S66 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, tioner, pitying his unhappy mistress, and bestowing '. comfort on his afflicted friends*. Rebellion Returning from the conquest of the east, Aurelian Palmyra, ^^^d already crossed the straits which divide Europe from Asia, when he was provoked by the intelligence that the Palmyrenians had massacred the governor and garrison which he had left among them, and again erected the standard of revolt. Without a moment's deliberation, he once more turned his face towards Syria. Antioch was alarmed by his rapid approach, and the helpless city of Palmyra felt the irresistible weight of his resentment. We have a letter of Aure- lian himself, in which he acknowledges ^ that old men, women, children, and peasants, had been involved in that dreadful execution, which should have been con- fined to armed rebellion; and although his principal concern seems directed to the reestablishment of a temple of the sun, he discovers some pity for the remnant of the Palmyrenians, to whom he grants the permission of rebuilding and inhabiting their city. But it is easier to destroy than to restore. The seat of commerce, of arts, and of Zenobia, gradually sunk into an obscure town, a trifling fortress, and at length a miserable village. The present citizens of Palmyra, consisting of thirty or forty families, have erected their mud cottages within the spacious court of a magnificent temple. Aurelian Another and a last labour still awaited the indefati- the'reb^er g^blc Aurelian; to suppress a dangerous though ob- honofFir- scure rebel, who, during the revolt of Palmyra, had gypt. arisen on the banks of the Nile. Firmus, the friend and ally, as he proudly styled himself, of Odenathus and Zenobia, was no more than a wealthy merchant of Egypt. In the course of his trade to India, he had formed very intimate connections with the Saracens and the Blemmyes, whose situation on either coast of the Red sea gave them an easy introduction into the
- Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 219 ; Zosimus, 1. i. p. 51.
f Hist. August, p. 219.
