X. into captivity142. The tide of devastation was stopped CHAP. for a moment by the resolution of the high priest of Emesa. Arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, he appeared at the head of a great body of fanatic peasants, armed only with slings, and defended his god and his property from the sacrilegious hands of the followers of Zoroaster143. But the ruin of Tarsus, and of many other cities, furnishes a melancholy proof that, except in this single instance, the conquest of Syria and Cilicia scarcely interrupted the progress of the Persian arms. The advantages of the narrow passes of mount Taurus were abandoned, in which an invader, whose principal force consisted in his cavalry, would have been engaged in a very unequal combat: and Sapor was permitted to form the siege of Cæsarea, the capital of Cappadocia; a city, though of the second rank, which was supposed to contain four hundred thousand inhabitants. Demosthenes commanded in the place, not so much by the commission of the emperor, as in the voluntary defence of his country. For a long time he deferred its fate; and, when at last Cæsarea was betrayed by the perfidy of a physician, he cut his way through the Persians, who had been ordered to exert their utmost diligence to take him alive. This heroic chief escaped the power of a foe, who might either have honoured or punished his obstinate valour; but many thousands of his fellow-citizens were involved in a general massacre, and Sapor is accused of treating his prisoners with wanton and unrelenting cruelty144. Much should undoubtedly be allowed for national animosity, much for humbled pride and impotent revenge; yet, upon the whole, it is certain, that the same prince, who, in Armenia, had displayed the mild aspect of a legislator, shewed himself to the Romans under the stern features of a conqueror. He despaired of making any permanent establishment in the 142 Zosimus, l. i. p. 35. 143 John Malala, tom. i. p. 391. He corrupts this probable event by some fabulous circumstances. 144 Zonaras, 1. xii. p. 630. Deep vallies were filled up with the slain. Crowds of prisoners were driven to water like beasts, and many perished for want of food. X. CHAP. empire, and sought only to leave behind him a wasted desert, whilst he transported into Persia the people and the treasures of the provinces 145. Boldness and success of Sapor, At the time when the East trembled at the name of Sapor, he received a present not unworthy of the Odenathus greatest kings; a long train of camels laden with the against most rare and valuable merchandises. The rich offering was accompanied with an epistle, respectful but not servile, from Odenathus, one of the noblest and most opulent senators of Palmyra. "Who is this Ode"nathus (said the haughty victor, and he commanded "that the presents should be cast into the Euphrates) "that he thus insolently presumes to write to his lord? "If he entertains a hope of mitigating his punishments, "let him fall prostrate before the foot of our throne, "with his hands bound behind his back. Should he "hesitate, swift destruction shall be poured on his "head, on his whole race, and on his country146." The desperate extremity to which the Palmyrenian was reduced, called into action all the latent powers of his soul. He met Sapor; but he met him in arms. fusing his own spirit into a little army collected from the villages of Syria, and the tents of the deserts, he hovered round the Persian host, harassed their retreat, carried off part of the treasure, and, what was dearer than any treasure, several of the women of the Great King; who was at last obliged to repass the Euphrates with some marks of haste and confusion149. By this exploit, Odenathus laid the foundations of his future fame and fortunes. The majesty of Rome, oppressed by a Persian, was protected by a Syrian or Arab of Palmyra. In 145 Zosimus, . i. p. 25. asserts, that Sapor, had he not preferred spoil to conquest, might have remained master of Asia. 146 Peter Patricius in Excerpt. Leg. p. 29. 147 Syrorum agrestium in manû. Sextus Rufus, c. 23. Rufus Victor, the Augustan History (p. 192.) and several inscriptions agree in making Odenathus a citizen of Palmyra. 148 He possessed so powerful an interest among the wandering tribes, that Procopius (Bell. Persic. 1. ii. c. 5.) and John Malala (tom. i. p. 391.) style him prince of the Saracens. 149 Peter Patricius, p. 25. X. Treat The voice of history, which is often little more than CHAP. the organ of hatred or flattery, reproaches Sapor with a proud abuse of the rights of conquest. We are told. that Valerian, in chains, but invested with the Impe- ment of rial purple, was exposed to the multitude, a constant Valerian. spectacle of fallen greatness; and that whenever the Persian monarch mounted on horseback, he placed his foot on the neck of a Roman emperor. Notwithstanding all the remonstrances of his allies, who repeatedly advised him to remember the vicissitude of fortune, to dread the returning power of Rome, and to make his illustrious captive the pledge of peace, not the object of insult, Sapor still remained inflexible. When Valerian sunk under the weight of shame and grief, his skin, stuffed with straw, and formed into the likeness of a human figure, was preserved for ages in the most celebrated temple of Persia; a more real monument of triumph, than the fancied trophies of brass and marble so often erected by Roman vanity150. The tale is moral and pathetic, but the truth of it may very fairly be called in question. The letters still extant from the princes of the East to Sapor, are manifest forgeries 151; nor is it natural to suppose that a jealous monarch should, even in the person of a rival, thus publicly degrade the majesty of kings. Whatever treatment the unfortunate Valerian might experience in Persia, it is at least certain, that the only emperor of Rome who had ever fallen into the hands of the enemy languished away his life in hopeless captivity. nistration The emperor Gallienus, who had long supported Character with impatience the censorial severity of his father and admiand colleague, received the intelligence of his misfor- of Gallietunes with secret pleasure and avowed indifference, nus. "I knew that my father was a mortal," said he, "and 150 The Pagan writers lament, the Christian insult, the misfortunes of Valerian. Their various testimonies are accurately collected by Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 739, &c. So little has been preserved of eastern history before Mahomet, that the modern Persians are totally ignorant of the Victory of Sapor, an event so glorious to their nation. See Bibliothéque Orientale. 