So doubtful was Aurelian of the result of the siege, that he offered terms of an advantageous capitulation to the brave queen of Palmyra; but she indignantly rejected his proposals in a famous Greek epistle, in which she defied his power. Zenobia, expecting reinforcement from her provinces, and thinking that Aurelian, being encamped in a desert, could not long hold out, especially as he was constantly harassed by bands of Arabs attacking his army in the rear, felt confident that the siege would not be prolonged. But Aurelian, incensed by her haughty letter, roused himself to greater vigilance, cut off all her supplies as the several companies of her allies approached, and found means to subsist his army even in the desert. At length the city could hold out no longer. Zenobia determined to fly, and endeavor to raise succor for her beloved city in her surrounding provinces. Such, indeed, was the reason assigned for this apparent cowardice on her part, which was so contrary to her previous record of undaunted bravery. Mounted on the fleetest of her dromedaries, she succeeded in reaching the banks of the Euphrates, but she was pursued and taken captive, and brought into the presence of the Roman emperor. Aurelian sternly demanded how she dared thus defy the power of Rome. Still every inch a queen, and yet not forgetting a wise policy, she replied, “Because I disdained to acknowledge as my masters such men as Aureolus and Gallienus. To Aurelian I submit, as my conqueror and my sovereign.”