Zenobia; or, the Fall of Palmyra

by William Ware

Upon this boundless desert we now soon entered. The scene which it presented was more dismal than I can describe. A red moving sand--or hard and baked by the heat of a sun such as Rome never knows--low gray rocks just rising here and there above the level of the plain, with now and then the dead and glittering trunk of a vast cedar, whose roots seemed as if they had outlasted centuries--the bones of camels and elephants, scattered on either hand, dazzling the sight by reason of their excessive whiteness--at a distance occasionally an Arab of the desert, for a moment surveying our long line, and then darting off to his fastnesses--these were the objects which, with scarce any variation, met our eyes during the four wearisome days that we dragged ourselves over this wild and inhospitable region. A little after the noon of the fourth day, as we started on our way, having refreshed ourselves and our exhausted animals at a spring which here poured out its warm but still grateful waters to the traveller, my ears received the agreeable news that toward the east there could now be discerned the dark line, which indicated our approach to the verdant tract that encompasses the great city. Our own excited spirits were quickly imparted to our beasts, and a more rapid movement soon revealed into distinctness the high land and waving groves of palm trees which mark the site of Palmyra.

It was several miles before we reached the city, that we suddenly found ourselves--landing as it were from a sea upon an island or continent--in a rich and thickly peopled country. The roads indicated an approach to a great capital, in the increasing numbers of those who thronged them, meeting and passing us, overtaking us, or crossing our way. Elephants, camels, and the dromedary, which I had before seen only in the amphitheatres, I here beheld as the native inhabitants of the soil. Frequent villas of the rich and luxurious Palmyrenes, to which they retreat from the greater heats of the city, now threw a lovely charm over the scene. Nothing can exceed the splendor of these sumptuous palaces. Italy itself has nothing which surpasses them. The new and brilliant costumes of the persons whom we met, together with the rich housings of the animals they rode, served greatly to add to all this beauty. I was still entranced, as it were, by the objects around me, and buried in reflection, when I was roused by the shout of those who led the caravan, and who had attained the summit of a little rising ground, saying, 'Palmyra! Palmyra!' I urged forward my steed, and in a moment the most wonderful prospect I ever beheld--no, I cannot except even Rome--burst upon my sight. Flanked by hills of considerable elevation on the East, the city filled the whole plain below as far as the eye could reach, both toward the North and toward the South. This immense plain was all one vast and boundless city. It seemed to me to be larger than Rome. Yet I knew very well that it could not be--that it was not. And it was some time before I understood the true character of the scene before me, so as to separate the city from the country, and the country from the city, which here wonderfully interpenetrate each other and so confound and deceive the observer. For the city proper is so studded with groups of lofty palm trees, shooting up among its temples and palaces, and on the other hand, the plain in its immediate vicinity is so thickly adorned with magnificent structures of the purest marble, that it is not easy, nay it is impossible at the distance at which I contemplated the whole, to distinguish the line which divided the one from the other. It was all city and all country, all country and all city. Those which lay before me I was ready to believe were the Elysian Fields. I imagined that I saw under my feet the dwellings of purified men and of gods. Certainly they were too glorious for the mere earth-born. There was a central point, however, which chiefly fixed my attention, where the vast Temple of the Sun stretched upward its thousand columns of polished marble to the heavens, in its matchless beauty casting into the shade every other work of art of which the world can boast. I have stood before the Parthenon, and have almost worshipped that divine achievement of the immortal Phidias. But it is a toy by the side of this bright crown of the Eastern capital. I have been at Milan, at Ephesus, at Alexandria, at Antioch; but in neither of those renowned cities have I beheld any thing that I can allow to approach in united extent, grandeur, and most consummate beauty, this almost more than work of man. On each side of this, the central point, there rose upward slender pyramids--pointed obelisks--domes of the most graceful proportions, columns, arches and lofty towers, for number and for form, beyond my power to describe. These buildings, as well as the walls of the city, being all either of white marble, or of some stone as white, and being every where in their whole extent interspersed, as I have already said, with multitudes of overshadowing palm trees, perfectly filled and satisfied my sense of beauty, and made me feel for the moment, as if in such a scene I should love to dwell, and there end my days. Nor was I alone in these transports of delight. All my fellow-travellers seemed equally affected: and from the native Palmyrenes, of whom there were many among us, the most impassioned and boastful exclamations broke forth. 'What is Rome to this?' they cried: 'Fortune is not constant. Why may not Palmyra be what Rome has been--mistress of the world? Who more fit to rule than the great Zenobia? A few years may see great changes. Who can tell what shall come to pass?' These, and many such sayings, were uttered by those around me, accompanied by many significant gestures and glances of the eye. I thought of them afterward. We now descended the hill, and the long line of caravan moved on toward the city.

