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Zenobia

W >> William Ware >> Zenobia




'If,' said he, 'the people of these eastern regions understand better than
we of Rome the art of taking off heads, they certainly understand better,
as in reason they should, the art of making them comfortable while they
are on: already I have taken a longer draught at a wine skin than I have
been blessed with since I was in the service of the most noble Gallienus.
Ah, that was life! He was your true philosopher who thought life, made for
living. These Palmyrenes seem of his school.'

'Leave philosophy, good Milo, and come help me dress; that is the matter
now in hand. Unclasp these trunks and find something that shall not
deform me.'

So desirous was I, you perceive, to appear well in the eyes of the
fair Fausta.

It was now the appointed hour to descend to the supper room, and as I was
about to leave my apartment, hardly knowing which way to move, the
Ethiopian, Hannibal, made his appearance, to serve as my conductor.

I was ushered into an apartment, not large, but of exquisite
proportions--circular, and of the most perfect architecture, on the Greek
principles. The walls, thrown into panels between the windows and doors,
were covered with paintings, admirable both for their design and color;
and running all around the room, and attached to the walls, was a low and
broad seat, covered with cushions of the richest workmanship and material.
A lofty and arched ceiling, lighted by invisible lamps, represented a
banquet of the gods, offering to those seated at the tables below a high
example of the manner in which the divine gifts should be enjoyed. This
evening, at least, we did not use the privileges which that high example
sanctioned. Fausta was already in the room, and rose with affectionate
haste to greet me again.

'I fear my toilet has not been very successful, Fausta,' said I, 'for my
slave Milo was too much elated by the generous wines with which his
companions had plied him, as a cordial after the fatigues of the journey,
to give me any of the benefit of his taste or assistance. I have been my
own artificer on this occasion, and you must therefore be gentle in your
judgments.'

'I cannot say that your fashions are equally tasteful with those of our
Palmyrenes, I must confess. The love of the beautiful, the magnificent,
and the luxurious, is our national fault, Lucius; it betrays itself in
every department of civil and social life, and not unfrequently declines
into a degrading effeminacy. If any thing ruin us, it will be this vice. I
assure you I was rather jesting than in earnest, when I bade you look to
your toilet. When you shall have seen some of our young nobles, you will
find reason to be proud of your comparative simplicity. I hear, however,
that you are not now far behind us in Rome--nay, in many excesses, you go
greatly beyond us. We have never yet had a Vitellius, a Pollio, or a
Gallienus. And may the sands of the desert bury us a thousand fathoms
deep, ere such monsters shall be bred and endured in Palmyra!'

'I perceive,' said I, 'that your sometime residence in Rome has not taught
you to love your native country less. If but a small portion of the fire
which I see burning in your eye warm the hearts of the people, it will be
no easy matter for any external foe to subdue you, however vice and luxury
may do it.'

'There are not many, I believe,' replied Fausta, 'of your or my sex in
Palmyra, who would with more alacrity lay down their lives for their
country and our sweet and noble Queen, than I. But believe me, Lucius,
there are multitudes who would do it as soon. Zenobia will lead the way to
no battle-field where Fausta, girl though she be, will not follow.
Remember what I say, I pray you, if difficulty should ever again grow
up--which the gods forefend!--between us and Rome. But, truth to say, we
are in more danger from ourselves than from Rome.'

We were now suddenly interrupted by the loud and cheerful voice of
Gracchus, exclaiming, as he approached us from the great hall of the
palace, 'How now!--How now!--whom have we here? Are my eyes and ears true
to their report--Lucius Piso? It is he indeed. Thrice welcome to Palmyra!
May a visit from so good and great a house be an augury of good. You are
quick indeed upon the track of your letter. How have you sped by the way?
I need not ask after your own welfare, for I see it, but I am impatient to
learn all that you can tell me of friends and enemies in Rome. I dare say,
all this has been once told to Fausta, but, as a penalty for arriving
while I was absent, it must be repeated for my special pleasure. But come,
that can be done while we sit at table; I see the supper waits.'

