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HISTORIC GIRLS

STORIES OF GIRLS WHO HAVE INFLUENCED THE
HISTORY OF THEIR TIMES

E. S. BROOKS




PREFACE.

In these progressive days, when so much energy and discussion are
devoted to what is termed equality and the rights of woman, it is
well to remember that there have been in the distant past women,
and girls even, who by their actions and endeavors proved
themselves the equals of the men of their time in valor,
shrewdness, and ability.

This volume seeks to tell for the girls and boys of to-day the
stories of some of their sisters of the long-ago,--girls who by
eminent position or valiant deeds became historic even before
they had passed the charming season of girlhood.

Their stories are fruitful of varying lessons, for some of these
historic girls were wilful as well as courageous, and mischievous
as well as tender-hearted.

But from all the lessons and from all the morals, one truth
stands out most clearly--the fact that age and country, time and
surroundings, make but little change in the real girl-nature,
that has ever been impulsive, trusting, tender, and true, alike
in the days of the Syrian Zenobia and in those of the modern
American school-girl.

After all, whatever the opportunity, whatever the limitation,
whatever the possibilities of this same never-changing
girl-nature, no better precept can be laid down for our own
bright young maidens, as none better can be deduced from the
stories herewith presented, than that phrased in Kingsley's noble
yet simple verse:

"Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long
And so make life, death, and the vast forever
One grand, sweet song."


Grateful acknowledgment is made by the author for the numerous
expressions of interest that came to him from his girl-readers as
the papers now gathered into book-form appeared from time to time
in the pages of St. Nicholas. The approval of those for whom one
studies and labors is the pleasantest and most enduring return.



CONTENTS

ZENOBIA OF PALMYRA: THE GIRL OF THE SYRIAN DESERT

HELENA OF BRITAIN: THE GIRL OF THE ESSEX FELLS

PULCHERIA OF CONSTANTINOPLE: THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN HORN

CLOTILDA OF BURGUNDY: THE GIRL OF THE FRENCH VINEYARDS

WOO OF HWANG-HO: THE GIRL OF THE YELLOW RIVER

EDITH OF SCOTLAND: THE GIRL OF THE NORTHERN ABBEY

JACQUELINE OF HOLLAND: THE GIRL OF THE LAND OF FOGS

CATARINA OF VENICE: THE GIRL OF THE GRAND CANAL

THERESA OF AVILA: THE GIRL OF THE SPANISH SIERRAS

ELIZABETH OF TUDOR: THE GIRL OF THE HERTFORD MANOR

CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN: THE GIRL OF THE NORTHERN FIORDS

MA-TA-OKA OF POW-HA-TAN: THE GIRL OF THE VIRGINIA FORESTS



ZENOBIA OF PALMYRA:

THE GIRL OF THE SYRIAN DESERT.

[Afterward known as "Zenobia Augusta, Queen of the East."] A.D.
250.

MANY and many miles and many days' journey toward the rising sun,
over seas and mountains and deserts,--farther to the east than
Rome, or Constantinople, or even Jerusalem and old
Damascus,--stand the ruins of a once mighty city, scattered over
a mountain-walled oasis of the great Syrian desert, thirteen
hundred feet above the sea, and just across the northern border
of Arabia. Look for it in your geographies. It is known as
Palmyra. To-day the jackal prowls through its deserted streets
and the lizard suns himself on its fallen columns, while thirty
or forty miserable Arabian huts huddle together in a small corner
of what was once the great court-yard of the magnificent Temple
of the Sun.

And yet, sixteen centuries ago, Palmyra, or Tadmor as it was
originally called, was one of the most beautiful cities in the
world. Nature and art combined to make it glorious. Like a
glittering mirage out of the sand-swept desert arose its palaces
and temples and grandly sculptured archways. With aqueducts and
monuments and gleaming porticos with countless groves of
palm-trees and gardens full of verdure; with wells and fountains,
market and circus; with broad streets stretching away to the city
gates and lined on either side with magnificent colonnades of
rose-colored marble--such was Palmyra in the year of our Lord
250, when, in the soft Syrian month of Nisan, or April, in an
open portico in the great colonnade and screened from the sun by
gayly colored awnings, two young people--a boy of sixteen and a
girl of twelve--looked down upon the beautiful Street of the
Thousand Columns, as lined with bazaars and thronged with
merchants it stretched from the wonderful Temple of the Sun to
the triple Gate-way of the Sepulchre, nearly a mile away.

