And o'er ASSYRIA'S many-peopled plains,

By Justice led, thy conqu'ring armies pour'd,
When humbled nations kiss'd thy silken chains,
Or fled dismay'd from ZABDAS'* victor-sword:
Yet vain the hope to share the purple robe,†

Or snatch from ROMAN arms the empire of the globe.

* Zenobia's general.

From the time of Adrian to that of Aurelian, for about 140 years, this city continued to flourish, and increase in wealth and power, to that degree, that when the Emperor Valerian was taken prisoner by Sapor, King of Persia, Odenathus, one of the lords of this town, was able, whilst Gallienus neglected his duty both to his father and his country, to bring a powerful army into the field, and to recover Mesopotamia from the Persians, and to penetrate as far as their capital city Ctesiphon. Thereby rendering so considerable a service to the Roman state, that Gallienus thought himself obliged to give him a share in the empire: of which action Trebellius Pollio, in the Life of Gallienus, has these words: Laudatur ejus (Gallieni) optimum factum, qui Odenatum participato imperio Augustum vocavit, ejusque monetam, quæ Persas captos traheret, cudi jussit; quod et Senatus et Urbs et omnis ætas gratanter accepit. The same, in many places, speaks of this Odenathus with great respect; and mentioning his death, he says: Iratum fuisse Deum Republica credo, qui interfecto Valeriano noluit Odenatum reservare. But by a strange reverse of fortune, this honour and respect to Odenathus occasioned the sudden ruin and subverison of the city. For he and his son Herodes being murdered by Mæonius, their kinsman, and dying with the title of Augustus, his wife Zenobia, in right of her son Vaballathus, then a minor, pretended to take upon her the government of the East, and did administer it to admiration: and when, soon after, Gallienus was murdered by his soldiers, she grasped the government of Egypt, and held it during the short reign of the Emperor Claudius Gothicus. But Aurelian coming to the imperial dignity, would not suffer the title of Augustus in this family, though he was contented that they should hold under him as vice Cæsaris, as plainly appears by the Latin coins, of Aurelian on the one side, and Vaballathus on the other, with these letters, V. C. R. IM. OR; which P. Harduin has most judiciously interpreted, VICE CÆSARIS RECTOR IMPERII ORIENTIS, without the title of Cæsar or Augustus, and with a laurel instead of a diadem. But both Vaballathus and Zenobia are styled ZEBATOI in the Greek coins, made, it is probable within their own jurisdiction.

But nothing less than a participation of the empire contenting Zenobia, and Aurelian persisting not to have it dismembered, he marched against her; and having in two battles routed her forces, he shut her up and besieged her in Palmyra, and the beseiged finding that the great resistance they made availed not against that resolute emperor, they yielded the town; and Zenobia flying with her son was pursued and taken; with which Aurelian being contented spared the city, and marched for Rome with his captive lady; but the inhabitants, believing he would not return, set up again for

VIII.

Along the wild and wasted plain

His vet'ran bands the ROMAN monarch led,

And roll'd his burning wheels o'er heaps of slain :
The prowling chacal heard afar

The devastating yell of war,

And rush'd, with gloomy howl, to banquet on the dead!

IX.

For succour to PALMYRA'S walls

Her trembling subjects fled, confounded,
But wide amid her regal halls

The whirling fires resounded.

Onward the hostile legions pour'd:

Nor beauteous youth, nor helpless age,

*

Nor female charms, by savage breasts ador'd,
Could check the ROMAN's barb'rous rage,

Or blunt the murd'rous sword.

Loud, long, and fierce, the voice of slaughter roar'd
The night-shades fell, the work of death was o'er,
PALMYRA'S sun had set, to rise no more!

themselves, and, as Vopiscus has it, slew the garrison he had left in the place. Which Aurelian understanding, though by this time he was gotten into Europe, with his usual fierceness, speedily returned, and collecting a sufficient army by the way, he again took the city, without any great opposition, and put it to the sword with uncommon cruelty (as he himself confesses in a letter extant in Vopiscus), and delivered it to the pillage of his soldiers.-Philosophical Trans

actions.

* The following is the letter of Aurelian above alluded to . . . Aurelianus Augustus Ceionio Basso: Non oportet ulterius progredi militum gladios, jam satis Palmyrenorum cæsum atque occisum est. Mulieribus non pepercimus, infantes occidimus, senes jugulavimus, rusticos interemimus, cui terras, cui urbem, deinceps relinquemus? Parcendum est iis qui remanserunt. Credimus enim paucos tam multorum suppliciis esse correctos. Templum sanè solis, quod apud Palmyram aquilifer legionis tertiæ cum vexilliferis et draconario cornicinibus atque liticinibus diripuerunt, ad eam formam volo, quæ fuit, reddi. Habes trecentas auri libras Zenobia capsulis: habes argenti mille octingenta pondo e Palmyrenorum bonis: habes gemmas regias. Ex his omnibus fac cohonestari templum: mihi et diis immortalibus gratissimum feceris. Ego ad Senatum scribam, petens ut mittet pontificem, qui dedicet templum.

