st Aurelian, posted them in the most
disadvantageous manner, betrayed his own counsels to his enemy, and with
a few chosen friends deserted in the beginning of the action. The rebel
legions, though disordered and dismayed by the unexpected treachery of
their chief, defended themselves with desperate valor, till they were
cut in pieces almost to a man, in this bloody and memorable battle,
which was fought near Chalons in Champagne. The retreat of the irregular
auxiliaries, Franks and Batavians, 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.

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. Lyons, on the contrary, had resisted with
obstinate disaffection the arms of Aurelian. We read of the punishment
of Lyons, 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.

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. She claimed her descent from the
Macedonian kings of Egypt, * equalled in beauty her ancestor Cleopatra,
and far surpassed that princess in chastity and valor. Zenobia was
esteemed the most lovely as well as the most heroic of her sex. She was
of a dark complexion, (for in speaking of a lady these trifles become
important.) Her teeth were of a pearly whiteness, and her large black
eyes sparkled with uncommon fire, tempered by the most attractive
sweetness. Her voice was strong and harmonious. Her manly understanding
was strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the Latin
tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the Syr