mastery in two or four horse chariots. Elephants have been put to their
strength, and dromedaries to their speed. But our chief pleasure has been
derived from trials of skill and of strength with the lance and the arrow,
and from the chase.

It was in using the lance, that Antiochus--a kinsman of the Queen, whom I
believe I have not before mentioned, although I have many times met
him--chiefly signalized himself. This person, half Syrian and half Roman,
possessing the bad qualities of both and the good ones of neither, was
made one of this party, rather, I suppose, because he could not be left
out, than because he was wanted. He has few friends in Palmyra, but among
wild and dissolute spirits like himself. He is famed for no quality either
great or good. Violent passions and intemperate lusts are what he is
chiefly noted for. But, except that pride and arrogance are writ upon the
lines of his countenance, you would hardly guess that his light-tinted and
beardless cheeks and soft blue eyes belonged to one of so dark and foul a
soul. His frame and his strength are those of a giant; yet is he wholly
destitute of grace. His limbs seem sometimes as if they were scarcely a
part of him, such difficulty does he discover in marshalling them aright.
Consciousness of this embarrasses him, and sends him for refuge to his
pride, which darts looks of anger and bitter revenge upon all who offend
or make light of him. His ambition is, and his hope, to succeed Zenobia.
You may think this strange, considering the family of the Queen. But as
for the sons of Zenobia, he calculates much, so it is reported, upon their
weakness both of mind and body, as rendering them distasteful to the
Palmyrenes, even if they should live; and as for Julia and her sisters, he
has so high conceptions of his own superior merit, that he doubts not in
case of the Queen's demise, that the people would by acclamation select
him, in preference to them, as her successor; or in the last emergency,
that it would be but to marry Julia, in order to secure the throne beyond