In this pleasant mood did the father of Fausta, and now, as you know, one
of the chief pillars of the province or kingdom--whichever it must be
called--receive me. I was struck with the fine union in his appearance
and manner of courtly ease, and a noble Roman frankness. His head,
slightly bald, but cast in the truest mould of manly beauty, would have
done honor to any of his illustrious ancestors; and his figure was
entirely worthy of that faultless crown. I confess I experienced a pang
of regret that one so fitted to sustain and adorn the greatness of his
parent country had chosen to cast his fortunes so far from the great
centre and heart of the Empire. After the first duties of the table had
been gone through with, and my hunger--real hunger--had been appeased by
the various delicacies which my kind hostess urged upon me noways
unwilling to receive such tokens of regard, I took up the questions of
Gracchus, and gave him a full account of our social and political state
in Rome, to all which Fausta too lent a greedy ear, her fine face
sparkling with the intelligence which beamed out from every feature. It
was easy to see how deep an interest she takes in matters to which her
sex are usually so insensible. It is indescribable, the imperial pride
and lofty spirit of independence which at times sat upon her brow and
curled her lip. She seems to me made to command. She is indeed courteous
and kind, but you not with difficulty see that she is bold, aspiring and
proud, beyond the common measure of woman. Her beauty is of this
character. It is severe, rather than in any sense soft or feminine. Her
features are those of her father, truly Roman in their outline, and their
combined expression goes to impress every beholder with the truth that
Roman blood alone, and that too of all the Gracchi, runs in her veins.
Her form harmonizes perfectly with the air and character of the face. It
is indicative of great vigor and decision in every movement; yet it is
graceful, and of such proportions as would suit the most fastidious
Greek. I am thus minute in telling you how Fausta struck me, because I
know the interest you and Lucilia both take in her, and how you will
desire to have from me as exact a picture as I can draw. Be relieved, my
dear friends, as to the state of my heart, nor indulge in either hopes or
suspicions in this direction. I assure you I am not yet a captive at the
fair feet of Fausta, nor do I think I shall be. But if such a thing
should happen, depend upon my friendship to give you the earliest
intelligence of the event. Whoever shall obtain the heart of Fausta, will
win one of which a Cæsar might be proud. But to return to our present
interview and its event.

No sooner had I ended my account of the state of affairs at Rome, than
Gracchus expressed, in the strongest terms, his joy that we were so
prosperous. 'It agrees,' said he, 'with all that we have lately heard.
Aurelian is in truth entitled to the praise which belongs to a reformer of
the state. The army has not been under such discipline since the days of
Vespasian. He has now, as we learn by the last arrival of news from the
North, by the way of Antioch, nearly completed the subjection of the Goths
and Alemanni, and rumors are afloat of an unpleasant nature, of an Eastern
expedition. For this no ground occurs to me except, possibly, an attempt
upon Persia, for the rescue of Valerian, if yet he be living, or for the
general vindication of the honor of Rome against the disgraceful successes
of the Great King. I cannot for one moment believe that toward Palmyra any
other policy will be adopted than that which has been pursued for the last
century and a half, and emphatically sanctioned, as you well know, by
both Gallienus and Claudius. Standing on the honorable footing, as
nominally a part of the empire of Rome, but in fact a sovereign and
independent power, we enjoy all that we can desire in the form of
political privileges. Then for our commerce, it could not be more
flourishing, or conducted on more advantageous terms even to Rome itself.
In one word, we are contented, prosperous, and happy, and the crime of
that man would be great indeed, who, from any motive of personal ambition,
or any policy of state, would disturb our existing relations of peace and
friendship with all the world.'

To this I replied: 'I most sincerely trust that no design, such as you
hint at, exists in the mind of Aurelian. I know him, and know him to be
ambitious and imperious, as he is great in resources and unequalled in
military science, but withal he is a man of wisdom, and in the main, of
justice too. That he is a true lover of his country, I am sure; and that
the glory of that country is dearer to him than all other objects--that it
rises in him almost to a species of madness--this I know too; and it is
from this quarter, if from any, that danger is to be apprehended. He will
have Rome to be all in all. His desire is that it should once more possess
the unity that it did under the Antonines. This idea, dwelt upon, may lead
him into enterprises from which, however defended on the ground of the
empire's glory, will result in nothing but discredit to himself and injury
to the state. I too have heard the rumors of which you speak, but I cannot
give them one moment's credence; and I pray most fervently that,
springing as they do no one knows whence nor on what authority resting,
they will not be permitted to have the least effect upon the mind of the
Queen, nor upon any of her advisers. She is now in reality an independent
sovereign, reigning over an immense empire, stretching from Egypt to the
shores of the Euxine, from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and she
still stands upon the records of the senate as a colleague--even as when
Odenatus shared the throne with her--of the Emperor. This is a great and a
fortunate position. The gods forbid that any intemperance on the part of
the Palmyrenes should rouse the anger or the jealousy of the fierce
Aurelian!'