Letter II.

I fear lest the length of my first letter may have fatigued you, my Curtius, knowing as I so well do, how you esteem brevity. I hope at this time not to try your patience. But, however I may weary or vex you by my garrulity, I am sure of a patient and indulgent reader in the dear Lucilia, to whom I would now first of all commend myself. I salute her, and with her the little Gallus. My writing to you is a sufficient proof that I myself am well.

By reason of our delaying so long on that little hill, and at other points, for the sake of drinking in full draughts of the unrivalled beauty which lay spread over all the scenery within the scope of our vision, we did not approach the walls of the city till the last rays of the sun were lingering upon the higher buildings of the capital. This rendered every object so much the more beautiful; for a flood of golden light, of a richer hue, it seemed to me, than our sun ever sheds upon Rome, rolled over the city, and plain, and distant mountains, giving to the whole a gorgeousness altogether beyond any thing I ever saw before, and agreeing well with all my impressions of oriental magnificence. It was soon under the right aspect. Not one expectation was disappointed but rather exceeded as we came in sight of the vast walls of the city, and of the 'Roman Gate'--so it is called--through which we were to make our entrance. It was all upon the grandest scale. The walls were higher, and more frequently defended by square massy towers springing out of them, than those of Rome. The towers, which on either side flanked the gateway, and which were connected by an immense arch flung from one to the other, were particularly magnificent. No sooner had we passed through, than we found ourselves in a street lined as it were with palaces. It was of great width---we have no street like it in this respect--of an exact level, and stretched onward farther than the eye could distinctly reach, being terminated by another gate similar to that by which we had entered. The buildings on either side were altogether of marble, of Grecian design--the city is filled with Greek artists of every description--frequently adorned with porticos of the most rich and costly construction and by long ranges of private dwellings, interrupted here and there by temples of religion, edifices of vast extent belonging to the state, or by gardens attached to the residences of the luxurious Palmyrene nobility.

'It is well for Palmyra,' here muttered my slave Milo, 'that the Emperor has never, like us, travelled this way.'

'Why so, Milo?' said I.

'I simply think,' rejoined he, 'that he would burn it down; and it were a pity so many fine buildings should be destroyed. Was there not once a place called Carthage? I have heard it said that it was as large as Rome, and as well garnished with temples, and that for that reason the Romans 'blotted it out.' The people here may thank the desert which we have crossed, that they are not as Carthage. Aurelian, I trow, little dreams what glory is to be won here in the East, or else he would not waste his time upon the savage Goths,'

'The Romans are no longer barbarians,' I replied, 'as they were once. They build up now, instead of demolishing. Remember that Augustus rebuilt Carthage, and that the first Antonine founded that huge and beautiful temple which rose out of the midst of Baalbec; and besides--if I am not mistaken--many of the noblest monuments of art in this very city are the fruit of his munificence.'

'Gods, what a throng is here!' ejaculated Milo, little heeding, apparently, what I had said; 'how are we to get our beasts along? They pay no more regard to us, either, than if we were not Romans. Could any one have believed that a people existed of such strange customs and appearance? What carriages!--what wagons!--what animals!--what fantastical attire!--and from every corner of the earth, too, as it would seem! But it is a pretty sight. Pity though but they could move as quick, as they look well. Fellow, there! you will gratify us if you will start your camels a little out of our way. We wish to make toward the house of Gracchus, and we cannot pass you.'