The Great Sieges of History

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G. Routledge & Company, 1855 - 627 pagine

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Pagina 117 - And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified:...
Pagina 118 - This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
Pagina 572 - Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty, and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations, groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fires bursting from the houses, the crashing of doors and windows, and the reports of muskets used in violence, resounded for two days and nights in the streets of...
Pagina 277 - Her manly understanding was strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. She had drawn up for her own use an epitome of oriental history, and familiarly compared the beauties of Homer and Plato under the tuition of the sublime Longinus.
Pagina 283 - The seat of commerce, of arts, and of Zenobia, gradually sunk into an obscure town, a trifling fortress, and at length a miserable village.
Pagina 279 - Instead of the little passions which so frequently perplex a female reign, the steady administration of Zenobia was guided by the most judicious maxims of policy. If it was expedient to pardon, she could calm her resentment ; if it was necessary to punish, she could impose silence on the voice of pity. Her strict economy was accused of avarice ; yet on every proper occasion she appeared magnificent and liberal. The neighbouring states of Arabia, Armenia, and Persia, dreaded her enmity, and solicited...
Pagina 280 - In both, the queen of Palmyra animated the armies by her presence, and devolved the execution of her orders on Zabdas, who had already signalized his military talents by the conquest of Egypt. The numerous forces of Zenobia consisted, for the most part, of light archers and of heavy cavalry, clothed in complete steel.
Pagina 279 - The conduct, however, of Zenobia was attended with some ambiguity ; nor is it unlikely that she had conceived the design of erecting an independent and hostile monarchy. She blended with the popular manners of Roman princes the stately pomp of the courts of Asia, and exacted from her subjects the same adoration that was paid to the successors of Cyrus. She bestowed on her three sons a Latin education, and often showed them to the troops adorned with the imperial purple.
Pagina 139 - I cannot indeed forbear admiring their courage and felicity, in sacrificing, to their country's welfare, a life of which they would one day have been deprived by the common course of nature : but then I cannot but be strongly affected with the cruel wound which their death has made in my heart, nor forbear hating and detesting the Athenians, the authors of this unhappy war, as the murderers of my children.
Pagina 99 - They also had brazen shields, which they drew red-hot out of the fire, and, filling these with burning sand, hurled them in an instant from the top of the wall upon the enemy. There was nothing the Macedonians so much dreaded as this last invention ; for, the moment this burning sand got to the flesh, through the crevices in the armour, it pierced to the very bone, and stuck so close that there was no pulling it off ; so that the soldiers, throwing down their arms and tearing their clothes to pieces,...

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