Swift to wrath and swifter still to act, Zenobia sprang to her feet. “Face force with force, Odaenathus. Be strong and sure, and Palmyra shall yet humble the Persian.”
Her advice was taken. Quickly collecting the troops of Palmyra and the Arabs and Armenian who were his allies, the fearless “head-man” fell upon the army of the haughty Persian king, defeated and despoiled it, and drove it back to Persia. As Gibbon, the historian says: “The majesty of Rome, oppressed by a Persian, was protected by an Arab of Palmyra.”
For this he was covered with favors by Rome; made supreme commander in the East, and, with Zenobia as his adviser and helper, each year made Palmyra stronger and more powerful.
Here, rightly, the story of the girl Zenobia ends. A woman now, her life fills one of the most brilliant pages of history. While her husband conquered for Rome in the north, she, in his absence, governed so wisely in the south as to insure the praise of all. And when the time was ripe, and Rome, ruled by weak emperors and harassed by wild barbarians, was in dire stress, the childish vow of the boy and girl made years before found fulfilment. Palmyra was suddenly declared free from the dominion of Rome, and Odaenathus was acknowledged by senate and people as “Emperor and King of kings.”
But the hand of an assassin struck down the son as it had stricken the father. Zenobia, ascending the throne of Palmyra, declared herself “Zenobia Augusta, the Empress of the East,” and, after the manner of her time, extended her empire in every direction until, as the record says: “A small territory in the desert, under the government of a woman, extended its conquests over many rich countries and several states. Zenobia, lately confined to the barren plains about Palmyra, now held sway from Egypt in the south, to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea in the north.”
But a new emperor ruled in Rome: Aurelian, soldier and statesman. “Rome,” he said, “shall never lose a province.” And then the struggle for dominion in the East began. The strength and power of Rome, directed by the Emperor himself, at last triumphed. Palmyra fell, and Zenobia, after a most heroic defence of her kingdom, was led a prisoner to Rome. Clad in magnificent robes, loaded with jewels and with heavy chains of gold, she walked, regal and undaunted still, in the great triumphal procession of her conqueror, and, disdaining to kill herself as did Cleopatra and Dido, she gave herself up to the nobler work of the education and culture of her children, and led for many years, in her villa at Tibur, the life of a noble Roman matron.
Such, in brief, is the story of Zenobia. You must read for yourselves the record of her later years, as it stands in history, if you would know more of her grandeur in her days of power, and her moral grandeur in her days of defeat.
And with Zenobia fell Palmyra. Centuries of ruin and neglect have passed over the once fairy-like city of the Syrian oasis. Her temples and colonnades, her monuments and archways and wonderful buildings are prostrate and decayed, and the site even of the glorious city has been known to the modern world only within the last century. But while time lasts and the record of heroic deeds survives, neither fallen column nor ruined arch nor all the destruction and neglect of modern barbarism can blot out the story of the life and worth of Bath Zabbai, the brave girl of the Syrian desert, whom all the world honors as the noblest woman of antiquity—Zenobia of Palmyra, the dauntless “Queen of the East.”