Zenobia; or, the Fall of Palmyra

by William Ware

'Lucius!' cried Fausta, I started, for it had been long that she had uttered not a word.

'Lucius! unless my eye grows dim and lies, which the gods grant, the Persians! look! they give way--is it not so? Immortal gods, forsake not my country!'

'The battle may yet turn,' I said, turning my eyes where she pointed, and seeing it was so--'despair not, dear Fausta. If the Persians yield--see, Zabdas has mounted the Roman intrenchments.'

'Yes--they fly,' screamed Fausta, and would madly have sprung over the battlements, but that I seized and held her. At the same moment a cry arose that Zabdas was slain--her eye caught his noble form as it fell backwards from his horse, and with a faint exclamation, 'Palmyra is lost!' fell lifeless into my arms.

While I devoted myself to her recovery, cries of distress and despair fell from all quarters upon my ear. And when I had succeeded in restoring her to consciousness, the fate of the day was decided--the Persians were routed--the Palmyrenes were hurrying in wild confusion before the pursuing Romans, and pressing into the gates.

'Lucius,' said Fausta, 'I am sorry for this weakness. But to sit as it were chained here, the witness of such disaster, is too much for mere mortal force. Could I but have mingled in that fight! Ah, how cruel the slaughter of those flying troops! Why do they not turn, and at least die with their faces toward the enemy? Let us now go and seek Calpurnius and Gracchus.'

'We cannot yet, Fausta, for the streets are thronged with this flying multitude.'

'It is hard to remain here, the ears rent, and the heart torn by these shrieks of the wounded and dying. How horrible this tumult! It seems as if the world were expiring. There--the gates are swinging upon their hinges; they are shut. Let us descend.'

We forced our way as well as we could through the streets, crowded now with soldiers and citizens--the soldiers scattered and in disorder, the citizens weeping and alarmed--some hardly able to drag along themselves, others sinking beneath the weight of the wounded whom they bore upon their shoulders, or upon lances and shields as upon a litter. The way was all along obstructed by the bodies of men and horses who had there fallen and died, their wounds allowing them to proceed no further, or who had been run down and trampled to death in the tumult and hurry of the entrance.

After a long and weary struggle, we reached the house of Gracchus--still solitary--for neither he nor Calpurnius had returned. The slaves gathered around us to know the certainty and extent of the evil. When they had learned it, their sorrow for their mistress, whom they loved for her own sake, and whom they saw overwhelmed with grief, made them almost forget that they only were suffering these things who had inflicted a worse injury upon themselves. I could not but admire a virtue which seemed of double lustre from the circumstances in which it was manifested.