In the triumph which Aurelian had so splendidly earned, and no less splendidly celebrated, we catch our last certain glimpse of the Queen of the East, one of the most notable women of all time. Along the flower-strewn lane between the dense walls of citizens passes one of the longest and grandest processions that ever led a victor to the Capitol. An immense number of tamed elephants, lions, tigers, leopards, bears, and other beasts move slowly and sullenly along, and eight hundred pairs of gladiators give promise of the impending spectacles. Then there are cars heavily laden with the gold, silver, and jewels of Palmyra, the rare presents of Persia, the purples of India, and the silks of China. Then there is the long and extraordinary train of captives, representing the nineteen nations which Aurelian has subdued, even women who have been taken, in male costume, in the sternest battles. At last the melancholy line is closed by the lithe bronzed figure, with brilliant black eyes and teeth like pearls, of the woman whose beauty, genius, and daring have been on the lips of Rome for several years. Clothed for the last time in the heavily-jewelled robes of a queen--she had complained that she was not strong enough to walk under the load of jewels--she drags along the golden chains which bind her hands and feet, and a slave sustains the weight of the gold band round her throat. Beside her, in scarlet cloak and Gallic trousers, is Tetricus, Victoria’s last Emperor in Gaul. The whole Empire is again subject to Rome. And before the car of the conqueror three empty chariots are driven: one is the gold and silver car of Odenathus, one, of gold studded with gems, is a present from Persia, and the third is the car which Zenobia had made for her triumphant entry into Rome. Never had Emperor looked from his car on so superb a triumph. In less than a year Aurelian would be assassinated. The last phase of Zenobia’s life is not quite clear. Zosimus is certainly wrong in his reproduction of a story that she died, or took her life, before she reached Rome. Still later and equally negligible writers ventured to say that she became a Christian, and even that Aurelian married one of her daughters. The “Historia Augusta,” which we may follow, as it was written in Rome a generation later, tells us that Aurelian gave her a villa near Hadrian’s palace at Tivoli, where she spent the rest of her life in the education of her children and the prosy duties of a Roman matron, and, we may conjecture, in looking back with sad but proud recollection on the stirring romance of her career. Bishop Eusebius observes briefly in his “Chronicle” that she lived to a great age, and was held in the greatest regard at Rome. CHAPTER XVI THE WIFE AND DAUGHTER OF DIOCLETIAN