ishop Dionysius returned to Alexandria, he found the place
sadly ruined by the late siege. The middle of the city was a vast waste.
It was easier, he says, to go from one end of Egypt to the other than to
cross the main street which divided the Bruchium from the western end
of Alexandria. The place was still marked with all the horrors of last
week's battle. Then, as usual, disease and famine followed upon war. Not
a house was without a funeral. Death was everywhere to be seen in its
most ghastly form. Bodies were left un-buried in the streets to be eaten
by the dogs. Men ran away from their sickening friends in fear. As the
sun set they felt in doubt whether they should be alive to see it
rise in the morning. Cowards hid their alarms in noisy amusements and
laughter. Not a few in very despair rushed into riot and vice. But the
Christians clung to one another in brotherly love; they visited the
sick; they laid out and buried their dead; and many of them thereby
caught the disease themselves, and died as martyrs to the strength of
their faith and love.

As long as Odenathus lived, the victories of the Palmyrenes were always
over the enemies of Rome; but on his assassination, together with his
son Herodes, though the armies of Palmyra were still led to battle
with equal courage, its counsels were no longer guided with the same
moderation.

[Illustraton: 159.jpg COINS OF ZENOBIA]

Zenobia, the widow of Odenathus, seized the command of the army for
herself and her infant sons, Herennius and Timolaus; and her masculine
courage and stern virtues well qualified her for the bold task that she
had undertaken. She threw off the friendship of Rome, and routed the
armies which Gallienus sent against her; and, claiming to be descended
from Cleopatra, she marched upon Egypt, in 268 A.D., to seize the throne
of her ancestors, and to add that kingdom to Syria and Asia Minor, which
she already possessed.

Zenobia's army was led by her general, Zabda, who was joined by an
Egyptian named Timogenes; and, with seventy thousand Palmyrenes,
Syrians, and other barbarians, they routed the Roman army of fifty
thousand Egyptians under Probatus. The unfortunate Roman general put an
end to his own life; but nevertheless the Palmyrenes were unsuccessful,
and Egypt followed the example of Rome, and took the oaths to Claudius.
For three years the coins of Alexandria bear the name of that emperor.

On the death of Claudius, his brother Quintillus