Supposing Zenobia to have been guilty of the crime laid to her charge, could Aurelian have treated her afterwards in the way he did? He not only took her to Rome and gave her a palace at Tibur, and the state of a Queen, but according to some, [Footnote: Filiam (Zenobiæ) unam uxorem duxisse Aurellanum; cæteras nobilibus Romanis despondisee.--Zonoras, lib. xii. p. 480.] married one of her daughters. Could he have done all this had she been the mean, base and wicked woman Zosimus makes her out to be? The history of this same eastern expedition furnishes a case somewhat in point, and which may serve to show in what light he would probably have regarded Zenobia. Tyana, a city of Asia Minor, for a long time resisted all his attempts to reduce it. At length it was betrayed into his hands by one of its chief citizens, Heraclammon. How did Aurelian receive and treat him after entering the city? Let Vopiscus reply: 'Nam et Heraclammon proditorem patriæ suse sapiens victor occidit.'--'Heraclammon who betrayed his country the conqueror wisely slew.' But this historian has preserved a letter of Aurelian, in which he speaks of this same traitor:
'Aurelianus Aug: Mallio Chiloni. Occidi passus sum cujus quasi beneficio Tyanam recepi. Ego vero proditorem amare non potui; et libenter tuli quod eum milites occiderunt: neque enim mihi fidem servare potuisset qui patriæ non pepercit,' etc. He permits Heraclammon to be slain because he could not love a traitor, and because one who had betrayed his country could not be trusted--while Zenobia, if Zosimus is to be believed, whose act was of the same kind--only infinitely more base--he receives and crowns with distinguished honor, and marries her daughter!
'Zosime pretend,' says Tillemont, 'que ce fut Zenobie mesme qui se déchargea sur eux des choses don't on l'accusoit, (ce qui répondroit bien mal a cette grandeur d'ame qu'on lay attribue.')--Hist, des Emp. t. II. p. 212.
The evidence of Zosimus is not of so high a character as justly to weigh against a strong internal improbability, or the silence of other historians. Gibbon says of him, 'In good policy we must use the service of Zosimus without esteeming him or trusting him,' and repeatedly designates him as 'credulous,' 'partial,' 'disingenuous.' By Tillemont he is called a 'bad authority.'
Nothing would seem to be plainer, than that Aurelian spared Zenobia because she was a woman; because she was a beautiful and every way remarkable woman; and as he himself says, because she had protected and saved the empire in the East; and that he sacrificed Longinus and the other chief men of Palmyra, because such was the usage of war.
Page 122. Piso speaks of the prowess of Aurelian, and of the songs sung in the camp in honor of him. Vopiscus has preserved one of these.
'Mille mille, mille, decollavimus,
Unus homo mille decollavimus,
Mille vivat qui mille occidit.
Tantum vini habet nemo
Quantum fudit sanguinis.
'Mille Sarmatas, mille Francos
Semel et semel occidimus
Mille Persas quærimus.'
The two letters on pages 135 and 137, it will be observed, are nearly the same as those found in Vopiscus.
On page 172, Aurelian is designated by a soldier under the nick-name of 'Hand-to-his-Sword.' Vopiscus also mentions this as a name by which he was known in the army. 'Nam quum essent in exercitu duo Aureliani tribuni, hic, et alius qui cum Valeriano captus est, huic signum (cognomen) exercitus apposuerat "Mannus ad ferrum,"' &c.