esentment; if it was necessary to punish, she could impose
silence on the voice of pity. Her strict economy was accused of avarice;
yet on every proper occasion she appeared magnificent and liberal. The
neighboring states of Arabia, Armenia, and Persia, dreaded her enmity,
and solicited her alliance. To the dominions of Odenathus, which
extended from the Euphrates to the frontiers of Bithynia, his widow
added the inheritance of her ancestors, the populous and fertile kingdom
of Egypt. [60] [601] The emperor Claudius acknowledged her merit, and was
content, that, while he pursued the Gothic war, she should assert the
dignity of the empire in the East. [61] The conduct, however, of Zenobia,
was attended with some ambiguity; not is it unlikely that she had
conceived the design of erecting an independent and hostile monarchy.
She blended with the popular manners of Roman princes the stately pomp
of the courts of Asia, and exacted from her subjects the same adoration
that was paid to the successor of Cyrus. She bestowed on her three sons
[61] a Latin education, and often showed them to the troops adorned
with the Imperial purple. For herself she reserved the diadem, with the
splendid but doubtful title of Queen of the East.

[Footnote 59: Hist. August. p. 180, 181.]

[Footnote 60: See, in Hist. August. p. 198, Aurelian's testimony to
her merit; and for the conquest of Egypt, Zosimus, l. i. p. 39, 40.]

[Footnote 601: This seems very doubtful. Claudius, during all his reign,
is represented as emperor on the medals of Alexandria, which are very
numerous. If Zenobia possessed any power in Egypt, it could only have
been at the beginning of the reign of Aurelian. The same circumstance
throws great improbability on her conquests in Galatia. Perhaps Zenobia
administered Egypt in the name of Claudius, and emboldened by the death
of that prince, subjected it to her own power.--G.]

[Footnote 61: Timolaus, Herennianus, and Vaballathus. It is supposed
that the two former were already dead before the war. On the last,
Aurelian bestowed a small province of Armenia, with the title of King;
several of his medals are still extant. See Tillemont, tom. 3, p. 1190.]

When Aurelian passed over into Asia, against an adversary whose sex
alone could render her an object of contempt, his presence restored
obedience to the province of Bithynia, already shaken by the arms and
intrigues of Zenobia. [62] Advancing at the head of his legions, he
acc