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Updated: May 12, 2025
Scarce anything is left but the walls and buildings, which are uninjured, the lives and the industry of the inhabitants. Sandarion is made Governor of the city and province, with, as it seems to me, a very incompetent force to support his authority. Yet the citizens are, as they have been since the day the contest was decided, perfectly peaceable nay, I rather should say, stupid and lethargic.
You will rejoice to be told that she bewails, even with tears, the ruin of the city, and the cruel massacre of its inhabitants. She condemns the Emperor in language as strong as you or I should use. The slaughter of Sandarion and his troops she will by no means allow to be a sufficient justification of the act. And of her opinion are all the chief citizens of Rome.
It was terminated by the entrance of Sandarion, upon pressing business with the Emperor, whereupon I withdrew, Gracchus not being again named, but leaving his fate in the hands of the master of the world, and yet how often has it been so with our Emperors the slave of his own soldiers. I returned to the city. The following day I again saw Fausta now pale, melancholy and silent.
Yet are their movements so quietly ordered as to occasion no general observation or remark. Sandarion, ignorant whence danger might be expected to arise, appears not to indulge suspicions of one nor another.
It were hard to say whether Fausta herself was more pained by excess of pleasure, than was each citizen who thronged the streets as we made our triumphal entry. A general amnesty of the past having been proclaimed by Sandarion immediately after the departure of Aurelian with the prisoners whom he chose to select, we found Calpurnius already returned.
Antiochus and the princes have been seen as usual frequenting the more public streets, lounging in the Portico, or at the places of amusement. And the evenings have been devoted to gayety and pleasure Sandarion himself, and the officers of his legion, being frequent visiters at the palace of Antiochus, and at that of the Caesars, lately the palace of Zenobia.
Sandarion was despatched in his quarters, and in his bed, by the very inhuman wretches at whose tables he had just been feasted, from whom he had but a few hours before parted, giving and receiving the signs of friendship. The cowardly Antiochus it was who stabbed him as he sprang from his sleep, encumbered and disabled by his night-clothes. Not a Roman has escaped with his life.
I can perceive that Antiochus, who under the general pardon proclaimed by Sandarion has returned to the city, is the central point of a good deal of interest among a certain class of citizens.
I urged moreover, that a few, as I held his number to be, had no right to endanger, by any selfish and besotted conduct, the general welfare, the lives and property of the citizens; that not till he felt he had the voice of the people with him ought he to dare to act; and that although I should not betray his councils to Sandarion, I should to the people, unless I received from him ample assurance that no movement should be made without a full disclosure of the project to all the principal citizens, as representatives of the whole city.
We seized our arms, and prepared ourselves for defence, against whatever party, Roman or Palmyrene, should make an assault. The preparation was however needless, for the contest was already decided. The whole garrison, with the brave Sandarion at their head, has been massacred, and the power of Palmyra is in the hands of Antiochus and his adherents.
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