who have raised him to his high office, if he did not require that in the
East, as in the West, the Roman empire should again be restored to the
limits which bounded it in the reigns of the virtuous Antonines. This he
holds essential to his own honor, and the glory of the Roman world.'

'You have delivered yourself, Caius Petronius,' replied the Queen, in a
calm and firm voice, 'as it became a Roman to do, with plainness, and as I
must believe, without reserve. So far I honor you. Now hear me, and as you
hear, so report to him who sent you. Tell Aurelian that what I am, I have
made myself; that the empire which hails me Queen has been moulded into
what it is by Odenatus and Zenobia; it is no gift, but an inheritance--a
conquest and a possession; it is held, not by favor, but by right of birth
and power; and that when he will give away possessions or provinces which
he claims as his or Rome's, for the asking, I will give away Egypt and
the Mediterranean coast. Tell him that as I have lived a queen, so, the
gods helping, I will die a queen,--that the last moment of my reign and
my life shall be the same. If he is ambitious, let him be told that I am
ambitious too--ambitious of wider and yet wider empire--of an unsullied
fame, and of my people's love. Tell him I do not speak of gratitude on the
part of Rome, but that posterity will say, that the Power which stood
between Rome and Persia, and saved the empire in the East, which avenged
the death of Valerian, and twice pursued the king of kings as far as the
gates of Ctesiphon, deserved some fairer acknowledgment than the message
you now bring, at the hands of a Roman emperor.'

'Let the Queen,' quickly rejoined Petronius, but evidently moved by what
he had heard, 'let the Queen fully take me. Aurelian purposes not to
invade the fair region where I now am, and where my eyes are rejoiced by
this goodly show of city, plain and country. He hails you Queen of
Palmyra! He does but ask again those appendages of your greatness, which