A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Zenobia Septimia
ZENOBIA SEPTIMIA,
Queen of Palmyra, was a native of Syria, and a descendant of the Ptolemies. She was celebrated for her beauty, the melody of her voice, her mental talents, literary acquirements, and her distinguished heroism and valour, as well as her modesty and chastity. "Her manly understanding," says Gibbon, "was strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the Latin tongue, and possessed in equal excellence the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages; she had drawn up, for her own use, an epitome of Oriental history, and familiarly compared the beauties of Homer and Plato, under the tuition of the sublime Longinus."
She married Odenatus, a Saracen prince, who had raised himself from a private station to the dominion of the East; and she delighted in those exercises of war and the chase to which he was devoted. She often accompanied her husband on long and toilsome marches, on horseback or on foot, at the head of his troops; and many of his victories have been ascribed to her skill and valour.
Odenatus was assassinated, with his son Herod, by his nephew Maronius, about the year 267, in revenge for a punishment Odenatus had inflicted on him. Maronius then seized upon the throne; but he had hardly assumed the sovereign title, when Zenobia, assisted by the friends of her husband, wrested the government from him, and put him to death. For five years she governed Palmyra and the East with vigour and ability; so that by her success in warlike expeditions, as well as by the wisdom and firmness of her administration, she aggrandized herself in Asia; and her authority was recognised in Cappadocia, Bithynia, and Egypt. She united with the popular manners of a Roman princess, the stately pomp of the Oriental courts, and styled herself "Queen of the East." She attended herself to the education of her three sons, and frequently showed them to her troops, adorned with the imperial purple.
When Aurelian succeeded to the Roman empire, dreading the power of such a rival, and determined to dispossess her of some of the rich provinces under her dominion, he marched, at the head of a powerful army, into Asia; and, having defeated the queen's general, Zabdas, near Antioch, Zenobia retreated to Emessa, whither she was pursued by Aurelian. Under the walls of that city another engagement, commanded and animated by Zenobia herself, took place, in which the emperor was again victorious. The unfortunate queen withdrew the relics of her forces to Palmyra, her capital, where she was pursued by Aurelian. Having closely invested the city, he found the besieged made a most spirited resistance, so that although Aurelian appeared confident of final success, yet he found the conquest of Palmyra so difficult that he proposed very advantageous offers to Zenobia, if she would submit and surrender the city. She rejected his terms in a haughty reply, which, although not prudent, exhibited her courage and patriotism in a strong light.
After protracting the siege as long as possible, Zenobia, determined not to surrender, mounted one of the swiftest of her dromedaries, and hastened towards the Euphrates, with a view of seeking an asylum in the Persian territories. But being overtaken in her flight, she was brought back to Aurelian, who sternly demanded of her, how she dared to resist the Emperors of Rome. She replied, "Because I could not recognise as such, Gallienus and others like him; you, alone, I acknowlege as my conqueror and my sovereign."
At Emessa, the fate of Zenobia was submitted to the judgment of a tribunal, at which Aurelian presided. Hearing the soldiers clamouring for her death, Zenobia, according to Zosimus, weakly purchased her life, with the sacrifice of her well-earned fame, by attributing the obstinacy of her resistance to the advice of her ministers. It is certain that these men were put to death; and as Zenobia was spared, it was conjectured her accusations drew down the vengeance of the emperor on the heads of her counsellors; but the fact has never been proved. One of the victims of this moment of cowardice, was the celebrated Longinus, who calmly resigned himself to his fate, pitying his unhappy mistress, and comforting his afflicted friends. He was put to death in 273.
Zenobia, reserved to grace the triumph of Aurelian, was taken to Rome, which she entered on foot, preceding a magnificent chariot, designed by her, in the days of her prosperity, for a triumphal entry into Rome. She was bound by chains of gold, supported by a slave, and so loaded with jewels, that she almost fainted under their weight.
She was afterwards treated more humanely by the victor, who gave her an elegant residence near the Tiber, about twenty miles from Rome, where she passed the rest of her life as a Roman matron, emulating the virtues of Cornelia. Whether she contracted a second marriage with a Roman senator, as some hare asserted, is uncertain. Her surviving son, Vhaballat, withdrew into Armenia, where he possessed a small principality, granted him by the emperor; her daughters contracted noble alliances, and her family was not extinct in the fifth century. She died about the year 300.
Zenobia had written a "History of Egypt;" and, previous to her defeat by Aurelian, she interested herself in the theological controversies of the times; and, either from policy or principle, protected Paul of Samosata, the celebrated unitarian philosopher, whom the council of Antioch had condemned. In estimating her character, it may well be said that she was one of the most illustrious women who have swayed the sceptre of royalty; in every virtue which adorns high station, as far superior to Aurelian, as soul is superior to sense. But moral energy was then overborne by physical force; the era was unpropitious for the gentle sex; yet her triumphs and her misfortunes alike display the wonderful power of woman's spirit.