Both were handsome and healthy--true children of old Tadmor, that
glittering, fairy-like city which, Arabian legends say, was built
by the genii for the great King Solomon ages and ages ago. Midway
between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates, it was the
meeting-place for the caravans from the east and the wagon trains
from the west, and it had thus become a city of merchant princes,
a wealthy commercial republic, like Florence and Venice in the
middle ages--the common toll-gate for both the East and West.

But, though a tributary colony of Rome, it was so remote a
dependency of that mighty mistress of the world that the yoke of
vassalage was but carelessly worn and lightly felt. The great
merchants and chiefs of caravans who composed its senate and
directed its affairs, and whose glittering statues lined the
sculptured cornice of its marble colonnades, had more power and
influence than the far-off Emperor at Rome, and but small heed
was paid to the slender garrison that acted as guard of honor to
the strategi or special officers who held the colony for Rome and
received its yearly tribute. And yet so strong a force was Rome
in the world that even this free-tempered desert city had
gradually become Romanized in manners as in name, so that Tadmor
had become first Adrianapolis and then Palmyra. And this
influence had touched even these children in the portico. For
their common ancestor--a wealthy merchant of a century
before--had secured honor and rank from the Emperor Septimus
Severus --the man who "walled in" England, and of whom it was
said that "he never performed an act of humanity or forgave a
fault." Becoming, by the Emperor's grace, a Roman citizen, this
merchant of Palmyra, according to a custom of the time, took the
name of his royal patron as that of his own "fahdh," or family,
and the father of young Odhainat in the portico, as was Odhainat
himself, was known as Septimus Odaenathus, while the young girl
found her Arabic name of Bath Zabbai, Latinized into that of
Septima Zenobia.

But as, thinking nothing of all this, they looked lazily on the
throng below, a sudden exclamation from the lad caused his
companion to raise her flashing black eyes inquiringly to his
face.

"What troubles you, my Odhainat?" she asked.

"There, there; look there, Bath Zabbai!" replied the boy
excitedly; "coming through the Damascus arch, and we thought him
to be in Emesa."

The girl's glance followed his guiding finger, but even as she
looked a clear trumpet peal rose above the din of the city, while
from beneath a sculptured archway that spanned a colonnaded
cross-street the bright April sun gleamed down upon the standard
of Rome with its eagle crest and its S. P. Q. R. design beneath.
There is a second trumpet peal, and swinging into the great
Street of the Thousand Columns, at the head of his light-armed
legionaries, rides the centurion Rufinus, lately advanced to the
rank of tribune of one of the chief Roman cohorts in Syria. His
coming, as Odhainat and even the young Bath Zabbai knew, meant a
stricter supervision of the city, a re-enforcement of its
garrison, and the assertion of the mastership of Rome over this
far eastern province on the Persian frontier.

"But why should the coming of the Roman so trouble you, my
Odhainat?" she asked. "We are neither Jew nor Christian that we
should fear his wrath, but free Palmyreans who bend the knee
neither to Roman nor Persian masters."

"Who WILL bend the knee no longer, be it never so little, my
cousin," exclaimed the lad hotly, "as this very day would have
shown had not this crafty Rufinus--may great Solomon's genii dash
him in the sea!--come with his cohort to mar our measures! Yet
see--who cometh now?" he cried; and at once the attention of the
young people was turned in the opposite direction as they saw,
streaming out of the great fortress-like court-yard of the Temple
of the Sun, another hurrying throng.

Then young Odhainat gave a cry of joy.

"See, Bath Zabbai; they come, they come"! he cried. "It is my
father, Odhainat the esarkos,[1] with all the leaders and all the
bowmen and spearmen of our fahdh armed and in readiness. This day
will we fling off the Roman yoke and become the true and
unconquered lords of Palmyra. And I, too, Must join them," he
added.

[1] The "head man," or chief of the "fahdh," or family.


But the young girl detained him. "Wait, cousin," she said; "watch
and wait. Our fahdh will scarce attempt so brave a deed to-day,
with these new Roman soldiers in our gates. That were scarcely
wise.

But the boy broke out again. "So; they have seen each other," he
said; "both sides are pressing on!"

"True; and they will meet under this very portico," said Bath
Zabbai, and moved both by interest and desire this dark-eyed
Syrian girl, to whom fear was never known, standing by her
cousin's side, looked down upon the tossing sea of spears and
lances and glittering shields and helmets that swayed and surged
in the street below.

"So, Odaenathus!" said Rufinus, the tribune, reining in his horse
and speaking in harsh and commanding tones, "what meaneth this
array of armed followers?"

"Are the movements of Septimus Odaenathus, the head-man, of such
importance to the noble tribune that he must needs question a
free merchant of Palmyra as to the number and manner of his
servants?" asked Odaemathus haughtily.

