Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/383

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 359 laid the foundations of their united fame and power. CHAP. YT The armies which they commanded, and the provinces ' which they had saved, acknowledged not any other sovereigns than their invincible chiefs. The senate and people of Rome revered a stranger who had avenged their captive emperor; and even the insensi- ble son of Valerian accepted Odenathus for his legiti- mate colleague. After a successful expedition against the Gothic She re- plunderers of Asia, the Palmyrenian prince returned JuSd" to the city of Emesa in Syria. Invincible in war, he death, was there cut off by domestic treason; and his favour- ite amusement of hunting was the cause, or at least the occasion, of his death''. His nephew, Maeonius, pre- sumed to dart his javelin before that of his uncle ; and though admonished of his error, repeated the same in- solence. As a monarch and as a sportsman, Odenathus w as provoked, took away his horse, a mark of ignominy among the barbarians, and chastised the rash youth by a short confinement. The offence was soon forgot, but the punishment was remembered ; and Maeonius, with a few daring associates, assassinated his uncle in the midst of a great entertainment. Herod, the son of A. D. 267. Odenathus, though not of Zenobia, a young man of a soft and effeminate temper *, was killed with his father. But Maeonius obtained only the pleasure of revenge by this bloody deed. He had scarcely time to assume the title of Augustus, before he was sacrificed by Zenobia to the memory of her husband '". With the assistance of his most faithful friends, she and reigns immediately filled the vacant throne, and governed with east and manly counsels Palmyra, Syria, and the east, above Egypt. five years. By the death of Odenathus, that authority was at an end which the senate had granted him only '' Hist. August, p. 192, 193 ; Zosimus, 1. i. p. 36 ; Zonoras, 1. xii. p. 633. The last is clear and probable, the others confused and inconsistent. The text of Syncellus, if not corrupt, is absolute nonsense. ' Odenathus and Zenobia often sent him, from the spoils of the enemy, presents of gems and toys, which he received with infinite delight. accessary to her husband's death.
 * " Some very unjust suspicions have been cast on Zenobia, as if she was