Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/59

 ZENOBIA, QUEEN OF PALMYRA 29 within, Zenobia braved her antagonist from the towers of Palmyra as boldly as she had defied him in the field of battle. The expectation of succors from the East added to her courage, and determined her to persevere to the last. " Those." said Aurelian in one of his letters, " who speak with contempt of the war I am waging against a woman, are ignorant both of the character and power of Zeno- bia. It is impossible to enumerate her warlike preparations of stones, of arrows, and of every species of missile weapons and military engines." Aurelian, in fact, became doubtful of the event of the siege, and he offered the queen the most honorable terms of capitulation if she would surrender to his arms ; but Zenobia, who was aware that famine raged in the Roman camp, and daily looked for the expected relief, rejected his proposals in a famous Greek epistle, written with equal arrogance and eloquence ; she defied the utmost of his power ; and, alluding to the fate of Cleopatra, expressed her resolution to die like her rather than yield to the Roman arms. Aurelian was incensed by this haughty letter, even more than by dangers and delays attending the siege ; he re- doubled his efforts, he cut off the succors she expected ; he found means to sub- sist his troops even in the midst of the desert ; every day added to the number and strength of his army, every day increased the difficulties of Zenobia, and the despair of the Palmyrenes. The city could not hold out much longer, and the queen resolved to fly, not to insure her own safety, but to bring relief to her capital such at least is the excuse made for a part of her conduct which cer- tainly requires apology. Mounted on a fleet dromedary, she contrived to elude the vigilance of the besiegers, and took the road to the Euphrates ; but she was pursued by a party of the Roman light cavalry, overtaken, and brought as a captive into the presence of Aurelian. He sternly demanded how she had dared to oppose the power of Rome ? to which she replied, with a mixture of firmness and gentleness, " Because I disdained to acknowledge as my masters such men as Aureolus and Gallienus. To Aurelian I submit as my conqueror and my sovereign." Aurelian was not displeased at the artful compliment implied in this answer, but he had not forgotten the insulting arrogance of her former re- ply. While this conference was going forward in the tent of the Roman em- peror, the troops, who were enraged by her long and obstinate resistance, and all they had suffered during the siege, assembled in tumultuous bands calling out for vengeance, and with loud and fierce cries demanding her instant death. The un- happy queen, surrounded by the ferocious and insolent soldiery, forgot all her former vaunts and intrepidity ; her feminine terrors had perhaps been excusable if they had not rendered her base ; but in her first panic she threw herself on the mercy of the emperor, accused her ministers as the cause of her determined re- sistance, and confessed that Longinus had written in her name that eloquent let- ter of defiance which had so incensed the emperor. Longinus, with the rest of her immediate friends and counsellors, W;ere in- stantly sacrificed to the fury of the soldiers, and the philosopher met death with all the fortitude which became a wise and great man, employing his last moments in endeavoring to console Zenobia and reconcile her to her fate.