[59] There are several meanings to this word:—Balista implying a cross-bow, a sling, or an engine to shoot darts or stones.
[60] “Her manly understanding,” says Gibbon, “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.”
[61] Anon.
[62] “The emperor afterwards presented Zenobia with an elegant villa at Tibur, or Tivoli, about twenty miles from the capital; where, in happy tranquillity, she fed the greatness of her soul with the noble images of Homer, and the exalted precepts of Plato; supported the adversity of her fortunes with fortitude and resignation; and learned that the anxieties, attendant on ambition, are happily exchanged for the enjoyments of ease, and the comforts of philosophy. The Syrian queen sank into a Roman matron; her daughters married into noble families; and her race was not yet extinct in the fifth century.”—Gibbon.
[63] Addison.
[64] Yet Bruce says:—“Palmyra is nowhere covered with sand or rubbish as in other ruins. The desert that surrounds it is rather gravel than sand, and is, therefore, not easily moved. Her mountains are perfectly bare, and produce nothing.”
[65] This Emir lived upon rapine; being followed by a considerable number of men, who not only hated labour, but disliked equally to live under any settled government.
[66] Philosophical Transactions.
[67] This was the custom also in the days of Ezekiel. See ch. xxiii. 40.
[68] In Mr. Wood’s well-known, though exceedingly scarce work, the ruins are represented in fifty-seven copper-plates, sixteen inches by twelve inches, printed on imperial paper; they are finely executed, the drawing is correct and masterly, and the engraving highly finished. The Palmyrene and Greek inscriptions on the funeral monuments, and other buildings, are copied; and besides picturesque views of the ruins, from several points of sight, the plans are generally laid down, and the several parts of the columns, doors, windows, pediments, ceilings and bas-reliefs, are delineated, with a scale by which they may be measured and compared.