the
heart of Fausta.

* * * * *

It was a little after the noon of this day that the ambassadors, Petronius
and Varro, passed from out the gates of Palmyra, bearing with them a
virtual declaration of war.

The greatest excitement prevails. The streets are already filled with
sights and sounds admonitory of the scenes which are soon to be disclosed.
There is the utmost enthusiasm in every quarter, and upon every face you
behold the confidence and pride of those who, accustomed to conquest, are
about to extend their dominion over new territories, and to whom war is a
game of pleasure rather than a dark hazard, that may end in utter
desolation and ruin. Intrenched within these massy walls, the people of
this gay capital cannot realise war. Its sounds have ever been afar off,
beyond the wide sweep of the deserts; and will be now, so they judge--and
they are scarcely turned for a moment, or by the least remove, from their
accustomed cares or pleasures.




Letter XII.



I lament to hear of the disturbance among your slaves, and of the severity
with which you have thought it necessary to proceed against them. You will
bear me witness that I have often warned you that the cruelty with which
Tiro exercised his authority would lead to difficulties, if not to
violence and murder. I am not surprised to learn his fate: I am indeed
very free to say that I rejoice at it. I rejoice not that you are troubled
in your affairs, but that such an inhuman overseer as Tiro, a man wholly
unworthy the kindness and indulgence with which you have treated him,
should at length be overtaken by a just retribution. That the poison took
effect upon his wife and children I sincerely regret, and wish that some
other mode of destruction had been chosen, whose effects could have been
safely directed and limited, for I do not believe that the least ill-will
existed toward Claudia and her little ones. But rest satisfied, I beseech
you, with the punishments already inflicted: enough have been scourged,
put to the torture, and crucified: let the rest escape. Remember your
disposition, now indulgent, now tyrannical, and lay a restraint upon your
passions if you would save yourself from lasting regrets. It is some proof
that you are looking to yourself more than formerly, that so many have
been imprisoned to wait a further deliberation, and that you are willing
first to ask my opinion. Be assured that further crucifixions would serve
only to exasperate those who survive, and totally alienate them from you,
so that your own life instead of being the more safe, would be much less
so. They will be driven to despair, and say that they may as well
terminate their wretched lives in one way as another, and so end all at
once by an assault upon yourself and Lucilia, which, while it destroyed
you, and so glutted their revenge, could do no more than destroy them--a
fate which they dread now--but which at all times, owing to their
miseries, they dread much less than we suppose, and so are more willing
than we imagine to take the lives of their masters or governors, not
caring for death themselves. A well-timed lenity would now be an act of
policy as well as of virtue. Those whom you have reprieved, being
pardoned, will be bound to you by a sort of gratitude--those of them at
least who put a value upon their lives--and now that Tiro is fairly out of
the way, and his scourgings at an end, they will all value their lives at
a higher rate than before.

But let me especially intercede for Laco and Cælia, with their children.
It was they, who, when I have been at your farm, have chiefly attended
upon me; they have done me many acts of kindness beyond the mere duties
of their office, and have ever manifested dispositions so gentle, and so
much above their condition, that I feel sure they cannot be guilty of
taking any part in the crime. They have been always too happy, to put
their all at risk by such an attempt. Be assured they are innocent; and
they are too good to be sacrificed merely for the effect. There are
others, wretches in all respects, who will serve for this, if enough have
not already suffered.

When will sentiments of justice assert their supremacy in the human mind?
When will our laws and institutions recognise the rights inherent in every
man, as man, and compel their observance? When I reflect that I myself
possess, upon one only of my estates, five hundred slaves, over whom I
wield despotic power, and that each one of these differs not from myself
except in the position into which fortune and our laws have cast him, I
look with a sort of horror upon myself, the laws, and my country which
enacts and maintains them. But if we cannot at once new-model our
institutions and laws, we can do something. By a strict justice, and by
merciful treatment, we can mitigate the evils of their lot who are within
our own power. We can exercise the authority and temper of fathers, and
lay aside in a greater degree than we do, the air and manner of tyrant.
When upon the fields of every farm, as I ride through our interior, I hear
the lash of the task-master, and behold the cross rearing aloft its victim
to poison the air with foetid exhalations and strike terror into all who
toil within their reach, I hate my country and my nature, and long for
some power to reveal itself, I care not of what kind nor in what quarter,
capable to reform a state of society, rotten as this is to its very heart.

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