Zenobia; or, the Fall of Palmyra

by William Ware

Zenobia.

Vol. II

Letter X.

As I returned from the worship of the Christians to the house of Gracchus, my thoughts wandered from the subjects which had just occupied my mind to the condition of the country, and the prospect now growing more and more portentous of an immediate rupture with Rome. On my way I passed through streets of more than Roman magnificence, exhibiting all the signs of wealth, taste, refinement, and luxury. The happy, light-hearted populace were moving through them, enjoying at their leisure the calm beauty of the evening, or hastening to or from some place of festivity. The earnest tone of conversation, the loud laugh, the witty retort, the merry jest, fell upon my ear from one and another as I passed along. From the windows of the palaces of the merchants and nobles, the rays of innumerable lights streamed across my path, giving to the streets almost the brilliancy of day; and the sound of music, either of martial instruments, or of the harp accompanied by the voice, at every turn arrested my attention, and made me pause to listen.

A deep melancholy came over me. It seemed to me that the days of this people were numbered, and that the gods intending their ruin had first made them mad. Their gayety appeared to me no other than madness. They were like the gladiators of our circuses, who, doomed to death, pass the last-days of life in a delirium of forced and frantic joy. Many of the inhabitants I could not but suppose utterly insensible to the dangers which impend--or ignorant of them; but more I believe are cheerful, and even gay, through a mad contempt of them. They look back upon their long and uninterrupted prosperity--they call to mind their late glorious achievements under Odenatus and their Queen--they think of the wide extent of their empire--they remember that Longinus is their minister, and Zenobia still their Queen--and give their fears to the winds. A contest with Rome they approach as they would the games of the amphitheatre.

The situation of their city, defended as it is by the wide-stretching deserts, is indeed enough of itself to inspire the people with a belief that it is impregnable. It requires an effort, I am aware, to admit the likelihood of an army from the far west first overcoming the dangers of the desert, and then levelling the walls of the city, which seem more like ramparts of Nature's making so massy are they, than any work of man. And the Palmyrenes have certainly also some excuse in the wretched management of our generals, ever since the expedition of Valerian, and in the brilliancy of their own achievements, for thinking well of themselves, and anticipating, without much apprehension for the issue, a war with us. But these and the like apologies, however they may serve for the common people, surely are of no force in their application to the intelligent, and such as fill the high places of the kingdom. They know that although upon some mere question of honor or of boundary, it might be very proper and politic to fight a single battle rather than tamely submit to an encroachment, it is quite another thing when the only aim of the war is to see which is the stronger of the two--which is to be master. This last, what is it but madness? the madness of pride and ambition in the Queen--in the people the madness of a love and a devotion to her, unparalleled since the world began. A blindness as of death has seized them all.

Thinking of these things, and full of saddest forebodings as to the fate of this most interesting and polished people, I reached the gate of the palace of Gracchus. The inmates, Gracchus and Fausta, I learned from Milo, were at the palace of the Queen, whither I was instructed by them to resort at the request of Zenobia herself. The chariot of my host soon bore me there. It was with pleasure that I greeted this unexpected good fortune. I had not even seen the Queen since the day passed at her villa, and I was not a little desirous, before the ambassadors should receive their final answer, to have one more opportunity of conversing with her.

The moment I entered the apartment where the Queen was with her guests, I perceived that all state was laid aside, and that we were to enjoy each other with the same social ease as when in the country, or as on that first evening in the gardens of the palace. There was on this occasion no prostration, and no slave crouched at her feet; and all the various Persian ceremonial, in which this proud woman so delights, was dispensed with. The room in which we met was large, and opening on two of its sides upon those lofty Corinthian porticos, which add so greatly to the magnificence of this palace. Light was so disposed as to shed a soft and moon-like radiance, which, without dazzling, perfectly revealed every person and object, even to the minutest beauties of the paintings upon the walls, and of the statuary that offered to the eye the master-pieces of ancient and modern sculpture. The company was scattered; some being seated together in conversation, others observing the works of art, others pacing the marble floors of the porticos, their forms crossing and recrossing the ample arched door-ways which opened upon them.

'We feared,' said the Queen, advancing toward me as I entered, 'that we were not to be so happy as to see you. My other friends have already passed a precious hour with me. But every sacrifice to the affections, be it ever so slight, is a virtue, and therefore you are still an object of praise, rather than of censure.'

I said in reply that an affair of consequence had detained me, or I should have been earlier at the house of Gracchus, so as to have accompanied Fausta.