276

no longer opposes me, but waits with impatience for the day when I shall be an inmate of her palace.

What think you is the news to-day in Rome? No other and no less than this-which you may well suppose has for some time been no news to me-that Livia is to be Empress! It has just been made public by authority, and I despatch my letter that you may be immediately informed of it. It has brought another expression upon the countenance of Zenobia.

Curtius and Lucilia have this moment come in, and, full of these tidings, interrupt me-they with Portia wish to be remembered to you with affection. I shall soon write again-telling you then especially of my interviews with Aurelian, and of Probus. Farewell.

S

t

NOTES.

will be observed, makes no mention of, nor all the story recorded by the historian Zosimus, en's public accusation of Longinus and the oth al persons of Palmyra, as authors of the reb order to save her own life. It is well known t a, chiefly on the authority of this historian, harged with having laid upon Longinus and 1 counsellors all the blame of the revolt, as if en driven by them against her will into the cou rsued. The words of Zosimus are as follows: isam rediit et Zenobiam cum suis complicil bunali stitit. Illa causas exponens, et culpa ser as multos alios in medium protulit, qui eam ve am seduxissent; quorum in numero et Longi -Itidem alii quos Zenobia detulerat suppliciis tur.'

s is suspicious upon the face of it. As if Aure d a formal tribunal and the testimony of Zen orm him who the great men of Palmyra were, hief advisers. Longinus, at least, we may supp s well known as Zenobia. But if there was a fo nal, then evidence was heard, and not upon one but both. If therefore the statements of Zen false, there were Longinus and the other acc ns, with their witnesses, to make it appear so were true---if she had been overruled, fed, or d er advisers, then it was not unreasonable that ment---if some must suffer---should fall whe

ut against Zosimus may be arrayed the wor

278

Aurelian himself, in a letter addressed to the Roman
senate, and preserved by Pollio. He says,

Nec ego illi (Zenobia) vitam conservassem nisi eam
scissem multum Rom. Reip. profuisse, quum sibi vel
liberis suis Orientis servaret imperium.'

Aurelian here says that he would not have spared her
life but for one reason, namely, that she had done such
signal service to the republic, when either for herself or
for her children she had saved the Empire in the East.
Aurelian spared her life, if he himself is to be believed,
because of services rendered to Rome, NOT because by the
accusation of others she had cleared herself of the charge
any danger, if this be
of rebellion. Her life was never
true; and unless it were, she of course had no motive to
criminate Longinus in the manner related by Zosimus.

Longinus and his companions suffered therefore, not
in consequence of any special accusation---it was not
needed for their condemnation---but as a matter of
course, because they were leaders and directors of the
revolt. It was the usage of war.

Why are Pollio (the biographer of Zenobia) and Vo-
piscus (the biographer of Aurelian) and Zonaras all
silent respecting so remarkable a point of the history
of Zenobia? Pollio does not hesitate to say that she
had been thought by some to have been partner in the
crime of murdering Odenatus and his son Herod---a
charge which never found credit in any quarter. Such
a biographer surely would not have passed over in si-
lence the unutterable baseness of Zenobia in the accusa-
tion of Longinus, if he had ever heard of it and had
esteemed it to have come to him as well vouched at least
as the other story. Omission under such circumstances
is good evidence that it came to him not so well vouched
---that is, not vouched at all.

laid to her charge, could Aurelian have treated her after-
Supposing Zenobia to have been guilty of the crime
wards in the way he did? He not only took her to Rome
and gave her a palace at Tibur, and the state of a Queen,
but, according to some,* married one of her daughters.
*Filiam (Zenobia) unam uxorem duxisse Aurelianum; cæte-
ras nobilibus Romanis despondisse.-Zonaras, lib. xii. p. 480.

Cou

and

hist

Som

ligh

a c ten

ha

di

Cl

m

have done all this had she been the mean, basc ed woman Zosimus makes her out to be? Th f this same Eastern expedition furnishes a cas t in point, and which may serve to show in wha would probably have regarded Zenobia. Tyana Asia Minor, for a long time resisted all his at to reduce it. At length it was betrayed into h y one of its chief citizens, Heraclammon. Ho elian receive and treat him after entering th et Vopiscus reply: Nam et Heraclammon pr patriæ suæ sapiens victor occidit.'--' Heraclar 10 betrayed his country the conqueror wise But this historian has preserved a letter of Aur which he speaks of this same traitor:

elianus Aug. Mallio Chiloni. Occidi passus si uasi beneficio Tyanam recepi. Ego vero pro mare non potui; et libenter tuli quod eum mili unt: neque enim mihi fidem servare potuis triæ non pepercit,' &c. He permits Heracla be slain because he could not love a traitor, i one who had betrayed his country could not ; while Zenobia, if Zosimus is to be believ act was of the same kind---only infinitely m -he receives and crowns with distinguished and marries her daughter!

sime prétend,' says Tillemont, que ce fut Ze esme qui se déchargea sur eux des choses donsoit, (ce qui répondroit bien mal à cette grand qu'on luy attribue.)'--Hist. des Emp. t. II. p. 2 e evidence of Zosimus is not of so high a chara tly to weigh against a strong internal improbabi e silence of other historians. Gibbon says of good policy we must use the service of Zos ut esteeming him or trusting him; and repeat nates him as credulous,' 'partial,' 'disingenu illemont he is called a 'bad authority.'

othing would seem to be plainer, than that Aur ed Zenobia because she was a woman; because a beautiful and every way remarkable woman; e himself says, because she had protected and Empire in the East; and that he sacrificed Lon

280

and the other chief men of Palmyra, because such was the usage of war.

Page 118.---Piso speaks of the prowess of Aurelian, and of the songs sung in the camp in honour 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 131 and 132, it will be ob served, are nearly the same as those found in Vopiscus. On page 167, Aurelian is designated by a soldier under the the nickname of Hand-to-his-Sword." Vopiscus also mentions this as a name by which he was known army. Nam quum essent in exercitu duo Aureliani tribuni, hic, et alius qui cum Valeriano captus est, huic signum (cognomen) exercitus apposuerat "Manus ad ferrum,"

"&c.

Page 271.--- Piso represents Aurelian as wearing a crown. He was the first since the Tarquins who had da ed 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.'

THE END.