When the first Roman herald reached Palmyra to announce the coming of the Roman ambassadors who had been sent by Aurelian to demand her submission, Zenobia was related to have been at her hunting-villa just without the city. It was in the forests lying to the north of this summer palace that she pursued the wild boar, tiger, or panther in the daring chase. As the messengers of Aurelian arrived at the palace gates, the queen had just returned from the hunt. Never did she look more regal. She was mounted upon a white Arabian steed of peerless beauty, caparisoned with harness gleaming with jewels. Zenobia was leaning upon her long hunting-spear. She wore upon her head a Parthian hunting-cap adorned with a long white plume, fastened by a glittering diamond worth a king’s ransom; her costume was also Parthian, and was most perfectly adapted to display the exquisite proportions of her graceful form. Her dark eyes were flashing with scarcely less brilliancy than the diamond which adorned her brow, as she sat her horse with regal dignity, and her countenance betokened her dauntless pride and warlike courage as the messengers of her enemy were announced. Not waiting to dismount, she exclaimed with tones of imperial command, “Bid the servants of your emperor draw near, and we will hear them.” Announced by trumpets and followed by their train, the ambassadors of Aurelian advanced to the spot where Zenobia calmly awaited them, surrounded by her royal attendants. “Speak your errand,” said the queen. “For a long series of years,” replied the ambassador, “the wealth of Egypt and the East flowed into the Roman treasury. That stream has been diverted to Palmyra. Egypt, Syria, Bithynia, and Mesopotamia were dependents upon Rome, as Roman provinces. The queen of Palmyra was once but the queen of Palmyra; she is now queen of Egypt and of the East,—Augusta of the Roman Empire,—her sons styled and arrayed as Cæsars. By whatever consent of former emperors these honors have been won or permitted, it is not, we are required to say, with the consent of Aurelian. While he honors the greatness and genius of Zenobia, he holds essential to his honor and the glory of the Roman world, that the Roman Empire should again be restored to the limits which bounded it in the reigns of the Antonines.”