and its backing for her in her expansionist projects. To this end Cleopatra encouraged the intellec-tual and literary movements in the city of Alexandria, and dealt generously with the great scholars of the age — foremost among them Boethus the mathematician, Dioscorides the physician, and Sosigenes the astronomer. She built a number of libraries, streets, playing-grounds, and palaces. She educated herself at the hands of a number of scholars, and spread throughout the country an excellent atmosphere of learning. Zenobia followed her pattern: she contributed to the building of the renaissance of learning in northern Syria, encouraged men of letters and thinkers and lavished gifts upon them, drew philosophers and sages close to her, brought up her children in the care of famous teachers, and ordered the building of canals, aqueducts, bridges, and roads, and the adorning of the capital with monuments and stat-ues. Zenobia also mastered several languages, among them Greek, Aramaic, Latin, and Egyptian.

The two queens also endeared themselves to the peoples of Syria and Egypt through the personal qualities for which each was famous. The Syrians admired Zenobia's courage and her taking part in battles, the majesty of her bearing, her passion for hunting and horsemanship, the strength of her body and the hardness of her limbs; just as the Egyptians admired Cleopatra's femininity, the softness of her appearance, the delicacy of her frame, and the coquetry of her ways.

These two women were able, by endearing themselves to the people and drawing it close, to win its affection and secure its help. The people of Palmyra rose against the Romans when they took their queen captive, and the people of Alexandria stood by their queen through most of her days.

But history, which enslaved Zenobia, just as it had enslaved Cleopatra before her, and made her follow in Cleopatra's footsteps through its reports and its events, would not rest until it had mocked Zenobia as it had mocked Cleopatra herself, and until it had sealed the lives of the two queens with a single ending. The very state that vanquished Cleopatra vanquished Zenobia. The dreams of the one were scattered like the dreams of the other. The throne of the first passed away in her own country and in her Syrian possessions, and the claim of the second fell away from Palmyra

and from Egypt. And just as the inhabitants of Syria rose against Cleopatra, conspired against her and defied her, so the Egyptians rose against Zenobia's army and drove out its men.

And thus did history let fall a single curtain upon both tragedies. In the first tragedy Cleopatra appeared stretched upon the ground at the mercy of a great serpent licking her blood; and Zenobia appeared, at the close of the second tragedy, walking in abasement and degradation to Rome, with fetters upon her hands and her feet.

Ronson

For the memories that remain ..

RONSON

Ronson

For gifts and for joyous occasions — Ronson!