Eastern expedition. For this no ground occurs to me except, possibly, an attempt upon Persia for the rescue of Valerian, if yet he be living, or for the general vindication of the honor of Rome against the disgraceful successes of the Great King. I cannot for one moment believe that toward Palmyra any other policy will be adopted than that which has been pursued for the last century and a half, and emphatically sanctioned, as you well know, by both Galienus and Claudius. Standing on the honorable footing, as nominally a part of the empire of Rome, but in fact a sovereign and independent power, we enjoy all that we can desire in the form of political privileges. Then for our commerce, it could not be more flourishing, or conducted on more advantageous terms even to Rome itself. In one word, we are contented, prosperous, and happy, and the crime of that man would be great, indeed, who from any motive of personal ambition, or any policy of state, would disturb our existing relations of peace and friendship with all the world.' To this I replied: I most sincerely trust that no design, such as you hint at, exists in the mind of Aurelian. I know him, and know him to be ambitious and imperious, as he is great in resources and unequalled in military science, but withal he is a man of wisdom, I believe, and in the main, of justice, too. That he is a true lover of his country, I am sure; and that the glory of that country is dearer to him than all other objects—that it rises in him almost to a species of madness this I know, too; and it is from this quarter, if from any, that danger is to be apprehended. He will have Rome to be all in all. His desire is that it should once more possess the unity that it did under the Antonines. This idea dwelt upon, may lead him into enterprises from which, however defended on the ground of the empire's glory, will result in nothing but discredit to himself, and injury to the state. I, too, have heard the rumors of which you speak, but I cannot give them one moment's credence; and I pray most fervently, that springing as they do, no one knows whence, nor on what authority resting, they will not be permitted to have the least effect upon the mind of the Queen, nor upon any of her advisers. She is now in reality an independent sovereign, reigning over an immense empire, stretching from Egypt to the shores of the Euxine-from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and she stillstands upon the records of the senate as a colleague even as when Odenathus shared the throne with her of the Emperor. This is a great and a fortunate position. The gods forbid that any intemperance on the part of the Palmyrenes should rouse the anger or the jealousy of the fierce Aurelian !' Could I have said less than this? But I saw in the countenances of both, while I was speaking, especially in the honest, expressive one of Fausta, that they could brook no hint of inferiority or of dependence on the part of their country so deep a place has the great Zenobia secured for herself in the pride and most sacred affections of this interesting people. I will not, with you, noble Piso,' said Gracchus, believe that the Emperor will do aught to break up the present harmony. I will have faith in him; and I shall use all influence that I may possess in the affairs of the state to infuse a spirit of moderation into our acts, and above all into our language; for one hasty word uttered in certain quarters may lead to the ruin of kingdoms that have taken centuries to attain their growth. But this I say let there only come over here

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from the West the faintest whisper of any purpose on the part of Aurelian to consider Zenobia as holding the same position in regard to Rome as Tetricus in Gaul, and that moment a flame is kindled throughout Palmyra that nothing but blood can quench. This people, as you well know, has been a free people from the earliest records of history, and they will sink under the ruins of their capital and their country, ere they will bend to a foreign power.' That will they! —that will they, indeed!' cried Fausta; there is not a Palmyrene who, had he two lives, would not give one for liberty, and the other for his good Queen. You do not know Zenobia, Lucius, nor can you tell, therefore, how reasonable the affection is which binds every heart to her as to a mother or a sister.' 'But enough of this for the present,' said Gracchus; let us leave the affairs of nations, and ascend to those of private individuals for I suppose your philosophy teaches you, as it does me, that individual happiness is the object for which governments are instituted, and that they are therefore less than this- let us ascend, I say, from the policy of Rome and of Aurelian, to the private affairs of our friend Lucius Piso, for your letter gives me the privilege of asking you to tell us, in all frankness and love, what, beside the pleasure of seeing us, brings you so far from Rome. It is, you hint, a business of a painful nature. Use me and Fausta, as you would in Rome the noble Portia and the good Lucilia, with the same freedom and the same assurance of our friendship.' 'Do so, indeed,' added Fausta, with affectionate warmth, and feel that in addressing us, you are entrusting your thoughts to true and long-tried friends.' 'I have,' replied I, 'but little to communicate, but that little is great in its interest, and demands immediate action; and touching what shall be most expedient to be done, I shall want and shall ask your deliberate counsel. You are well aware, alas! too well aware, of the cruel fate of my parent, the truly great Cneius Piso, whom to name is always a spring of strength to my virtues. With the unhappy Valerian, to whom he clung to the last, resolved to die with him, or suffer with him whatever the fates should decree, he passed into captivity; but of too proud a spirit to endure the indignities which were heaped upon the Emperor, and which were threatened him, he - destroyed so we have learned himself. He found an opportunity, however, before he thus nobly used his power, to exhort my poor brothers not at once, at least, to follow his example. You are young,' said he, and have more strength than I, and the gods may interpose and deliver you. Hope dwells with youth, as it dies with age. Do not despair. I feel that you will one day return to Rome. For myself, I am a decayed trunk, at best, and it matters little when I fall, or where I lie. One thing, at least, I cannot bear; it would destroy me if I did not destroy myself. I am a Roman and a Piso, and the foot of a Persian shall never stand upon my neck. I die.' My elder brother, thinking example a more powerful kind of precept than words, no sooner was assured of the death of his father, than he too opened his veins, and perished. And so we learned had Calpurnius done, and we were comparatively happy in the thought that they had escaped by a voluntary death the shame of being used as footstools by the haughty Sapor, and the princes of his court. But a rumor reached us a few days before I left Rome, that Calpurnius is yet living. We learn, obscurely, that being favorably distinguished and