"Dog of a Palmyrean; slave of a camel-driver," said the Roman
angrily, "trifle not with me. Were you ten times the free
merchant you claim, you should not thus reply. Free, forsooth!
None are free but Romans."

"Have a care, O Rufinus," said the Palmyrean boldly, "choose
wiser words if you would have peaceful ways. Palmyra brooks no
such slander of her foremost men."

"And Rome brooks no such men as you, traitor," said Rufinus. "Ay,
traitor, I say," he repeated, as Odaenathus started at the word.
"Think not to hide your plots to overthrow the Roman power in
your city and hand the rule to the base Sapor of Persia. Every
thing is known to our great father the Emperor, and thus doth he
reckon with traitors. Macrinus, strike!" and at his word the
short Gallic sword in the ready hand of the big German
foot-soldier went straight to its mark and Odaenathus, the
"head-man" of Palmyra, lay dead in the Street of the Thousand
Columns.

So sudden and so unexpected was the blow that the Palmyreans
stood as if stunned, unable to comprehend what had happened. But
the Roman was swift to act.

"Sound, trumpets! Down, pikes!" he cried, and as the trumpet peal
rose loud and clear, fresh legionaries came hurrying through the
Damascus arch, and the pilum[1] and spatha of Rome bore back the
shields and lances of Palmyra.

[1] The pilum was the Roman pike, and the spatha the short
single-edged Roman sword.


But, before the lowered pikes could fully disperse the crowd, the
throng parted and through the swaying mob there burst a lithe and
flying figure--a brown-skinned maid of twelve with streaming
hair, loose robe, and angry, flashing eyes. Right under the
lowered pikes she darted and, all flushed and panting, defiantly
faced the astonished Rufinus. Close behind her came an equally
excited lad who, when he saw the stricken body of his father on
the marble street, flung himself weeping upon it. But Bath
Zabbai's eyes flashed still more angrily:

"Assassin, murderer!" she cried; "you have slain my kinsman and
Odhainat's father. How dare you; how dare you!" she repeated
vehemently, and then, flushing with deeper scorn, she added:
"Roman, I hate you! Would that I were a man. Then should all
Palmyra know how----"

"Scourge these children home," broke in the stern Rufinus, "or
fetch them by the ears to their nurses and their toys. Let the
boys and girls of Palmyra beware how they mingle in the matters
of their elders, or in the plots of their fathers. Men of
Palmyra, you who to-day have dared to think of rebellion, look on
your leader here and know how Rome deals with traitors. But,
because the merchant Odaenathus bore a Roman name, and was of
Roman rank--ho, soldiers! bear him to his house, and let Palmyra
pay such honor as befits his name and station."

The struggling children were half led, half carried into the
sculptured atrium[1] of the palace of Odaenathus which, embowered
in palms and vines and wonderful Eastern plants, stood back from
the marble colonnade on the Street of the Thousand Columns. And
when in that same atrium the body of the dead merchant lay
embalmed and draped for its "long home,"[2] there, kneeling by
the stricken form of the murdered father and kinsman, and with
uplifted hand, after the vindictive manner of these fierce old
days of blood, Odaemathus and Zenobia swore eternal hatred to
Rome.

[1] The large central "living-room" of a Roman palace.

[2] The Palmyreans built great tower-tombs, beautiful in
architecture and adornment, the ruins of which still stand on the
hill slopes overlooking the old city. These they called their
"long homes," and you will find the word used in the same sense
in Ecclesiastes xii., 5.


Hatred, boys and girls, is a very ugly as it is a very headstrong
fault; but as there is a good side even to a bad habit, so there
is a hatred which may rise to the heighth of a virtue. Hatred of
vice IS virtue; hatred of tyranny is patriotism. It is this which
has led the world from slavery to freedom, from ignorance to
enlightenment, and inspired the words that have found immortality
alike above the ashes of Bradshaw the regicide and of Jefferson
the American. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

But how could a fatherless boy and girl, away off on the edge of
an Arabian desert, hope to resist successfully the mighty power
of Imperial Rome? The story of their lives will tell.

If there are some people who are patriots, there are others who
are poltroons, and such a one was Hairan, the elder brother of
young Odhainat, when, succeeding to his dead father's wealth and
power, he thought less of Roman tyranny than of Roman gold.

"Revenge ourselves on their purses, my brother, and not on their
pikes," he said. " 'T is easier and more profitable to sap the
Roman's gold than to shed the Roman's blood."

But this submission to Rome only angered Odhainat, and to such a
conflict of opinion did it lead that at last Hairan drove his
younger brother from the home of his fathers, and the lad, "an
Esau among the Jacobs of Tadmor," so the record tells us, spent
his youth amid the roving Bedaween of the Arabian deserts and the
mountaineers of the Armenian hills, waiting his time.

