quity,--sprung, like Cleopatra, from the Greek kings of Egypt. Among
her counselors was the celebrated Longinus--the most conspicuous ornament
of the last age of Greek classic literature, and a philosopher who taught
the wisdom of Plato. When Palmyra was taken by Aurelian, this great man,
who had stimulated Zenobia in her rebellion, was executed, without
uttering a word of complaint, together with the people of the city, with
remorseless barbarity, and the city of Solomon became an inconsiderable
Arab town. The queen, who had fled, was pursued and taken, and graced the
magnificent triumph of the martial emperor. The captive queen was made to
precede the triumphal chariot, on foot, loaded with fetters of gold, and
arrayed in the most gorgeous dress of her former empire. She was not
executed, but permitted to reside in the capital in the state of princes.

(M1118) This great and brilliant triumph--one of the last glories of the
setting sun of Roman greatness--seemed to augur the restoration of the
empire. The emperor was sanguine, and boasted that all external danger had
passed away. But in a few months he was summoned to meet new enemies in
the East, and he was murdered by a conspiracy of his officers, probably in
revenge for the cruelties and massacres he had inflicted at Rome. In one
of his reforms a sedition arose, and was quelled inexorably by the
slaughter of seven thousand of the soldiers, besides a large number of the
leading nobles.

(M1119) His sceptre descended to Tacitus, A.D. 275, a descendant of the
great historian: a man, says Niebuhr, "who was great in every thing that
could distinguish a senator; he possessed immense property, of which he
made a brilliant use; he was a man of unblemished character; he possessed
the knowledge of a statesman, and had, in his youth, shown great military
skill." Scarcely was he inaugurated as emperor before he marched against
the Alans, a Scythian tribe, who had ravaged Pontus, Cappadocia, Cilicia,
and Galatea. He, however, lost his life amid the hardships of his first
campaign, at the age of seventy-five, and after a brief reign of six
months.

(M1120) The veteran general, M. Aurelius Probus, the commander of the
Eastern provinces, was proclaimed emperor by the legions, although
originally of peasant rank. He was forty-five years of age, and united the
military greatness of Aurelian with political prudence, in all respects
the best choice which could have been made, and one