1836.1

6

Letters from Palmyra.

secretly favored by the son of Sapor, he was persuaded to live, and wait You may imagine both my for the times to open a way for his escape. grief and my joy on this intelligence. The thought that he should so long have lain in captivity and imprisonment, and no step have been taken toward his rescue, has weighed upon me with a mountain weight of sorrow. Yet at the same time, I have been supported by the hope that his deliverance may be effected, and that he may return to Rome once more, to glad the eyes of the aged Portia. It is this hope which has brought me to Palmyra, as perhaps the best point whence to set in motion the measures which it shall be thought wisest to adopt. I shall rely much upon your counsel.' No sooner had I spoken thus, than Fausta quickly exclaimed: Oh! father, how easily, were the Queen now in Palmyra, might we obtain through her the means of approaching the Persian King with some hope of a successful appeal to his She hesitated and paused. I perceive,' compassion! - and yet' said Gracchus, what it is that checks your speech. You feel that in this matter Zenobia would have no power with the Persian monarch or court. The two nations are now, it is true, upon friendly terms; but a deep hatred exists in the heart of Sapor toward Zenobia. The successive defeats which he suffered, when Odenathus and his Queen took it upon them to vindicate the honor of Rome, and revenge the foul indignities cast upon the unfortunate Valerian, will never be forgotten; and policy only, not love or regard, keeps the peace between Persia and Palmyra. Sapor fears the power of Zenobia, supported, as he knows she would be, by the strength of Rome; and moreover, he is well aware that Palmyra serves as a protecting wall between him and Rome, and that her existence as an independent power is vital to the best interests of his kingdom. For these reasons harmony prevails, and in the event of a rupture between us and Rome, we might with certainty calculate upon Persia as an ally. Still Sapor is an enemy at heart. His pride, humbled as it was by that disastrous rout, when his whole camp and even his wives fell into the hands of the royal Odenathus, will never recover from the wound, and will prompt to acts of retaliation and revenge, rather than to any deed of kindness. While his public policy is, and doubtless will continue to be, pacific, his private feelings are, and ever will be, bitter. I see not how in this business we can rely with any hope of advantage upon the interposition of the Queen. If your brother is ever rescued, it must, I think, be achieved by private enterprise.' Your words' said I, have pierced me through with grief, and dispelled in a moment the brightest visions. All the way from Rome have I been cheered by the hope of what the Queen, at your solicitation, would be able to attempt and accomplish in my behalf. But it is all over. I feel the truth of what you have urged. I see it - I now see it-private enterprise can alone effect his deliverance, and from this moment I devote myself to that work. If Rome leaves her emperor to die in captivity, so will not I my brother. I will go myself to the den of this worse than barbarian king, and bring thence the loved Calpurnius, or leave my own body It is now, indeed, thirteen years since there for that beast to batten on. Calpurnius left me, a child, in Rome, to join the emperor in that illfated expedition. But it is with the distinctness of a yesterday's vision that he now stands before my eyes, as he then stood that day he parted