Could I have said less than this? But I saw in the countenances of both,
while I was speaking, especially in the honest, expressive one of Fausta,
that they could brook no hint of inferiority or of dependence on the part
of their country; so deep a place has the great Zenobia secured for
herself in the pride and most sacred affections of this people.

'I will not, with you, Piso,' said Gracchus, 'believe that the Emperor
will do aught to break up the present harmony. I will have faith in him;
and I shall use all the influence that I may possess in the affairs of the
state to infuse a spirit of moderation into our acts, and above all into
our language; for one hasty word uttered in certain quarters may lead to
the ruin of kingdoms that have taken centuries to attain their growth. But
this I say: let there only come over here from the West the faintest
whisper of any purpose on the part of Aurelian to consider Zenobia as
holding the same position in regard to Rome as Tetricus in Gaul, and that
moment a flame is kindled throughout Palmyra that nothing but blood can
quench. This people, as you well know, has been a free people from the
earliest records of history, and they will sink under the ruins of their
capital and their country, ere they will bend to a foreign power.'

'That will they!--that will they, indeed!' cried Fausta; 'there is not a
Palmyrene who, had he two lives, would not give one for liberty, and the
other for his good Queen. You do not know Zenobia, Lucius, nor can you
tell, therefore, how reasonable the affection is which binds every heart
to her as to a mother or a sister.'

'But enough of this for the present,' said Gracchus; 'let us leave the
affairs of nations, and ascend to those of private individuals--for I
suppose your philosophy teaches you, as it does me, that individual
happiness is the object for which governments are instituted, and that
they are therefore less than this. Let us ascend, I say, from the policy
of Rome and of Aurelian, to the private affairs of our friend Lucius Piso;
for your letter gives me the privilege of asking you to tell us, in all
frankness and love, what, beside the pleasure of seeing us, brings you so
far from Rome. It is, you hint, a business of a painful nature. Use me and
Fausta, as you would in Rome Portia and the good Lucilia, with the same
freedom and the same assurance of our friendship.'

'Do so, indeed,' added Fausta, with affectionate warmth, 'and feel that,
in addressing us, you are entrusting your thoughts to true and
long-tried friends.'

'I have,' replied I, 'but little to communicate, but that little is great
in its interest, and demands immediate action; and touching what shall be
most expedient to be done, I shall want and shall ask your deliberate
counsel. You are well aware, alas! too well aware, of the cruel fate of my
parent, the truly great Cneius Piso, whom to name is always a spring of
strength to my virtues. With the unhappy Valerian, to whom he clung to the
last, resolved to die with him, or suffer with him whatever the fates
should decree, he passed into captivity; but of too proud a spirit to
endure the indignities which were heaped upon the Emperor, and which were
threatened him, he--so we have learned--destroyed himself. He found an
opportunity, however, before he thus nobly used his power, to exhort my
poor brothers not at once, at least, to follow his example, 'You are
young,' said he, 'and have more strength than I, and the gods may
interpose and deliver you. Hope dwells with youth, as it dies with age. Do
not despair. I feel that you will one day return to Rome. For myself, I am
a decayed trunk, at best, and it matters little when I fall, or where I
lie. One thing, at least, I cannot bear; it would destroy me if I did not
destroy myself. I am a Roman and a Piso, and the foot of a Persian shall
never plant itself upon my neck. I die.' My elder brother, thinking
example a more powerful kind of precept than words, no sooner was assured
of the death of his father, than he too opened his veins, and perished.
And so we learned had Calpurnius done, and we were comparatively happy in
the thought that they had escaped by a voluntary death the shame of being
used as footstools by the haughty Sapor, and the princes of his court. But
a rumor reached us a few days before I left Rome, that Calpurnius is yet
living. We learn, obscurely, that being favorably distinguished and
secretly favored by the son of Sapor, he was persuaded to live, and wait
for the times to open a way for his escape. You may imagine both my grief
and my joy on this intelligence. The thought that he should so long have
lain in captivity and imprisonment, and no step have been taken toward his
rescue, has weighed upon me with a mountain weight of sorrow. Yet at the
same time, I have been supported by the hope that his deliverance may be
effected, and that he may return to Rome once more, to glad the eyes of
the aged Portia. It is this hope which has brought me to Palmyra, as
perhaps the best point whence to set in motion the measures which it shall
be thought wisest to adopt. I shall rely much upon your counsel.' No
sooner had I spoken thus, than Fausta quickly exclaimed:

