with
that fine city; and Sapor, king of the Persians, overran Syria and Asia.
He was, however, finally repelled by the brave Odenatus, who, with his
queen Zenobia, ruled at Palmyra.

Valerian died in captivity, while a crowd of usurpers rose in arms
against the weak Gallienus. There were nineteen pretenders to the throne
according to Gibbon, but this period is usually known as that of the
Thirty Tyrants. This melancholy period was also marked by a pestilence,
which raged for fifteen years in every province. Five thousand persons
are said to have died daily at Rome for some time; cities were
depopulated, and the number of the human species must have sensibly
declined. A famine preceded and attended the pestilence, earthquakes
were common, and the third century is, no doubt, the most melancholy
period in the history of Europe.

Gallienus was murdered in A.D. 268, and was succeeded by Marcus Aurelius
Claudius, who died of a pestilence which had broken out in his army in
Egypt. Aurelian, a native of Pannonia, was the next emperor. His reign
lasted four years and nine months, but was filled with remarkable
events. He abandoned Dacia to the Goths, defeated the Alemanni, and
drove them out of Italy. But he foresaw the danger of future invasions,
and surrounded Rome with new walls about twenty-one miles in extent. In
A.D. 272 he marched against Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, who ventured to
defy the power of Rome. This illustrious woman was not only learned,
beautiful, and an agreeable writer, but governed the East for five years
with discretion and success. Aurelian was amazed at her warlike
preparations upon the fall of Palmyra, and treated her beautiful city
with lenity; but the Palmyrenians having rebelled, the city was taken by
storm, and its people put to death. The ruins of Palmyra are still among
the most remarkable of the ancient world.

Aurelian now returned to Rome to celebrate his triumph. The spoils of
every climate were borne before him; his captives were from Germany,
Syria, and Egypt, and among them were the Emperor Tetricus and the
beautiful Zenobia, bound with fetters of gold. A whole day was consumed
in the passage of the triumphal procession through the streets of Rome.
But Aurelian, who was illiterate, unpolished, and severe, failed to win
the regard of his people, and was plainly more at his ease at the head
of his army than in the cultivated society of Rome. He returned,
therefore, to the East, where he di