Female Warriors, Vol. 1 (of 2): Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era.Clayton, Ellen C. (Ellen Creathorne)
History
Female Warriors, Vol. 1 (of 2): Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era.
Clayton, Ellen C. (Ellen Creathorne)
Amazons; Women -- Biography; Women soldiers
When the emperor returned to Rome, in the following year (A.D. 274),
he celebrated, after the manner of Roman conquerors, a magnificent
triumph in honour of his many victories over the Goths, the Alemanni,
Tetricus, and Zenobia. Elephants, royal tigers, panthers, bears,
armed gladiators, military standards, and war-chariots passed in
succession. But the great object of attention was the Eastern queen,
who, completely laden with golden fetters, a gold chain, supported by
a slave, round her neck, her limbs bending beneath the weight of the
jewels with which she was decked, was compelled to precede, on foot,
the triumphal car in which, not many months previously, she had hoped
to enter the gates of Rome as a conqueror.
After the conclusion of his triumph, Aurelian presented Zenobia with
an elegant villa at Tibur (or Tivoli), about twenty miles from the
capital; and here she passed the rest of her days as a Roman matron.
She died about the year 300. Her daughters married into wealthy and
noble families; some say, indeed, that Aurelian espoused one of them;
and the family was not extinct even in the fifth century. Baronius
supposes Zenobius, Bishop of Florence, in the days of Saint Ambrose, to
have been one of the great queen's descendants.
Amongst the numberless captives--Sarmatians, Alemanni, Goths, Vandals,
Gauls, Franks, Dacians, Syrians, Arabs, Egyptians--who unwillingly
graced the triumph of Aurelian, were ten Gothic women, captured in a
battle between the Goths and Romans when the emperor was driving the
barbarians out of Italy. Each party was distinguished in the procession
by its own, or by some fancy name; these Gothic females were designated
"Amazons." Besides these prisoners, many Gothic women and girls, in
male attire, had been found dead on the field of battle.
Hunila, or Hunilda, one of these Gothic women, was afterwards married
to Bonosus, a wealthy and influential Roman general, Governor of
Rhætia. She was admired and distinguished amongst her new friends
for her beauty, wit, and virtue. But the _ci-devant_ Amazon kept
up communications with her own countrymen; and Bonosus, promised
assistance by his wife's relations, assumed the purple. For a few
months his authority extended over Gaul, Spain and Britain; but at last
he was conquered by the Emperor Probus. To avoid falling into the hands
of the victor, he put an end to his own life by hanging; whereupon some
wit, alluding to his favourite vice (for Bonosus, they say, could drink
as much as ten strong men) remarked that "there hung a bottle, not a
man."
Probus spared the life of Hunila, and granted her an annual pension for
the rest of her days; he permitted her sons to enjoy their paternal
estate.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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