ZENOBIA, QUEEN OF PALMYRA. By EDWARD GIBBON.

[Septimia Zenobia, of mixed Greek and Arab descent, dates of birth and death doubtful. Twice married, she reached through her second husband, Odenathus, Prince of Palmyra, a field for the exercise of her great talents. She aspired to be Empress of Western Asia after her husband’s death, and only succumbed to the superior genius or fortune of Aurelian, the Roman Emperor. The unsuccessful issue of two pitched battles and two sieges placed her in the power of Rome (273 A.D.). The clemency of the victor, though it made the captive an ornament of his triumph, loaded her with wealth and kindness, while it relegated her to a private station.]

Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of empire; nor is our own age destitute of such distinguished characters. But if we except the doubtful achievements of Semiramis, Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the habits and climate of Asia. She claimed her descent from the Macedonian kings of Egypt, equaled in beauty her ancestor Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity and valor.

Zenobia was esteemed the most lovely as well as the most heroic of her sex. She was of a dark complexion (for in speaking of a lady these trifles become important); her teeth were of a pearly whiteness; and her large black eyes sparkled with uncommon fire tempered by the most attractive sweetness. Her voice was strong and harmonious. Her manly understanding was strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. She had drawn up for her own use an epitome of Oriental history, and familiarly compared the beauties of Homer and Plato under the tuition of the sublime Longinus. This accomplished woman gave her hand to Odenathus, who from a private station raised himself to the dominion of the East. She soon became the friend and companion of a hero. In the intervals of war Odenathus passionately delighted in the exercise of hunting. He pursued with ardor the wild beasts of the desert—lions, panthers, and bears—and the ardor of Zenobia in that dangerous amusement was not inferior to his own. She had inured her constitution to fatigue, disdained the use of a covered carriage, generally appeared on horseback in a military habit, and sometimes marched several miles on foot at the head of the troops.

The success of Odenathus was in great measure ascribed to her incomparable prudence and fortitude. Their splendid victories over the Great King, whom they twice pursued as far as the gates of Ctesiphon, laid the foundation of their united fame and power. The armies which they commanded and the provinces which they had saved acknowledged not any other sovereigns than their invincible chiefs. The senate and people of Rome revered a stranger who had avenged their captive emperor, and even the insensible son of Valerian accepted Odenathus for his legitimate colleague.

After a successful expedition against the Gothic plunderers of Asia the Palmyrenian prince returned to the city of Emesa in Syria. Invincible in war, he was there cut off by domestic treason, and his favorite amusement of hunting was the cause, or at least the occasion, of his death. His nephew Mæonius presumed to dart his javelin before that of his uncle; and, though admonished of his error, repeated his insolence. As a monarch and as a sportsman Odenathus was provoked, took away his horse—a mark of ignominy among barbarians—and chastised his rash youth by a short confinement. The offense was soon forgot, but the punishment was remembered; and Mæonius, with a few daring associates, assassinated his uncle in the midst of a great entertainment. Herod, the son of Odenathus, though not of Zenobia, a young man of soft and effeminate temper, was killed with his father. But Mæonius obtained only the pleasures of revenge by this bloody deed. He had scarcely time to assume the title of Augustus before he was sacrificed by Zenobia to the memory of her husband. With the assistance of his most faithful friends she immediately filled the vacant throne and governed with manly counsels Palmyra, Syria, and the East above five years. By the death of Odenathus, that authority was at an end which the senate had granted him only as a personal distinction; but his widow, disdaining both the senate and Gallienus, obliged one of the Roman generals who was sent against her to retreat into Europe with the loss of his army and his reputation.

Instead of the little passions which so frequently perplex a female reign, the administration of Zenobia was guided by the most judicious maxims of policy. If it was expedient to pardon, she could calm her resentment; if it were necessary to punish, she could impose silence on the voice of pity. Her strict economy was accused of avarice; yet on every proper occasion she appeared magnificent and liberal. The neighboring states of Arabia, Armenia, and Persia dreaded her enmity and solicited her alliance. To the dominions of Odenathus, which extended from the Euphrates to the frontiers of Bithynia, his widow added the inheritance of her ancestors, the populous and fertile kingdom of Egypt. The Emperor Claudius acknowledged her merit, and was content that while he pursued the Gothic war, she should pursue the dignity of the empire in the East. The conduct, however, of Zenobia was attended with some ambiguity; nor is it unlikely that she had conceived the design of erecting an independent and hostile monarchy. She blended with the popular manners of Roman princes the stately pomp of the courts of Asia, and exacted from her subjects the same adoration that was paid to the successors of Cyrus. She bestowed on her three sons a Latin education, and often showed them to the troops adorned with the imperial purple. For herself she reserved the diadem with the splendid but doubtful title of Queen of the East.

When Aurelian passed over into Asia, against an adversary whose sex alone could render her an object of contempt, his presence restored obedience to the province of Bithynia, already shaken by the arts and the arms of Zenobia. Advancing at the head of his legions, he accepted the submission of Ancyra, and was admitted into Tyana after an obstinate siege, by the help of a perfidious citizen. Zenobia would have ill deserved her reputation had she indolently permitted the Emperor of the West to approach within a hundred miles of her capital. The fate of the East was decided in two great battles, so similar in almost every circumstance that we can scarcely distinguish them from each other, except by observing that the first was fought near Antioch and the second near Emesa. After the defeat of Emesa Zenobia found it impossible to collect a third army. Palmyra was the last resource of the widow of Odenathus. She retired within the walls of her capital, made every preparation for a vigorous resistance, and declared with the intrepidity of a heroine that the last moment of her reign and of her life should be the same. The siege of Palmyra was an object far more difficult and important; and the emperor, who with incessant vigor pressed the attacks in person, was himself wounded with a dart. “The Roman people,” says Aurelian in an original letter, “speak with contempt of the war which I am waging against a woman. They are ignorant both of the character and power of Zenobia. It is impossible to enumerate her warlike preparations of stones, of arrows, and of every species of missile weapons. Every part of the walls is provided with two or three balistæ, and artificial fires are thrown from her military engines. The fear of punishment has armed her with a desperate courage. Yet still I trust in the protecting deities of Rome, who have hitherto been favorable to all my undertakings.” The firmness of Zenobia was supported by the hope that in a very short time famine would compel the Roman army to repass the desert. But from every part of Syria a regular succession of convoys safely arrived in the camp, which was increased by the return of Probus with his victorious troops from the conquest of Egypt. It was then that Zenobia resolved to fly. She mounted the fleetest of her dromedaries, and had already reached the banks of the Euphrates, about sixty miles from Palmyra, when she was overtaken by the pursuit of Aurelian’s light-horse, seized, and brought back a captive to the feet of the emperor. Her capital soon afterward surrendered, and was treated with unexpected lenity.

When the Syrian queen was brought into the presence of Aurelian he sternly asked her how she had presumed to rise in arms against the Emperor of Rome? The answer of Zenobia was a prudent mixture of respect and firmness: “Because I disdained to consider as Roman emperors an Aureolus or a Gallienus. You alone I acknowledge as my conqueror and sovereign.”

However, in the treatment of his unfortunate rivals, Aurelian might indulge his pride, he behaved toward them with a generous clemency which was seldom exercised by the ancient conquerors. The emperor presented Zenobia with an elegant villa at Tibur, or Tivoli, about twenty miles from the capital. The Syrian queen insensibly sunk into a Roman matron, her daughters married into noble families, and her race was not yet extinct in the fifth century.