Zenobia: Or, The Fall of Palmyra. An Historical Romance. In Letters of Lucius M. Piso from Palmyra to His Friend Marcus Curtius at Rome ...C. S. Francis & Company, 1843 |
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Antioch Aurelian beasts beauty believe Cæsars Calpurnius Carthage Christ Christian countenance cried crowd Ctesiphon Curtius death Demetrius desert desire divine doctrine dromedary dwell East Ecbatana Emperor faith father Fausta fear feel Gallienus gods Gracchus Greek Hadad happy head hear heard heart honor Hormisdas horses immortality Isaac Jesus Julia lance letter listened live Longinus look Lucius Lucius Piso manner Milo mind never noble Piso numbers Odenatus once palace Palmyra Palmyrene passed Persian Petronius philosopher plain Plato pleasure Portia Portico prince princess Princess Julia Probus Queen religion replied Roman Rome Sapor scene seat seemed seen slave soon soul spirit stood street sure Syria tell Temple thee thing thou hast thought thy brother truly trust truth turned Vabalathus Valerian vast voice whole woman words Zabdas Zenobia
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Side 92 - We will put Zabdas and Zenobia against the world!" shouted others. " The conqueror of Egypt forever ! — long live the great Zabdas ! " rose from every quarter. It were In vain to attempt to remember or write down half the violent things which in this hour of madness were uttered. The games were for a long time necessarily suspended, and the whole amphitheatre was converted into an arena of political discussion, from which arose the confused din of unnumbered voices, like the roar of the angry ocean....
Side 23 - Rome — burst upon my sight. Flanked by hills of considerable elevation on the East, the city filled the whole plain below as far as the eye could reach, both toward the North and toward the South. This immense plain was all one vast and boundless city. It seemed to me to be larger than Rome.
Side 24 - Sun stretched upward its thousand columns of polished marble to the heavens, in ks matchless beauty casting into the shade every other work of art of which the world can boast. I have stood before the Parthenon, and have almost worshipped that divine achievement of the immortal Phidias. But it is a toy by the side of this bright crown of the Eastern capital. I have been at Milan, at Ephesus, at Alexandria, at Antioch ; but in neither of...
Side 21 - The land was every where richly cultivated, and a happier peasantry, as far as the eye of the traveller could judge, nowhere exists. The most luxuriant valleys of our own Italy are not more crowded with the evidences of plenty and contentment. Upon drawing near to the ancient Baalbec, I found, on inquiry of our guide, that we were not to pass through it, as I had hoped, nor even very near it, not nearer than between two and three miles. So that in this I had been clearly deceived by those of whom...
Side 21 - ... the Sun, as built by the first Antonine. This towered above the walls, and over all the other buildings, and gave vast ideas of the greatness of the place, leading the mind to crowd it with other edifices that should bear some proportion to this noble monument of imperial magnificence. As suddenly as the view of this imposing scene had been revealed, so suddenly was it again eclipsed, by another short turn in the road, which took us once more into the mountain valleys. But the overhanging and...
Side 79 - I do not conceive it very favorable in its influences upon the character of its population. Palmyrenes, charming as they are, are not Romans. They are enervated by riches, and the luxurious sensual indulgences which they bring along by necessity in their train — all their evil power being here increased by the voluptuous softness of the climate. I do not say that all are so. "All Rome cannot furnish a woman more truly Roman than Fausta, nor a man more worthy that name than Gracchus. It is of the...
Side 25 - ... 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...
Side 24 - On each side of this, the central point, there rose upwards 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...
Side 84 - Gracchus, from his tone, was but half in earnest." torn; not so much in itself very wrong, as childish. It is to me indeed attended with pain, but that I suppose is a weakness of my own — it seems not to be so in the case of others. I have thought it a poor, barren entertainment, fit but for children, and those grown children whose minds, uninstructed in higher things, must seek their happiness in some spring of mere sensual joy. Women frequent the amphitheatre, I am sure, rather to make a show...
Side 24 - For the city proper is so studded with groups of lofty palm-trees, shooting up among its temples and palaces, and, on the other hand, the plain in its immediate vicinity is so thickly adorned with magnificent structures of the purest marble, that it is not easy, nay, it is 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...