University of Virginia Library

PROBUS.

The record which follows, is by the hand of me,
Nichomachus, once the happy servant of the great Queen
of Palmyra, than whom the world never saw a queen
more illustrious, nor a woman adorned with brighter virtues.
But my design is not to write her eulogy, nor recite
the wonderful story of her life. That task requires
a stronger and a more impartial hand than mine. The
life of Zenobia by Nichomachus, would be the portrait
of a mother and a divinity, drawn by the pen of a child
and a worshipper.

My object is a humbler, but perhaps also a more useful
one. It is to collect and arrange, in their proper order,
such of the letters of the most noble Lucius Manlius
Piso, as shall throw most light upon his character
and times, supplying all defects of incident, and filling
up all chasms that may occur, out of the knowledge
which, more exactly than any one else, I have been able

to gather concerning all that relates to the distinguished
family of the Pisos, after its connection with the more
distinguished one still, of the Queen of Palmyra.

It is in this manner that I propose to amuse the few
remaining days of a green old age, not without hope
both to amuse and benefit others also. This is a labor,
as those will discover who read, not unsuitable to one
who stands trembling on the verge of life, and whom a
single rude blast may in a moment consign to the embraces
of the universal mother. I will not deny that
my chief satisfaction springs from the fact, that in collecting
these letters, and binding them together by a
connecting narrative, I am engaged in the honorable
task of tracing out some of the steps by which the new
religion has risen to its present height of power. For
whether true or false, neither friend nor foe, neither philosopher
nor fool, can refuse to admit the regenerating
and genial influences of its so wide reception upon the
Roman character and manners. If not the gift of the
gods, it is every way worthy a divine origin; and I cannot
but feel myself to be worthily occupied in recording
the deeds, the virtues, and the sufferings, of those who
put their faith in it, and, in times of danger and oppression,
stood forth to defend it. Age is slow of belief.
The thoughts then cling with a violent pertinacity to the
fictions of its youth, once held to be the most sacred realities.
But for this I should, I believe, myself long
ago have been a Christian. I daily pray to the Supreme
Power that my stubborn nature may yet so far
yield, that I may be able, with a free and full assent, to
call myself a follower of Christ. A Greek by birth, a
Palmyrene by choice and adoption, a Roman by necessity

— and these are all honorable names — I would yet
rather be a Christian than either. Strange that, with
so strong desires after a greater good, I should remain
fixed where I have ever been! Stranger still, seeing I
have moved so long in the same sphere with the excellent
Piso, the divine Julia — that emanation of God —
and the god-like Probus! But there is no riddle so
hard for man to read as himself. I sometimes feel most
inclined toward the dark fatalism of the stoics, since it
places all things beyond the region of conjecture or
doubt.

Yet if I may not be a Christian myself — I do not,
however, cease both to hope and pray — I am happy in
this, that I am permitted by the Divine Providence to
behold, in these the last days of life, the quiet supremacy
of a faith which has already added so much to the
common happiness, and promises so much more. Having
stood in the midst, and looked upon the horrors of
two persecutions of the Christians — the first by Aurelian
and the last by Diocletian—and which last seemed at
one moment as if it would accomplish its work, and blot
out the very name of Christian — I have no language
in which to express the satisfaction with which I sit
down beneath the peaceful shadows of a Christian
throne, and behold the general security and exulting
freedom enjoyed by the many millions throughout the
vast empire of the great Constantine. Now, everywhere
around, the Christians are seen, undeterred by
any apprehension of violence, with busy hands reërecting
the demolished temples of their pure and spiritual
faith; yet not unmindful, in the meantime, of the labor
yet to be done, to draw away the remaining multitudes

of idolaters from the superstitions which, while they infatuate,
degrade and brutalize them. With the zeal of
the early apostles of this religion, they are applying
themselves, with untiring diligence, to soften and subdue
the stony heart of hoary Paganism, receiving but too
often, as their only return, curses and threats — now
happily vain — but often again retiring from the assault,
leading in glad triumph captive multitudes. Often, as
I sit at my window, overlooking, from the southern
slope of the Quirinal, the magnificent Temple of the
Sun, the proudest monument of Aurelian's reign, do I
pause to observe the labors of the artificers who, just as
it were beneath the shadow of its columns, are placing
the last stones upon the dome of a Christian church.
Into that church the worshippers shall enter unmolested;
mingling peacefully, as they go and return, with the
crowds that throng the more gorgeous temple of the
idolaters. Side by side, undisturbed and free, do the
Pagans and Christians, Greeks, Jews, and Egyptians,
now observe the rites, and offer the worship, of their varying
faiths. This happiness we owe to the wise and
merciful laws of the great Constantine. So was it, long
since, in Palmyra, under the benevolent rule of Zenobia.
May the time never come, when Christians shall do
otherwise than now; when, remembering the wrongs
they have received, they shall retaliate torture and
death upon the blind adherents of the ancient superstitions!

These letters of Piso to Fausta the daughter of Gracchus,
now follow.