'Answer it in its own vein! You smile, Queen, as if incredulous. But I repeat--answer it in its own vein! I confess an inward disappointment and an inward change. I hoped much from terms which a wise man might at this point propose, and soil neither his own nor his country's honor. But Aurelian--I now see--is not such a one. He is but the spoiled child of fortune. He has grown too quickly great to grow well. Wisdom has had no time to ripen.'
Others concurring, Zenobia seized a pen and wrote that which I transcribe.
'Zenobia, Queen of the East? to Aurelian Augustus.
'No one before you ever thought to make a letter serve instead of a battle. But let me tell you, whatever is won in war, is won by bravery, not by letters. You ask me to surrender--as if ignorant that Cleopatra chose rather to die, than, surrendering, to live in the enjoyment of every honor. Our Persian allies will not fail me. I look for them every hour. The Saracens are with me--the Armenians are with me. The Syrian robbers have already done you no little damage. What then can you expect, when these allied armies are upon you? You will lay aside I think a little of that presumption with which you now command me to surrender, as if you were already conqueror of the whole world.'
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The letter being written and approved by those who were present, it was placed by Nichomachus in the hands of the herald.
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No one can marvel, my Curtius, that a letter in the terms of Aurelian's should be rejected, nor that it should provoke such an answer as Zenobia's. It has served merely to exasperate passions which were already enough excited. It was entirely in the power of the Emperor to have terminated the contest, by the proposal of conditions which Palmyra would have gladly accepted, and by which Rome would have been more profited and honored than it can be by the reduction and ruin of a city and kingdom like this. But it is too true, that Aurelian is rather a soldier than an Emperor. A victory got by blood is sweeter far to him, I fear, than tenfold wider conquests won by peaceful negotiations.
The effect of the taunting and scornful answer of the Queen has been immediately visible in the increased activity and stir in the camp of Aurelian. Preparations are going on for renewed assaults upon the walls upon a much larger scale than before.
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