Zenobia; or, the Fall of Palmyra by William Ware (mind reading books .TXT) 📕

In Letters of L. Manlius Piso, from Palmyra,
to His Friend Marcus Curtius at Rome.

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.

Fausta, who had been sitting with the Queen, now came forward, Julia leaning on her arm, and said, 'And what do you imagine to be the affair of consequence that has deprived us of Piso's company?'

'I cannot tell, indeed,' replied Zenobia.

'Julia at least,' said Fausta, 'will applaud him, when she hears that he has just come from an assembly of Christians. May I ask, Lucius, what new truth you have learned with which to enlighten us? But your countenance tells me I must not jest. There--let me smooth that brow and make my peace. But in seriousness, I hope your Mediterranean friend rewarded you for the hour you have given him, and deprived us of?'

'I wish,' I could not but reply, 'that but one out of every thousand hours of my life had been as well rewarded, and it would not have been so worthless. The Princess may believe me when I say that not even the Bishop of Antioch could have done better justice to the Christian argument. I have heard this evening a Christian of the name of Probus, whose history I related--and which you may remember--at the tables, within a few days after my arrival in Palmyra. He is in opinion a follower of Paul, so I am informed, though not--you Julia will be glad to learn it--in his manner of life. What the differences are which separate the Christians from one another in their belief, I know not. I only know that truth cannot take a more winning shape than that in which it came from the lips of Probus, and it was largely supported by the words of the founder of the religion. I think you may justly congratulate your city and your subjects,' I continued addressing Zenobia, 'upon the labors and teaching of a man like Probus. The sentiments which he utters are such as must tend to the strength of any government which relies for its support, in any sense, upon the social and personal virtues of the people. In implanting the virtues of justice, temperance, and piety, and in binding each heart to every other, by the bonds of a love which this religion makes itself almost to consist in, it does all that either philosophy or religion can do for the harmony and order of society, the safety of governments, and the peace of the world.'

'You speak with the earnestness of a deep persuasion, Roman,' replied the Queen, 'and I shall not forget the name and office of the person whom you have now named to me. I hear with pleasure of the arrival of any teacher of truth in my kingdom. I have derived so much myself from the influences of letters and philosophy, that it is no far-off conclusion for me to arrive at, that my people must be proportionally benefited by an easy access to the same life-giving fountains. Whatever helps to quicken thought, and create or confirm habits of reflection, is so much direct service to the cause of humanity. I truly believe that there is no obstacle but ignorance, to prevent the world from attaining a felicity and a virtue, such as we now hardly dream of--ignorance respecting the first principles of philosophy and religion. Knowledge is not less essential to the increase and elevation of virtue, than it is to the further advances of truth, and the detection of error. Prove the truth, and mankind will always prefer it to falsehood. So too, demonstrate wherein goodness consists, and the road that leads to it, and mankind will prefer it to vice. Vice is a mistake, as well as a fault; I do not say as often. I fear that the Christian teachers are occupying themselves and their disciples too much about mere speculative and fanciful distinctions, while they give too little heed to that which alone is of any consequence, virtue. In this, Longinus,' turning towards the philosopher, who had now joined us, 'I think they affect to imitate the commentators and living expositors of the great Plato. I have heard from Paul of Samosata accounts of differences among Christians, where the points were quite too subtle for my understanding to appreciate. They reminded me of the refinements of some of the young adventurers from Athens, who occasionally have resorted here for the purpose of elucidating the doctrines of your great master--pseudo-philosophers and tyros, I perceive you are waiting to term them. Is it so that you denominate Polemo the Athenian, who as I learn is now here with the benevolent design of enlightening my people?'

'He is a man,' replied Longinus, 'hardly worthy to be named in this connection and this presence at all. I have neither met him nor heard him, nor do I desire to do so. It is through the mischievous intermeddling of such as he that the honorable name and office of philosopher are brought into contempt. It requires more intellect than ever enlightens the soul of Polemo, to comprehend the lofty truth of Plato. I trust that when it has been my pleasure to unfold the sense of that great teacher, it has not been found to be either unprofitable, or unintelligible?'

Zenobia smiled and said, 'I must confess that at times, as I have ever frankly stated, my mind has been a little tasked. There has been but an approach to a perfect idea. But I do not say that a perfect conception has not been presented. So that when this has happened, Longinus being the teacher, and Zenobia and Julia the pupils, I cannot doubt that when the task is entrusted to less cultivated minds--the task both of teaching and learning--it must frequently end in what it might be rash to term light or knowledge.'

'I grieve, O Queen,' replied Longinus, smiling in his turn, 'that both you and the Princess should have possessed so little affinity for the soul-purifying and elevating doctrines of the immortal Plato--that you, Queen, should have even preferred the dark annals of Egyptian and Assyrian history and politics, and the Greek learning; and you, Princess, should have fixed your affections upon this, not new-found philosophy, but new-invented religion, of the Christians. I still anticipate the happiness to lead you both into the groves of the academy, and detain you there, where and where only are seats that well become you.'

'But is it not,' I ventured here to suggest, 'some objection to the philosophy of Plato as the guide of life, that it requires minds of the very highest order to receive it? Philosophy, methinks, should be something of such potency, yet at the same time of such simplicity, that it should not so much require a lofty and elevated intellect to admit it, as tend, being received readily and easily by minds of a humbler order, to raise them up to itself. Now this, so