By judicious tact, she attached both her subjects and her soldiers to her cause, and enlarged the borders of her dominion very considerably.  Even Egypt yielded to her prowess, and haughty Persia solicited an alliance with her.  She was, in fact, as powerful as any of the Eastern potentates, if not the most powerful.  No petty passion or malice was allowed to mark her conduct in the treatment of her subjects.  The good of her country was her principal object in government, and for the good of the State she would forgive, or at least not punish, a personal injury.  And, though surrounding herself with all the splendors of royalty, she yet managed the financial affairs of her realm with economy.

But the prosperity of her kingdom, and her own success as a sovereign, only increased the envy and resentment of the Romans.  Aurelian had gained the supreme power in Rome, and, once established in his authority, he determined to make good the old boast—­once so true—­that Rome was mistress of the world.  Zenobia was a powerful rival, and her he determined to humble.  Finding her kingdom menaced by so powerful a foe, she set herself to defend it, and met the approaching enemy a hundred miles from her capital.  Here the tide of fortune turned against the hitherto prosperous queen.  In two successive battles she suffered defeat, and then she shut herself up in Palmyra, hoping to starve Aurelian into leaving her in peace; but his star was yet in the ascendant, the last obstacle was overcome, and Palmyra fell.

Zenobia, with some of her attendants, fled; but was overtaken and brought back a prisoner, destined to grace the triumph of her conqueror.  She who had for more than five years ruled a powerful nation so nobly and so well, was henceforth to be subjected to the indignities of a captive.

With Zenobia, fell the dominion of the East, and its once beautiful capital dwindled into insignificance.

HYPATIA.

Rather more than a century had passed since the subjugation of Zenobia and her Empire by pagan Rome, when Hypatia, the philosopher of Alexandria, attracted the attention of the then civilized world by her marvelous talents and varied accomplishments.  The daughter of Theon, the celebrated mathematician of Alexandria, she possessed unusual facilities—­for a woman—­for acquiring knowledge; and especially for becoming acquainted with the abstruse sciences.  Of these facilities she availed herself with commendable earnestness; and at an early age she had made herself mistress of both Geometry and Astronomy, as far as either science was then understood or taught in any of the schools.  As is the case with less profound natures, the mind grew on what it fed upon; reasoning, and the elucidation of knotty mathematical problems, became her delight; and, by general consent, she ranked as one of the first philosophers of her time, if not indeed the very first.