X.

What mystic form, uncouth and dread,
With wither'd cheek, and hoary head,
Swift as the death-fire cleaves the sky,
Swept on sounding pinions by?

'Twas TIME: I know the FOE of Kings,
His scythe, and sand, and eagle wings:
He cast a burning look around,
And wav'd his bony hand, and frown'd.
Far from the spectre's scowl of fire
FANCY'S feeble forms retire,

Her air-born phantoms melt away,
Like stars before the rising day.

XI.

Yes, all are flown!

I stand alone,

At ev'ning's calm and pensive hour,
'Mid wasting domes,

And mould'ring tombs,

The wrecks of vanity and pow'r.
One shadowy tint enwraps the plain;
No form is near, no sounds intrude,
To break the melancholy reign

Of silence and of solitude.

How oft, in scenes like these, since TIME began,
With downcast eye has CONTEMPLATION trod,
Far from the haunts of FOLLY, VICE, and MAN,
To hold sublime communion with her GOD!
How oft, in scenes like these, the pensive sage

Has mourn'd the hand of FATE, severely just,
WAR'S wasteful course, and DEATH'S unsparing rage,
And dark OBLIVION, frowning in the dust!
Has mark'd the tombs, that kings o'erthrown declare,
Just wept their fall, and sunk to join them there!

XII.

In yon proud fane, majestic in decay,*

How oft of old the swelling hymn arose,

In loud thanksgiving to the LORD OF DAY,
Or pray'r for vengeance on triumphant foes!

Architecture more especially lavished her ornaments, and dis

'Twas there, ere yet AURELIAN's hand
Had kindled Ruin's smould'ring brand,
As slowly mov'd the sacred choir
Around the altar's rising fire,

The priest, with wild and glowing eye,
Bade the flower-bound victim die;
And while he fed the incense-flame,
With many a holy mystery,
Prophetic inspiration came

To teach th' impending destiny,
And shook his venerable frame
With most portentous augury!
In notes of anguish, deep and slow,
He told the coming hour of woe;
The youths and maids, with terror pale,
In breathless torture heard the tale,
And silence hung

"Whence was the hollow scream of fear,
Whose tones appall'd my shrinking ear?
Whence was the modulated cry,

That seem'd to swell, and hasten by?
What sudden blaze illum'd the night?
Ha! 'twas DESTRUCTION'S meteor-light!
Whence was the whirlwind's eddying breath?
Ha! 'twas the fiery blast of DEATH!

XIV.

"See the mighty GOD OF BATTLE
Spreads abroad his crimson train!
Discord's myriad voices rattle

O'er the terror-shaken plain.

played her magnificence, in the temple of the sun, the tutelar deity of Palmyra. The square court which enclosed it was six hundred and seventy-nine feet each way, and a double range of columns extended all round the inside. In the middle of the vacant space, the temple presents another front of forty-seven feet by one hundred and twenty-four in depth, and around it runs a peristyle of one hundred and forty columns.-VOLNEY,

Banners stream, and helmets glare,
Show'ring arrows hiss in air;
Echoing through the darken'd skies,
Wildly-mingling murmurs rise,
The clash of splendour-beaming steel,
The buckler ringing hollowly,
The cymbal's silver-sounding peal,
The last deep groan of agony,
The hurrying feet

Of wild retreat,

The length'ning shout of victory!

XV.

"O'er our plains the vengeful stranger
Pours, with hostile hopes elate:
Who shall check the threat'ning danger?
Who escape the coming fate?
Thou! that through the heav'ns afar,
When the shades of night retire,

Proudly roll'st thy shining car,

Clad in sempiternal fire!

Thou from whose benignant light

Fiends of darkness, strange and fell,

Urge their ebon-pinion'd flight

To the central caves of hell!
SUN ador'd! attend our call!
Must thy favour'd people fall?
Must we leave our smiling plains,

To groan beneath the stranger's chains?
Rise, supreme in heav'nly pow'r,

On our foes destruction show'r;
Bid thy fatal arrows fly,

Till their armies sink and die;
Through their adverse legions spread
Pale DISEASE, and with'ring DREAD,
Wild CONFUSION's fev'rish glare,
HORROR, MADNESS, and DESPAIR!

XVI.

"Woe to thy numbers fierce and rude,*
Thou madly-rushing multitude,

* Woe to the multitude of many people, that make a noise like