'O father, how easily, were the Queen now in Palmyra, might we obtain
through her the means of approaching the Persian King with some hope of a
successful appeal to his compassion!--and yet'--She hesitated and paused.

'I perceive,' said Gracchus, 'what it is that checks your speech. You feel
that in this matter Zenobia would have no power with the Persian monarch
or court. The two nations are now, it is true, upon friendly terms; but a
deep hatred exists in the heart of Sapor toward Zenobia. The successive
defeats which he suffered, when Odenatus and his Queen took it upon them
to vindicate the honor of Rome, and revenge the foul indignities cast upon
the unfortunate Valerian, will never be forgotten; and policy only, not
love or regard, keeps the peace between Persia and Palmyra. Sapor fears
the power of Zenobia, supported, as he knows she would be in case of
rupture, by the strength of Rome; and moreover, he is well aware that
Palmyra serves as a protecting wall between him and Rome, and that her
existence as an independent power is vital to the best interests of his
kingdom. For these reasons harmony prevails, and in the event of war
between us and Rome, we might with certainty calculate upon Persia as an
ally. Still Sapor is an enemy at heart. His pride, humbled as it was by
that disastrous rout, when his whole camp and even his wives fell into the
hands of the Royal Odenatus, will never recover from the wound, and will
prompt to acts of retaliation and revenge, rather than to any deed of
kindness. While his public policy is, and doubtless will continue to be,
pacific, his private feelings are, and ever will be, bitter. I see not how
in this business we can rely with any hope of advantage upon the
interposition of the Queen. If your brother is ever rescued, it must, I
think, be achieved by private enterprise.'

'Your words,' said I, 'have pierced me through with grief, and dispelled
in a moment the brightest visions. All the way from Rome have I been
cheered by the hope of what the Queen, at your solicitation, would be able
to attempt and accomplish in my behalf. But it is all over. I feel the
truth of what you have urged. I see it--I now see it--private enterprise
can alone effect his deliverance, and from this moment I devote myself to
that work. If Rome leave her Emperor to die in captivity, so will not I my
brother. I will go myself to the den of this worse than barbarian king,
and bring thence the loved Calpurnius, or leave my own body there for that
beast to batten on. It is now indeed thirteen years since Calpurnius left
me, a child in Rome, to join the Emperor in that ill-fated expedition. But
it is with the distinctness of a yesterday's vision that he now stands
before my eyes, as he then stood that day he parted from us, glittering in
his brilliant armor, and his face just as brilliant with the light of a
great and trusting spirit. As he turned from the last embraces of the
weeping Portia, he seized me in his arms, who stood jingling his sword
against his iron greaves, and imprinting upon my cheek a kiss, bade me
grow a man at once, to take care of the household, while they were gone
with the good Emperor to fight the enemies of Rome in Asia. He was, as I
remember him, of a quick and fiery temper, but he was always gentle toward
me, and has bound me to him forever,'

'The gods prosper you!' cried Fausta, 'as surely they will. It is a pious
work to which you put your hand, and you will succeed.'

