Female Warriors (Vol.1&2). Ellen C. Clayton

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СКАЧАТЬ year the royal pair undertook a second expedition against Sapor. New triumphs were added to the glories of the last campaign. The Persian king was once more forced to take refuge in Ctesiphon, which would no doubt have fallen had not the incursion of a horde of Scythian Goths into Syria compelled Odenathus to raise the siege.

      Surrounding nations soon learned to respect the brave prince of Palmyra and his no less warlike consort. Even Sapor, humiliated though he had been, was glad, not merely to make peace, but to join in close alliance with his conquerors, who were threatened by the underhand machinations of the contemptible emperor Gallienus. But the brilliant career of Odenathus was unexpectedly brought to a close by the hand of his nephew, who, believing himself insulted by the monarch, assassinated him, together with his son Herod, at a banquet in the city of Emesa, A.D. 267.

      The murderer gained nothing but the empty pleasure of revenge. Scarcely had he assumed the title of Augustus ere he was sacrificed by the royal widow to the memory of her husband, though some historians have accused her of being an accomplice in the double murder. Zenobia was proclaimed queen; and, passing over Timolaus and Herennius, her sons by Odenathus, she arrayed Vhaballathus in the purple, and showed him to the troops as their emperor.

      With the death of Odenathus ceased that authority granted him as a personal favour by the emperor and senate of Rome; and Gallienus despatched an army to dethrone Zenobia. But the queen soon compelled the Roman general to retreat into Europe with the loss of both army and reputation. Zenobia governed the East for more than five years; and by successive conquests she extended her dominions from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean and the borders of Bithynia; and added, besides, the land of the Ptolemies. Her power became so great that the warlike Claudius II., who succeeded Gallienus, was satisfied that while he was occupied in the defence of Italy from the Goths and Germans, Zenobia should assert the dignity of the Roman power in the East.

      Palmyra, the capital of the warrior queen, almost rivalled the Eternal City in the magnificence of its temples, its mansions, its public monuments, and the luxury of its citizens. It became the great centre of commerce between Europe and India, and its merchants grew wealthy through the trade of East and West. Arcades of lofty palms shadowed its streets of marble palaces; purling fountains, fed by icy springs, rendered it a perfect Elysium in the midst of burning arid sands. Schools, museums, libraries, fostered by the care of Zenobia, encouraged and aided the arts and literature.

      At last the stern, the inflexible Aurelian ascended the throne of the Cæsars. Firmly resolved to rid the empire of every usurper, great or small, he began by re-conquering Gaul and making prisoner the Western usurper, Tetricus. He then passed into Asia, A.D. 272, when his presence alone was sufficient to bring back Bithynia to its allegiance. Of course Zenobia did not indolently permit an invader to approach within a hundred miles of her capital without taking measures to arrest his progress. She marched with all her forces to oppose him; but was signally defeated in two battles, the first near Antioch, the second near Emesa. In both engagements the queen animated the soldiers by her presence, though the actual command devolved on Zabdas, the conqueror of Egypt. The latter, Zenobia's principal general, has been by many supposed to have been Zabba, the queen's sister; this, however, is mere surmise.

      After the second defeat, Zenobia was unable to raise a third army. She retired within the walls of her capital, prepared to make a gallant defence, and boldly declared that her reign and her life should end together.

      Aurelian arrived before Palmyra, after a toilsome march over the sandy desert which separated the city from Antioch. His proposals being rejected with scorn, he was obliged to begin the siege; and, while superintending the operations, he was wounded by a dart.

      "The Roman people," he wrote in a letter, "speak with contempt of the war which I am waging against a woman. They are ignorant both of the character and of the power of Zenobia. It is impossible to enumerate her warlike preparations of stones, of arrows, and of every species of missile weapons. Every part of the walls is provided with two or three balistæ, and artificial fires are thrown from her military engines. The fear of punishment has armed her with a desperate courage."

      Zenobia was at first supported in her determined resistance by the hope that the Roman army, having no means of getting provisions, would soon be compelled to retreat, and also by the expectation that Persia would come to her aid. Disappointed in both calculations, she mounted her swiftest dromedary and fled towards the Euphrates. But the Roman light cavalry pursued, and soon overtook the queen, who was brought back prisoner. Palmyra surrendered almost immediately after, and was treated with unexpected clemency by the victor.

      The courage of Zenobia entirely deserted her when she heard the angry cries of the soldiers, who clamoured for her immediate execution. She threw the entire guilt of her obstinate resistance upon her friends and counsellors, and the celebrated Longinus, amongst others, fell a victim to the emperor's rage.

      Vhaballathus, the only surviving son of Zenobia, withdrew into Armenia, where he ruled over a small principality granted him by Aurelian.

      When the emperor returned to Rome, in the following year (A.D. 274), he celebrated, after the manner of Roman conquerors, a magnificent triumph in honour of his many victories over the Goths, the Alemanni, Tetricus, and Zenobia. Elephants, royal tigers, panthers, bears, armed gladiators, military standards, and war-chariots passed in succession. But the great object of attention was the Eastern queen, who, completely laden with golden fetters, a gold chain, supported by a slave, round her neck, her limbs bending beneath the weight of the jewels with which she was decked, was compelled to precede, on foot, the triumphal car in which, not many months previously, she had hoped to enter the gates of Rome as a conqueror.

      After the conclusion of his triumph, Aurelian presented Zenobia with an elegant villa at Tibur (or Tivoli), about twenty miles from the capital; and here she passed the rest of her days as a Roman matron. She died about the year 300. Her daughters married into wealthy and noble families; some say, indeed, that Aurelian espoused one of them; and the family was not extinct even in the fifth century. Baronius supposes Zenobius, Bishop of Florence, in the days of Saint Ambrose, to have been one of the great queen's descendants.

      Amongst the numberless captives—Sarmatians, Alemanni, Goths, Vandals, Gauls, Franks, Dacians, Syrians, Arabs, Egyptians—who unwillingly graced the triumph of Aurelian, were ten Gothic women, captured in a battle between the Goths and Romans when the emperor was driving the barbarians out of Italy. Each party was distinguished in the procession by its own, or by some fancy name; these Gothic females were designated "Amazons." Besides these prisoners, many Gothic women and girls, in male attire, had been found dead on the field of battle.

      Hunila, or Hunilda, one of these Gothic women, was afterwards married to Bonosus, a wealthy and influential Roman general, Governor of Rhætia. She was admired and distinguished amongst her new friends for her beauty, wit, and virtue. But the ci-devant Amazon kept up communications with her own countrymen; and Bonosus, promised assistance by his wife's relations, assumed the purple. For a few months his authority extended over Gaul, Spain and Britain; but at last he was conquered by the Emperor Probus. To avoid falling into the hands of the victor, he put an end to his own life by hanging; whereupon some wit, alluding to his favourite vice (for Bonosus, they say, could drink as much as ten strong men) remarked that "there hung a bottle, not a man."

      Probus spared the life of Hunila, and granted her an annual pension for the rest of her days; he permitted her sons to enjoy their paternal estate.

      Mavia, Queen of Pharan, another of those troublesome women who defied the Roman emperors, was by birth a Roman, and by education a Christian. When very young she was carried away by a troop of Arabs, who brought her to their prince, Obedien, King of Pharan. The latter, who was himself a Christian, charmed by the beauty of his captive, made her his wife. At his death Mavia became sole ruler of Pharan. Placing herself at the head of a numerous army, A.D. 373, she invaded Palestine, and advancing as far as Phœnicia, defeated СКАЧАТЬ