A popular and spirited work of the fourth century described “the deaths of the persecutors,” or the terrible fate which befell every Emperor who persecuted the Christians. No fate in the terrible series of Imperial calamities was so tragic as that of Alexander, though he had favoured the Christians, and had cherished a bust of Christ among those of the heroes and sages in his _lararium_. No other Empress in the long line of murdered women so little deserved a violent death as Julia Mamæa. During the fourteen years of her son’s reign she had solely studied the welfare of the Empire. The one charge that her murderers could bring against her was that she had hoarded money instead of spending it on, or giving it to, the troops. On public buildings, public works, and civic administration she had spent freely; she, or Alexander, had even expended large sums in providing surer sustenance and more effective transport for the troops themselves. The charge is little, if at all, more than a cowardly subterfuge. But it needed half-a-dozen strong and unselfish generals to restore the efficiency and docility of the legions, and they were not to be found. We pass into a period of anarchy, in which Emperors and Empresses rise and wither like mushrooms, and Rome stumbles blindly onward towards its doom. In that period of confusion, when every section of the army makes its Emperor, only two dominant personalities are found, and they are two Empresses of barbaric origin. CHAPTER XV ZENOBIA AND VICTORIA The Emperor Alexander Severus and his mother were murdered in the year 235. We may convey a just impression of the period that followed this odious crime by the brief observation that in forty years nearly forty Emperors appeared on the darkened stage of the Roman Empire, and that nearly every one of them perished at the hands of Roman soldiers. The anarchy was arrested for a time when, in the year 270, the energetic Aurelian came to the throne. People and Senate greeted the strong man with genuine enthusiasm, and among the cries of joy or hope with which the Senators hailed him we find this singular aspiration: “Thou wilt deliver us from Zenobia and Vitruvia.” It is a piquant contrast with the disdain that their fathers had had for women--a confession that their vast Empire was now dominated by two women, without male consorts. But for the timely appearance of Aurelian there was a prospect that they would divide the rule of the world between them. One was a Syrian, the other a Gallic, queen; but each of them bore the title of Augusta, and they are the next commanding personalities to engage our interest.