'Do not, Fausta,' said Gracchus, 'lend the weight of your voice to urge
our friend to measures which may be rather rash than wise, and may end
only in causing a greater evil than what already exists. Prudence must
govern us as well as affection. By venturing yourself at once into the
dominion of Persia, upon such an errand, it is scarcely less than certain
that you would perish, and without effecting your object. We ought to
consider, too, I think, what the condition and treatment of Calpurnius
are, before too great a risk is incurred for his rescue. He has now, we
are to remember, been at the capital of the great king thirteen years. You
have hinted that he had been kindly regarded by the son of Sapor. Possibly
his captivity amounts to no more than a foreign residence--a sort of
exile. Possibly he may, in this long series of years, have become changed
into a Persian. I understand your little lip, Fausta, and your indignant
frown, Lucius; but what I suggest is among things possible, it cannot be
denied; and can you deny it?--not so very unlikely, when you think what
the feelings of one must have been to be so wholly forgotten and abandoned
by his native country, and that country, Rome, the mistress of the world,
who needed but to have stretched forth the half of her power to have
broken for ever the chains of his slavery, as well as of the thousands who
with him have been left to linger out their lives in bondage. If
Calpurnius has been distinguished by the son of Sapor, his lot, doubtless,
has been greatly lightened, and he may now be living as a Persian prince.
My counsel is, therefore, that the truth in this regard be first obtained,
before the life of another son, and the only inheritor of so great a name,
be put in jeopardy. But what is the exact sum of what you have learned,
and upon which we may rely, and from which reason and act?'

'Our knowledge,' I replied, 'is derived from a soldier, who, by a great
and happy fortune, escaped and reached his native Rome. He only knew what
he saw when he was first a captive, and afterward, by chance, had heard
from others. He was, he said, taken to serve as a slave about the palace
of the King, and it was there that for a space he was an eye-witness to
the cruel and insulting usage of both Valerian and Calpurnius. That was
but too true, he said, which had been reported to us, that whenever the
proud Sapor went forth to mount his horse, the Emperor was brought, in the
face of the whole court, and of the populace who crowded round, to serve
as his footstool. Clothed in the imperial purple, the unfortunate Valerian
received upon his neck the foot of Sapor, and bore him to his saddle. It
was the same purpose that Calpurnius was made to serve for the young
prince Hormisdas. But, said the soldier, the prince pitied the young and
noble Roman, and would gladly, at the beginning, have spared him the
indignity put upon him by the stern command of his haughty and cruel
father. He often found occasion at these times, while standing with his
foot upon his neck, to speak with Calpurnius, and to express his regrets
and his grief for his misfortunes, and promise redress, and more, if he
ever came to the throne. But the soldier was soon removed from the
vicinity of the Royal palace, and saw no more of either Valerian or
Calpurnius. What came to his ears was, generally, that while Valerian was
retained exclusively for the use of Sapor, Calpurnius was after a time
relinquished as entirely into the hands of Hormisdas, in whose own palace
he dwelt, but with what portion of freedom, he knew not. That he was
living at the time he escaped, he was certain. This, Gracchus, is the sum
of what we have heard; in addition only, that the Emperor sank under his
misfortunes, and that his skin, fashioned over some substance so as
exactly to resemble the living man, is preserved by Sapor, as a monument
of his triumph over the legions of Rome.'

'It is a pitiful story,' said Fausta, as I ended: 'for a brave man it has
been a fate worse than death; but having survived the first shame, I fear
me my father's thought will prove a too true one, and that long absence,
and indignation at neglect, and perhaps gratitude and attachment to the
prince, who seems to have protected him, will have weaned him from Rome.
So that we cannot suffer you, Lucius, to undertake so long and dangerous a
journey upon so doubtful an errand. But those can be found, bold and
faithful, who for that ample reward with which you could so easily enrich
them, would venture even into the heart of Ecbatana itself, and bring you
back your brother alive, or advertise you of his apostasy or death.'

'What Fausta says is just,' observed Gracchus, 'and in few words
prescribes your course. It will not be a difficult thing, out of the
multitudes of bold spirits who crowd the capital, Greek, Roman, Syrian,
and Arab, to find one who will do all that you could do, and I may add,
both more and better. You may find those who are familiar with the route,
who know the customs of Persia, who can speak its language, and are even
at home in her capitals, and who would be infinitely more capable than
either you or I, or even Fausta, to manage to a happy issue an enterprise
like this. Let this then be our decision; and be it now our united care to
find the individual to whom we may commit this dear but perilous service.
And now enough of this. The city sleeps, and it were better that we slept
with it. But first, my child, bring harmony into our spirits by one of
those wild, sad airs which you are accustomed to sing to me upon the harp
of the Jews. It will dispose Lucius to pleasant dreams.'

I added my importunities, and Fausta rising, moved to an open window,
through which the moon was now pouring a flood of silver light, and
seating herself before the instrument which stood there, first swept its
strings with an easy and graceful hand.

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