United States or Kazakhstan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Aurelian, in fact, became doubtful of the event of the siege, and he offered the queen the most honorable terms of capitulation if she would surrender to his arms; but Zenobia, who was aware that famine raged in the Roman camp, and daily looked for the expected relief, rejected his proposals in a famous Greek epistle, written with equal arrogance and eloquence; she defied the utmost of his power; and, alluding to the fate of Cleopatra, expressed her resolution to die like her rather than yield to the Roman arms.
She is well aware of your rank and footing of intimacy with Aurelian, and of the object for which you make this visit to her capital, and has expressed frequent and earnest desires of an interview with you. And now have I a great mind not to tell you of the speedy pleasure and honor that await you. What will you give to know the tenor of what I have to say?
Deferring, for the present, a visit to the cemetery, or to the interior of the pyramid, I returned to the gateway of San Paolo, and, passing through it, took a view of it from the outside of the city wall. It is itself a portion of the wall, having been built into it by the Emperor Aurelian, so that about half of it lies within and half without.
The glory of the Roman name was revived in Claudius, Aurelian, Probus, Carus, Diocletian, Constantius, Galerius, Constantine, Julian, all of whom rendered important services. These great emperors were uniformly victors, yet were doomed to hurl back perpetually advancing forces of Teutonic warriors, who were resolved on conquest. Diocletian was a second Augustus, and Constantine another Julius.
After this manner was Hercules sovereign possessor of the whole continent, relieving men from monstrous oppressions, exactions, and tyrannies; governing them with discretion, maintaining them in equity and justice, instructing them with seasonable policies and wholesome laws, convenient for and suitable to the soil, climate, and disposition of the country, supplying what was wanting, abating what was superfluous, and pardoning all that was past, with a sempiternal forgetfulness of all preceding offences, as was the amnesty of the Athenians, when by the prowess, valour, and industry of Thrasybulus the tyrants were exterminated; afterwards at Rome by Cicero exposed, and renewed under the Emperor Aurelian.
Many voices every where throughout the crowd were heard in reply, "Yes, yes, Mine were there, and mine." "Did you ever hear it said," continued Aurelian, "that Rome lifted a finger for their rescue, or for that of the good Valerian?" They were silent, some crying, "No, no."
The ambassador was beginning an angry reply, when Aurelian quelled the dispute with a look, and with some awkwardness delivered himself of a brief oration in acknowledgment of the gift. He took no more notice of the matter until nightfall, when he sent for Sorianus, and inquired where the purple actually was produced. "In the uttermost parts of India," returned the philosopher.
He had with him Aurelian, who had been his messenger to Clotilde, whom he had made duke of Melun, and who commanded the forces of Sens. The battle was going ill; the Franks were wavering and Clovis was anxious. Before setting out he had, according to Frédégaire, promised his wife that if he were victorious he would turn Christian.
Silk garments were very costly, however, and it was not every lady in early times who could have such luxuries. It is said that even the Emperor Aurelian refused his wife her request for just one single cloak of silk, saying: "No, I could never think of buying such a thing, for it sells for its weight in gold!"
Yet the Rome of Trajan and of the Antonines, of Severus and of Aurelian, was to come, and, as if distrusting his rancour and the wounded pride of an oligarch, Tacitus betrays in other passages habits of thought and speculation of a widely different bearing.
Word Of The Day