But, though a homeless exile, the dark-eyed Bath Zabbai did not
forget him. In the palace of another kinsman, Septimus Worod, the
"lord of the markets," she gave herself up to careful study, and
hoped for the day of Palmyra's freedom. As rich in powers of mind
as in the graces of form and face, she soon became a wonderful
scholar for those distant days--mistress of four languages:
Coptic, Syriac, Latin, and Greek, while the fiery temper of the
girl grew into the nobler ambitions of the maiden. But above all
things, as became her mingled Arabic and Egyptian blood--for she
could trace her ancestry back to the free chiefs of the Arabian
desert, and to the dauntless Cleopatra of Egypt,--she loved the
excitement of the chase, and in the plains and mountains beyond
the city she learned to ride and hunt with all the skill and
daring of a young Diana.

And so it came to pass that when the Emperor Valerian sent an
embassy from Rome to Ctesiphon, bearing a message to the Great
King, as Sapor, the Persian monarch, was called, the embassy
halted in Palmyra, and Septimus Hairan, now the head-man of the
city, ordered, "in the name of the senate and people of Palmyra,"
a grand venatio, or wild beast hunt, in the circus near the
Street of the Thousand Columns, in honor of his Roman guests. And
he despatched his kinsman Septimus Zabbai, the soldier, to the
Armenian hills to superintend the capture and delivery of the
wild game needed for the hunt. With a great following of slaves
and huntsmen, Zabbai the soldier departed, and with him went his
niece, Bath Zabbai, or Zenobia, now a fearless young huntress of
fifteen. Space will not permit to tell of the wonders and
excitement of that wild-beast hunt--a hunt in which none must be
killed but all must be captured without mar or wound. Such a
trapping of wolves and bears and buffaloes was there, such a
setting of nets and pitfalls for the mountain lion and the Syrian
leopard, while the Arab hunters beat, and drove, and shouted, or
lay in wait with net and blunted lance, that it was rare sport to
the fearless Zenobia, who rode her fleet Arabian horse at the
very head of the chase, and, with quick eye and practised hand,
helped largely to swell the trophies of the hunt. What girl of
to-day, whom even the pretty little jumping-mouse of Syria would
scare out of her wits, could be tempted to witness such a scene?
And yet this young Palmyrean girl loved nothing better than the
chase, and the records tell us that she was a "passionate
hunter," and that---she pursued with ardor the wild beasts of the
desert and thought nothing of fatigue or peril.

So, through dense Armenian forests and along rugged mountain
paths, down rock-strewn hill-slopes and in green, low-lying
valleys, the chase swept on: and one day, in one of the pleasant
glades which, half-sun and half-shadow, stretch away to the
Lebanon hills, young Bath Zabbai suddenly reined in her horse in
full view of one of the typical hunting scenes of those old days.
A young Arabian hunter had enticed a big mountain lion into one
of the strong-meshed nets of stout palm fibres, then used for
such purposes. His trained leopard or cheetah had drawn the beast
from his lair, and by cunning devices had led him on until the
unfortunate lion was half-entrapped. Just then, with a sudden
swoop, a great golden eagle dashed down upon the preoccupied
cheetah, and buried his talons in the leopard's head. But the
weight of his victim was more than he had bargained for; the
cheetah with a quick upward dash dislodged one of the great
bird's talons, and, turning as quickly, caught the disengaged leg
in his sharp teeth. At that instant the lion, springing at the
struggling pair, started the fastenings of the net, which,
falling upon the group, held all three prisoners. The eagle and
the lion thus ensnared sought to release themselves, but only
ensnared themselves the more, while the cunning cheetah, versed
in the knowledge of the hunter's net, crept out from beneath the
meshes as his master raised them slightly, and with bleeding head
crawled to him for praise and relief.

Then the girl, flushed with delight at this double capture,
galloped to the spot, and in that instant she recognized in the
successful hunter her cousin the exile.

"Well snared, my Odhainat," she said, as, the first exclamation
of surprise over, she stood beside the brown-faced and sturdy
young hunter. "The Palmyrean leopard hath bravely trapped both
the Roman eagle and the Persian lion. See, is it not an omen from
the gods? Face valor with valor and craft with craft, O Odhainat!
Have you forgotten the vow in your father's palace full three
years ago?"

Forgotten it? Not he. And then he told Bath Zabbai how in all his
wanderings he had kept their vow in mind, and with that, too, her
other words of counsel, "Watch and Wait." He told her that, far
and wide, he was known to all the Arabs of the desert and the
Armenians of the hills, and how, from sheikh to camel-boy, the
tribes were ready to join with Palmyra against both Rome and
Persia.

