. [50] The retreat of the
irregular auxiliaries, Franks and Batavians, [51] whom the conqueror
soon compelled or persuaded to repass the Rhine, restored the general
tranquillity, and the power of Aurelian was acknowledged from the wall
of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules.

[Footnote 50: Pollio in Hist. August. p. 196. Vopiscus in Hist. August.
p. 220. The two Victors, in the lives of Gallienus and Aurelian. Eutrop.
ix. 13. Euseb. in Chron. Of all these writers, only the two last (but
with strong probability) place the fall of Tetricus before that of
Zenobia. M. de Boze (in the Academy of Inscriptions, tom. xxx.) does not
wish, and Tillemont (tom. iii. p. 1189) does not dare to follow them. I
have been fairer than the one, and bolder than the other.]

[Footnote 51: Victor Junior in Aurelian. Eumenius mentions Batavicoe;
some critics, without any reason, would fain alter the word to
Bagandicoe.] As early as the reign of Claudius, the city of Autun, alone
and unassisted, had ventured to declare against the legions of
Gaul. After a siege of seven months, they stormed and plundered that
unfortunate city, already wasted by famine. [52] Lyons, on the contrary,
had resisted with obstinate disaffection the arms of Aurelian. We read
of the punishment of Lyons, [53] but there is not any mention of the
rewards of Autun. Such, indeed, is the policy of civil war; severely to
remember injuries, and to forget the most important services. Revenge is
profitable, gratitude is expensive.

[Footnote 52: Eumen. in Vet. Panegyr. iv. 8.]

[Footnote 53: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 246. Autun was not restored
till the reign of Diocletian. See Eumenius de restaurandis scholis.]

Aurelian had no sooner secured the person and provinces of Tetricus,
than he turned his arms against Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra
and the East. Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women
who have sustained with glory the weight of empire; nor is our own
age destitute of such distinguished characters. But if we except the
doubtful achievements of Semiramis, Zenobia is perhaps the only female
whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her
sex by the climate and manners of Asia. [54] She claimed her descent
from the Macedonian kings of Egypt, [541] equalled in beauty her ancestor
Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity [55] and valor.
Zenobia was esteemed the most lovely as well as the most heroic of her