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 26 WORKMEN AND HEROES been amended. The Scipios and Metelli had conquered the world : the Scipios and Metelli were alone fit to govern it. Thus, when the election time came round, the party of reform was reduced to a minority of irreconcilable radicals, who were easily disposed of. Again, as ten years before, the noble lords armed their followers. Riots broke out and extended day after day. Caius Gracchus was at last killed, as his brother had been, and under cover of the disturbance three thousand of his friends were killed along with him. The power being again securely in their hands, the Senate proceeded at their leisure, and the sur- viving patriots who were in any way notorious or dangerous were hunted down in legal manner, and put to death or banished. ZENOBIA, QUEEN OF PALMYRA BY ANNA JAMESON (REIGNED 267-273 A.D.) O' the government and manners of the Arabians before the time of Mahomet, we have few and imperfect accounts ; but from the remotest ages they led the same unsettled and predatory life which they do at this day, dispersed in hordes, and dwelling under tents. It was not to those wild and wandering tribes that the superb Palmyra owed its rise and grandeur, though situated in the midst of their deserts, where it is now beheld in its melan- choly beauty and ruined splendor, like an enchanted island in the midst of an ocean of sands. The merchants who trafficked between India and Eu- rope, by the only route then known, first colonized this singular spot, which afforded them a convenient resting-place ; and even in the days of Solomon it was the emporium for the gems and gold, the ivory, gums, spices, and silks of the far Eastern countries, which thus found their way to the remotest parts of Europe. The Palmyrenes were, therefore, a mixed race their origin, and many of their customs, were Egyptian ; their love of luxury and their manners were derived from Persia ; their language, literature, and architecture were Greek. Thus, like Venice and Genoa, in more modern times, Palmyra owed its splen- dor to the opulence and public spirit of its merchants ; but its chief fame and historical interest it owes to the genius and heroism of a woman. Septimia Zenobia, for such is her classical appellation, was the daughter of an Arab chief, Amrcu, the son of Dharb, the son of Hassan. Of her first husband