"Your time will indeed come, my Odhainat," said the fearless
girl, with proud looks and ringing voice. "See, even thus our
omen gives the proof," and she pointed to the net, beneath whose
meshes both eagle and lion, fluttering and panting, lay wearied
with their struggles, while the cheetah kept watch above them.
"Now make your peace with Hairan, your brother; return to Palmyra
once again, and still let us watch and wait."

Three more years passed. Valerian, Emperor of Rome, leading his
legions to war with Sapor, whom men called the "Great King," had
fallen a victim to the treachery and traps of the Persian
monarch, and was held a miserable prisoner in the Persian
capital, where, richly robed in the purple of the Roman emperors
and loaded with chains, he was used by the savage Persian tyrant
as a living horse-block for the sport of an equally savage court.
In Palmyra, Hairan was dead, and young Odhainat, his brother, was
now Septimus Odaenathus--"headman" of the city and to all
appearances the firm friend of Rome.

There were great rejoicings in Palmyra when the wise
Zenobia--still scarce more than a girl--and the fearless young
"head-man" of the desert republic were married in the marble city
of the palm-trees, and her shrewd counsels brought still greater
triumphs to Odaenathus and to Palmyra,

In the great market-place or forum, Odaenathus and Zenobia
awaited the return of their messengers to Sapor. For the "Great
King," having killed and stuffed the captive Roman Emperor, now
turned his arms against the Roman power in the east and,
destroying both Antioch and Emesa, looked with an evil eye toward
Palmyra. Zenobia, remembering the omen of the eagle and the lion,
repeated her counsel of facing craft with craft, and letters and
gifts had been sent to Sapor, asking for peace and friendship.
There is a hurried entrance through the eastern gate of the city,
and the messengers from the Palmyrean senate rush into the
Market-place.

"Your presents to the Great King have been thrown into the river,
O Odaenathus," they reported, "and thus sayeth Sapor of Persia:
'Who is this Odaenathus, that he should thus presume to write to
his lord? If he would obtain mitigation of the punishment that
awaits him, let him fall prostrate before the foot of our throne,
with his hands bound behind his back. Unless he doeth this, he,
his family, and his country shall surely perish!' "

Swift to wrath and swifter still to act, Zenobia sprang to her
feet. "Face force with force, Odaenathus. Be strong and sure, and
Palmyra shall yet humble the Persian."

Her advice was taken. Quickly collecting the troops of Palmyra
and the Arabs and Armenian who were his allies, the fearless
"head-man" fell upon the army of the haughty Persian king,
defeated and despoiled it, and drove it back to Persia. As
Gibbon, the historian says: "The majesty of Rome, oppressed by a
Persian, was protected by an Arab of Palmyra."

For this he was covered with favors by Rome; made supreme
commander in the East, and, with Zenobia as his adviser and
helper, each year made Palmyra stronger and more powerful.

Here, rightly, the story of the girl Zenobia ends. A woman now,
her life fills one of the most brilliant pages of history. While
her husband conquered for Rome in the north, she, in his absence,
governed so wisely in the south as to insure the praise of all.
And when the time was ripe, and Rome, ruled by weak emperors and
harassed by wild barbarians, was in dire stress, the childish vow
of the boy and girl made years before found fulfilment. Palmyra
was suddenly declared free from the dominion of Rome, and
Odaenathus was acknowledged by senate and people as "Emperor and
King of kings."

But the hand of an assassin struck down the son as it had
stricken the father. Zenobia, ascending the throne of Palmyra,
declared herself "Zenobia Augusta, the Empress of the East," and,
after the manner of her time, extended her empire in every
direction until, as the record says: "A small territory in the
desert, under the government of a woman, extended its conquests
over many rich countries and several states. Zenobia, lately
confined to the barren plains about Palmyra, now held sway from
Egypt in the south, to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea in the
north."

But a new emperor ruled in Rome: Aurelian, soldier and statesman.
"Rome," he said, "shall never lose a province." And then the
struggle for dominion in the East began. The strength and power
of Rome, directed by the Emperor himself, at last triumphed.
Palmyra fell, and Zenobia, after a most heroic defence of her
kingdom, was led a prisoner to Rome. Clad in magnificent robes,
loaded with jewels and with heavy chains of gold, she walked,
regal and undaunted still, in the great triumphal procession of
her conqueror, and, disdaining to kill herself as did Cleopatra
and Dido, she gave herself up to the nobler work of the education
and culture of her children, and led for many years, in her villa
at Tibur, the life of a noble Roman matron.

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