time to assume the title of Augustus, before he was
sacrificed by Zenobia to the memory of her husband.

With the assistance of his most faithful friends, she immediately filled
the vacant throne, and governed with manly counsels Palmyra, Syria, and
the East, above five years. By the death of Odenathus, that authority
was at an end which the senate had granted him only as a personal
distinction; but his martial widow, disdaining both the senate and
Gallienus, obliged one of the Roman generals, who was sent against her,
to retreat into Europe, with the loss of his army and his reputation.
Instead of the little passions which so frequently perplex a female
reign, the steady administration of Zenobia was guided by the most
judicious maxims of policy. If it was expedient to pardon, she could
calm her resentment; 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. * The emperor Claudius acknowledged her merit, and
was content, that, while he pursued the Gothic war, sheshould 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 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.

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. Advancing at the head of his legions, he accepted
the submission of Ancyra, and was admitted into Tyana, after an
obstinate siege, by the help of a perfidious citizen. The generous
though fierce tempe