Letters from Palmyra, by Lucius Marlius Piso

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1838. Excerpt: ... and sends him here into the far East to wage needless war with a woman--Ambition! Yet had Aurelian always been upon the Roman throne, or one resembling him, it had perhaps been different There then could have been nought but honour in any alliance that had bound together Rome and Palmyra. But was I, was the late renowned Odenatus, to confess allegiance to base souls such as Aureolus, Gallienus, Balista? While the thirty tyrants were fighting for the Roman crown, was 1 to sit still, waiting humbly to become the passive prey of whosoever might please to call me his? By the immortal gods not so. I asserted my supremacy, and made it felt; and in times of tumult and confusion to Rome, while her eastern provinces were one scene of discord and civil broil, I came in, and reduced the jarring elements, and out of parts broken, and sundered, and hostile, I constructed a fair and well-proportioned whole. And when once created, and I had tasted the sweets of sovereign and despotic power--what they are thou knowest--was I tamely to yield the whole at the word or threat even of Aurelian? It could not be. So many years as had passed and seen me queen, not of Palmyra only, but of the East--a sovereign honoured and courted at Rome, feared by Persia, my alliance sought by all the neighbouring dominions of Asia--had served but to foster in me that love of rule which descended to me from a long line of kings. Sprung from a royal Use, and so long upon a throne, it was superior force alone--divine or human--that should drag me from mr right Thou hast been but four years king, Aurelian, monarch of the great Roman world, yet wouldst thou not, but with painful unwillingness, descend and mix with the common herd. For me, ceasing to reign, I would cease to lire. a ' Thy speech, ' s...