some fair return, noble Piso, for the patience with which you have
listened to our treasonable words. If it please you, accompany us now to
some other part of our palace, and it will be strange if we cannot find
something worthy of your regard.'

So saying, we bent our way in company, idly talking of such things as
offered, to a remote part of the vast building, passing through and
lingering here and there in many a richly-wrought hall and room, till,
turning suddenly into a saloon of Egyptian device, where we heard the
sound of voices, I found myself in the presence of Gracchus and Fausta,
Longinus and Zabdas, with a few others of the chief citizens of Palmyra. I
need not say how delighted I was. It was a meeting never to be forgotten.
But it was in the evening of this day, walking in the gardens of the
palace between Julia and Fausta, that I banqueted upon the purest pleasure
of my life.




Letter V.



You could not but suppose, my Curtius, when you came to the end of my last
letter, that I should soon write again, and not leave you ignorant of the
manner in which I passed the evening at the palace of Zenobia.
Accordingly, knowing that you would desire this, I had no sooner tied and
sealed my epistle, than I sat down to give you those minute recollections
of incident and of conversation in which you and Lucilia both so much
delight, and which indeed, in the present instance, are not unimportant in