Zenobia; or, the Fall of Palmyra

by William Ware

He departed in search of the Greek. I went forth into the streets to learn the opinions and observe the behavior of the people.

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The shades of night are around me--the palace is still--the city sleeps. I resume my pen to add a few words to this epistle, already long, but they are words that convey so much that I cannot but add them for my own pleasure not less than yours. They are in brief these,--Calpurnius is alive and once again returned to us. The conjecture of Isaac was a description of the truth. My brother, knowing well that if apprehended his death were certain, had in the outset resolved, if attacked, rather to provoke his death, and insure it in the violence of a conflict, than be reserved for the axe of the Roman executioner. But in the short moment in which he fell headlong into the river, it flashed across his mind--'The darkness favors my escape--I can reach the shore;' so swimming a short distance below the surface, falling down with the stream and softly rising, concealed himself among the reeds upon the margin of the stream. Finding the field in a short time wholly in possession of Isaac, he revealed himself and joined him, returning to the city as soon as the darkness of the night permitted. Here is a little gleam of light breaking through Fausta's almost solid gloom. A smile has once more played over her features.

In the evening after Calpurnius's return, she tried her harp, but the sounds it gave out only seemed to increase her sorrow, and she threw it from her.

'Music,' said Gracchus, 'is in its nature melancholy, and how, my child, can you think to forget or stifle grief by waking the strings of your harp, whose tones, of all other instruments, are the most melancholy? And yet sometimes sadness seeks sadness, and finds in it its best relief. But now, Fausta? rather let sleep be your minister and nurse.'

So we parted. Farewell.

Letter XV.

It were a vain endeavor, my Curtius, to attempt to describe the fever of indignation, and rage, and grief, that burned in the bosoms of this unhappy people, as soon as it was known that their Queen was a captive in the hands of the Romans. Those imprisoned upon suspicion of having been concerned in her betrayal would have been torn from their confinement, and sacrificed to the wrath of the citizens, in the first hours of their excitement, but for the formidable guard by which the prisons were defended. The whole population seemed to be in the streets and public places, giving and receiving with eagerness such intelligence as could be obtained. Their affliction is such as it would be had each one lost a parent or a friend. The men rave, or sit, or wander about listless and sad; the women weep; children catch the infection, and lament as for the greatest misfortune that could have overtaken them. The soldiers, at first dumb with amazement at so unlooked-for and unaccountable a catastrophe, afterward, upon learning that it fell out through the treason of Antiochus, bound themselves by oaths never to acknowledge or submit to his authority, though Aurelian himself should impose him upon them, nay, to sacrifice him to the violated honor of the empire, if ever he should fall into their power.

Yet all are not such. The numbers are not contemptible of those who, openly or secretly, favor the cause and approve the act of Antiochus. He has not committed so great a crime without some prospect of advantage from it, nor without the assurance that a large party of the citizens, though not the largest, is with him, and will adhere to his fortunes. These are they, who think, and justly think, that the Queen has sacrificed the country to her insane ambition and pride. They cleave to Antiochus, not from personal regard toward him, but because he seems more available for their present purposes than any other, principally through his fool-hardy ambition; and, on the other hand, they abandon the Queen, not for want of personal affection, equal perhaps to what exists in any others, but because they conceive that the power of Rome is too mighty to contend with, and that their best interests rather than any extravagant notions of national honor, ought to prompt their measures.

The city will now give itself up, it is probable, upon the first summons of Aurelian. The council and the senate have determined that to hold out longer than a few days more is impossible. The provisions of the public granaries are exhausted, and the people are already beginning to be pinched with hunger. The rich, and all who have been enabled to subsist upon their own stores, are now engaged in distributing what remains among the poorer sort, who are now thrown upon their compassion. May it not be, that I am to be a witness of a people dying of hunger! Gracchus and Fausta are busily employed in relieving the wants of the suffering.