Zenobia: Or, The Fall of Palmyra. In Letters of L. Manlius Piso [pseud.] from Palmyra, to His Friend Marcus Curtius at RomeC. S. Francis, 1859 - Tadmur (Syria) |
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Common terms and phrases
Antiochus arms army Aurelian beauty behold believe brother Cæsars Calpurnius captivity Christian countenance cried Ctesiphon Curtius death Demetrius desert divine doctrine doubt dromedary dwell East Ecbatana Emesa Emperor empire enemy faith Fausta fear feel fell friends Gallienus gates glory gods Gracchus Greek Hadad hand happy head hear heard heart honor hope Hormisdas horse immortality Isaac kingdom lance letter live Livia Longinus look Lucius Lucius Piso manner Milo mind never noble numbers Odenatus once Otho palace Palmyra Palmyrene passed Persian philosophy Piso plain Plato pleasure Portico prince Princess Julia Probus Queen reign religion replied Roman Rome ruin Sapor scene seat seemed seen slave soldiers soon soul spirit stood streets sure tell thee things thou thought throne trust truth turned uttered Vabalathus Valerian voice walls whole woman words Zabdas Zenobia Zosimus
Popular passages
Page 182 - He who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen ? You, Mr.
Page 31 - I am charged with pride and ambition. The charge is true, and I glory in its truth. Who ever achieved any thing great in letters, arts, or arms, who was not ambitious ? Caesar was not more ambitious than Cicero. It was but in another way. All greatness is born of ambition. Let the ambition be a noble one, and who shall blame it ? I confess I did once aspire to be Queen not only of Palmyra, but of the East.
Page 33 - He, who traduces himself, sins with him who traduces another. He who is unjust to himself, or less than just, breaks a law as well as he who hurts his neighbor. I tell you what I am and what I have done, that your trust for the future may not rest upon ignorant grounds. If I am more than just to myself, rebuke me. If I have overstepped the modesty that became me, I am open to your censure, and will bear it.
Page 278 - I can describe them, my sensations, when I saw our beloved friend — her whom I had seen treated never otherwise than as a sovereign Queen, and with all the imposing pomp of the Persian ceremonial — now on foot, and exposed to the rude gaze of the Roman populace — toiling beneath the rays of a hot sun...
Page 22 - Syrian forest shielding me from the fierce rays of a burning sun, soon reconciled me to my loss — more especially as I knew that in a short time we were to enter upon the sandy desert, which stretches from the AntiLibanus almost to the very walls of Palmyra. Upon this boundless desert we now soon entered. The scene which it presented, was more dismal than I can describe. A red, moving sand — or hard and baked by the heat of a sun, such as Rome never knows — low, gray rocks just rising here...
Page 265 - ... a few ambitious are permitted by the Great Ruler, in the selfish pursuit of their own aggrandizement, to scatter in ruin, desolation, and death whole kingdoms, — making misery and destruction the steps by which they mount up to their seats of pride ! O gentle doctrine of Christ! — doctrine of love and of peace, when shall it be that I and all mankind shall know thy truth, and the world smile with a new happiness under thy life-giving reign ! Fausta, as she has wandered with us through this...
Page 24 - On each side of this, the central point, there rose upward slender pyramids, pointed obelisks, domes of the most graceful proportions, columns, arches, and lofty towers, for number and for form beyond my power to describe. These buildings, as well as the walls of the city, being all either of white marble or of some stone as white, and being everywhere in their whole extent interspersed, as I have already said, -with multitudes of overshadowing...
Page 89 - We must conquer or we must perish, and forever lose our city, our throne, and our name. Are you ready to write yourselves subjects and slaves of Rome! — citizens of a Roman province? and forfeit the proud name of Palmyrene ?" (Loud and indignant cries rose from the surrounding ranks.) " If not, you have only to remember the plains of Egypt and of Persia ; and the spirit that burned within your bosoms then will save you now, and bring you back to these walls, your brows bound about with the garlands...
Page 32 - I dwell, where I would ever dwell, in the hearts of my people. It is written in your faces, that I reign not more over you than within you. The foundation of my throne is not more power than love.
Page 24 - ... impossible at the distance at which I contemplated the whole, to distinguish the line which divided the one from the other. It was all city and all country, all country and all city. Those which lay before me I was ready to believe were the Elysian Fields. I imagined that I saw under my feet the dwellings of purified men and of gods. Certainly they were too glorious for the mere earth-born. There was a central point, however, which chiefly fixed my attention, where the vast Temple of the Sun...