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from us, glittering in his brilliant armor, and his face just as brilliant with the light of a great and trusting spirit. As he turned from the last embraces of the noble Portia, he seized me in his arms, who stood jingling his sword against his iron greaves, and imprinting upon my cheek a kiss, bade me grow a man at once, to take care of the household, while they were gone with the good emperor to fight the enemies of Rome in Asia. He was, as I remember him, of a quick and fiery temper, but he was always gentle toward me, and has bound me to him for ever.' The gods prosper you!' cried Fausta, 'as surely they will. It is a pious work to which you put your hand, and you will succeed.' Do not, Fausta,' said Gracchus, lend the weight of your voice to urge our friend to measures which may be rather rash than wise, and may end only in causing a greater evil than that which already exists. Prudence must govern us as well as affection. By venturing yourself at once into the dominion of Persia, upon an errand, it is scarcely less than certain that you would perish, and without effecting your object. We ought to consider, too, I think, what the condition and treatment of Calpurnius are, before too great a risk is incurred for his rescue. He has now, we are to remember, been at the capital of the great king thirteen years You have hinted that he had been kindly regarded by the son of Sapor. Possibly his captivity amounts to no more than a foreign residence -a sort of exile. Possibly he may, in this long series of years, have become changed into a Persian. I understand your little lip, Fausta, and your indignant frown, Lucius; but what I suggest is among things possible it cannot be denied; and can you deny it not so very unlikely, when you think what the feelings of one must have been to be so wholly forgotten and abandoned by his native country, and that country, Rome, the mistress of the world, who needed but to have stretched forth the half of her power to have broken for ever the chains of his slavery, as well as of the thousands who with him have been left to linger out their lives in bondage. If Calpurnius has been distinguished by the son of Sapor, his lot, doubtless, has been greatly lightened, and he may now be living as a Persian prince. My counsel is, therefore, that the truth in this regard he first obtained, before the life of another son, and the only inheritor of so great a name, be put in jeopardy. But what is the exact sum of what you have learned, and upon which we may rely, and from which reason and act?' 'Our knowledge,' I replied, was derived from a soldier, who, by a great and happy fortune, escaped and reached his native Rome. He only knew what he saw when he was first a captive, and afterward, by chance, had heard from others. He was, he said, taken to serve as a slave about the palace of the king, and it was there that for a space he was an eye-witness to the cruel and insulting usage of both Valerian and Calpurnius. That was but too true, he said, which had been reported to us, that whenever the proud Sapor went forth to mount his horse, the Emperor was brought, in the face of the whole court, and of the populace who crowded around, to serve as his footstool. Clothed in the imperial purple, the unfortunate Valerian received upon his neck the foot of Sapor, and bore him to his saddle. It was the same purpose that Calpurnius was made to serve for the young prince Hormisdas. But, said the soldier, the prince pitied the young and noble Roman, and would gladly, at the beginning, have

spared him the indignity put upon him by the stern command of his haughty and cruel father. He often found occasion at these times, while standing with his foot upon his neck, to speak with Calpurnius, and to express his regrets and his grief for his misfortunes, and promise redress, and more, if he ever came to the throne. But the soldier was soon removed from the vicinity of the royal palace, and saw no more of either Valerian or Calpurnius. What came to his ears was, generally, that while Valerian was retained exclusively for the use of Sapor, Calpurnius was after a time relinquished as entirely into the hands of Hormisdas, in whose own palace he dwelt, but with what portion of freedom, he knew not. That he was living at the time he escaped, he was certain. This, Gracchus, is the sum of what we have heard; in addition only, that the Emperor sunk under his misfortunes, and that his skin, fashioned over some substance so as exactly to resemble the living man, is preserved by Sapor, as a monument of his triumph over the legions of Rome.' It is a pitiful story,' said Fausta, as I ended for a brave man it has been a fate worse than death; but having survived the first shame, I fear me my father's thought will prove a too true one, and that long absence, and indignation at neglect, and perhaps gratitude and attachment to the prince, who seems to have protected him, will have weaned him from Rome. So that we cannot suffer you, Lucius, to undertake so long and dangerous a journey upon so doubtful an errand. But those can be found, bold and faithful, who for that ample reward with which you could so easily enrich them, would venture even into the heart of Ecbatana itself, and bring you back your brother alive, or advertise you of his apostacy or death.' What Fausta says is just,' observed Gracchus, and in few words prescribes your course. It will not be a difficult thing, out of the multitudes of bold spirits who crowd the capital, Greek, Roman, Syrian, and Arab, to find one who will do all that you could do, and, I may add, both more and better. You may find those who are familiar with the route, who know the customs of Persia, who can speak its language, and are even at home in her capitals, and who would be infinitely more capable than either you or I, or even Fausta, to manage to a happy issue an enterprise like this. Let this then be our decision; and be it now our united care to find the individual to whom we may commit this dear but perilous service. And now enough of this. The city sleeps, and it were better that we slept with it. But first, my child, bring harmony into our spirits by one of those wild, sad airs which you are accustomed to sing to me upon the harp of the Jews. It will dispose Lucius to pleasant dreams.' I added my importunities, and Fausta, rising, moved to an open window, through which the moon was now pouring a flood of silver light, and seating herself before the instrument which stood there, first swept its strings with an easy and graceful hand. 'I wish,' said she, I could give you the song which I am going to sing in the language of the Hebrews, for it agrees better, I think, with the sentiment and the character of the music, than the softer accents of the Greek. But every thing is Greek now.' So saying, she commenced with a prelude more sweetly and profoundly melancholy than even the wailing of the night wind among the leafless trees of the forest. This was followed by an ode shall I call it ? — or a hymn?—for it was not what we mean by a song. Nor was the music