151 One of these epistles is from Artavasdes, king of Armenia; since Armenia was then a province in Persia, the king, the kingdom, and the epistle, must be fictitious. X. CHAP. since he has acted as becomes a brave man, I am "satisfied." Whilst Rome lamented the fate of her sovereign, the savage coldness of his son was extolled by the servile courtiers, as the perfect firmness of a hero and a stoic152. It is difficult to paint the light, the various, the inconstant character of Gallienus, which he displayed without constraint, as soon as he became sole possessor of the empire. In every art that he attempted, his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and as his genius was destitute of judgment, he attempted every art, except the important ones of war and government. He was a master of several curious, but useless, sciences, a ready orator, and elegant poet, a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most contemptible prince. When the great emergencies of the state required his presence and attention, he was engaged in conversation with the philosopher Plotinus154, wasting his time in trifling or licentious pleasures, preparing his initiation to the Grecian mysteries, or soliciting a place in the Areopagus of Athens. His profuse magnificence insulted the general poverty; the solemn ridicule of his triumphs impressed a deeper sense of the public disgrace155. The repeated intelli 152 See his life in the Augustan History. 153 There is still extant a very pretty Epithalamium, composed by Gal. lienus for the nuptials of his nephews. Ite ait, O Juvenes, pariter sudate medullis Omnibus, inter vos; non murmura vestra columbæ, 154 He was on the point of giving Plotinus a ruined city of Campania, to try the experiment of realizing Plato's Republic. See the Life of Plotinus, by Porphyry, in Fabricius's Biblioth. Græc. 1. iv. 155 A medal which bears the head of Gallienus has perplexed the antiquarians by its legend and reverse; the former Galliene Augusta, the latter Ubique Pax. M. Spanheim supposes that the coin was struck by some of the enemies of Gallienus, and was designed as a severe satire on that effeminate prince. But as the use of irony may seem unworthy of the gravity of the Roman mint, M. De Vallemont has deduced from a passage of Trebellius Pollio (Hist. August. p. 198.) an ingenious and natural solution. Galliena was first cousin to the emperor. By delivering Africa from the usurper Cellus, she deserved the title of Augusta. On a medal in the French king's collection, we read a similar inscription of Faustina Augusta round the head of Marcus Aurelius. With regard to the Ubique Pax, it is easily explained by the vanity of Gallienus, who seized, perhaps, the occasion of some momentary calm. See Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, Janvier 1700, p. 21-34. X. gence of invasions, defeats, and rebellions, he received CHAP. with a careless smile; and singling out, with affected contempt, some particular production of the lost province, he carelessly asked whether Rome must be ruined, unless it was supplied with linen from Egypt, and Arras cloth from Gaul? There were, however, a few short moments in the life of Gallienus, when, exasperated by some recent injury, he suddenly appeared the intrepid soldier, and the cruel tyrant; till satiated with blood, or fatigued by resistance, he insensibly sunk into the natural mildness and indolence of his character156. At a time when the reins of government were held The thirty with so loose a hand, it is not surprising, that a crowd tyrants. of usurpers should start up in every province of the empire against the son of Valerian. It was probably some ingenious fancy, of comparing the thirty tyrants of Rome with the thirty tyrants of Athens, that induced the writers of the Augustan history to select that celebrated number, which has been gradually received into a popular appellation. But in every light the parallel is idle and defective. What resemblance can we discover between a council of thirty persons, the united oppressors of a single city, and an uncertain list of independent rivals, who rose and fell in irregular succession through the extent of a vast empire ?Nor can the number of thirty be completed, unless we include in the account the women and children who were honoured with the Imperial title. The reign of Gallienus, distracted as it was, produced only nineteen pretenders to the throne; Cyriades, Macrianus, Ba- Their real lista, Odenathus, and Zenobia in the east; in Gaul, and the western provinces, Posthumus, Lollianus, Vic- more than torinus and his mother Victoria, Marius, and Tetri- nineteen. cus. In Illyricum and the confines of the Danube, In 156 This singular character has, I believe, been fairly transmitted to us. The reign of his immediate successor was short and busy; and the historians who wrote before the elevation of the family of Constantine, could not have the most remote interest to misrepresent the character of Gallienus. 157 Pollio expresses the most minute anxiety to complete the number. number was no |