This was in the year 87 B.C. The siege that followed was a long one. Archelaus lay in Piræus, with abundance of food, and had command of the sea. But the long walls that led to Athens had long since vanished. Food could not be conveyed from the port to the city, as of old. Hunger came to the aid of Rome. Resistance having almost ceased, Sulla broke into the famous old city March 1, 86 B.C., and gave it up to rapine and pillage by his soldiers.
Yet Athens was not destroyed as Corinth had been. Sulla had some respect for art and antiquity, and carefully preserved the old monuments of the city, while such of its people as had not been massacred were restored to their civil rights as subjects of Rome. Soon the Asiatics were driven from Greece and Roman dominion was once more restored. Thus ended the last struggle for liberty in Greece. Nineteen hundred years were to pass away before another blow for freedom would be struck on Grecian soil.
ZENOBIA AND LONGINUS.
Among the most famous of the women of ancient days must be named Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra and the East, and who claimed to be descended from the kings whom the conquests of Alexander left over Egypt, the Ptolemies, among whose descendants was included the still more celebrated Cleopatra. Zenobia was the most lovely as well as the most heroic of her sex, no woman of Asiatic birth ever having equalled her in striking evidence of valor and ability, and none surpassed her in beauty. We are told that while of a dark complexion, her smile revealed teeth of pearly whiteness, while her large black eyes sparkled with an uncommon brightness that was softened by the most attractive sweetness. She possessed a strong and melodious voice, and, in short, had all the charms of womanly beauty.
Her mind was as well stored as her body was attractive. She was familiar with the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages, and was an adept also in Latin, then the political language of the civilized world. She was an earnest student of Oriental history, of which she herself drew up an epitome, while she was fully conversant with Homer and Plato, and the other great writers of Greece.
This lovely and accomplished woman gave her hand in marriage to Odenathus, who from a private station had gained by his valor the empire of the East. He made Syria his by courage and ability, and twice pursued the Persian king to the gates of Ctesiphon. Of this hero Zenobia became the companion and adviser. In hunting, of which he was passionately fond, she emulated him, pursuing the lions, panthers, and other wild beasts of the desert with an ardor equal to his own, and a fortitude and endurance which his did not surpass. Inured to fatigue, she usually appeared on horseback in a military habit, and at times marched on foot at the head of the troops. Odenathus owed his success largely to the prudence and fortitude of his incomparable wife.
In the midst of his successes in war, Odenathus was cut off in 250 A.D. by assassination. He had punished his nephew, who killed him in return. Zenobia at once succeeded to the vacant throne, and by her ability governed Palmyra, Syria, and the East. In this task, in which no man could have surpassed her in courage and judgment, she was aided by the counsels of one of the ablest Greeks who had appeared since the days of the famous writers of the classical age. Longinus, who had been her preceptor in the language and literature of Greece, and who, on her ascending the throne, became her secretary and chief counsellor in state affairs, was a literary critic and philosopher whose lucid intellect seemed to belong to the brightest days of Greece. He was probably a native of Syria, born some time after 200 A.D., and had studied literature and philosophy at Athens, Alexandria, and Rome, under the ablest teachers of the age. His learning was immense, and he is the first man to whom was applied the expression "a living library," or, to give it its modern form, "a walking encyclopædia." His writings were lively and penetrating, showing at once taste, judgment, and learning. We have only fragments of them, except the celebrated "Treatise on the Sublime," which is one of the most notable of ancient critical productions.