Prologue

             I looked down into my empty grave.

            Earth freshly spilt seeped from their crypts into mine.  In the walls of the cave, we had interred the torn bodies of Leonidas and Eisakios, a sackful of earth to cover them.  “God full of mercy,” I said, banging my head on the ground, “If it weren’t for God being full of mercy, there’d be mercy in the world, not only in Him.”

             Better they had never come to this land, I groaned, but died with all the others in Tadmor; and so would lie with their fathers, and not as now alone: as if a man fled from a lion and a bear met him; or he went into a house and leans to rest his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. 

           Memory trickled fear through me.

           My name is Simon, son of Barabas son of Hanina.  This is the story I tell myself every day and I alone can tell it to you.  No one else knows it anymore.  All others who knew it are dead or, their tribes dispersed, taken as slaves far away.  I am the only Senator to have survived, hidden first like a wounded beast in a cave in Judaea, come too late to this land to raise troops for my city.

            Despite the dismal shadows, I know the story from the beginning.  For I was born when Macrinus was Emperor of Rome, year 529 in our reckoning.  My father always called it 'the Year of the Three Emperors': days before my birth, an imperial messenger brought news of the elevation of Macrinus, General of the Praetorian Guards (who was raised, in the vulgar jest, when the Emperor Caracalla was murdered while getting down from his horse to urinate).  Eleven months later, a second messenger announced that Macrinus had been assassinated by the Guards and Elagabalus was acclaimed Emperor.  Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus, emperors by murder and murdered in turn.

           Fortune revolves like the stars.  I sit with my parchment unrolled before me under the terebinth trees in the shade of the graveyard of Be’sara where my companions now lie.  In Galilee, at least my burial will be safe.  Yet, long ago, when the Romans crushed and made a desert of this land, my grandfather's grandfather fled with his household to Tadmor, where they were welcomed by our people in the marzeah.*  Now I am returned to Galilee alone and my fathers lie in their house of eternity in Tadmor.

            Earth must go back to earth: then life by all,
            like crops is harvested.  So must it be. 

            Before God the listener, I shall remember Tadmor of the high walls and lofty towers.  And I shall remember Tadmor's illustrious Queen, Zenobia, direct descendant of Antiochus, King of Syria, and Cleopatra Thea, great-hearted daughter of Ptolemy of Egypt.  Glorious Zenobia, Queen of Tadmor, may God remember her for good.

            Every day I shall add to this story.

* A Palmyrene word that cannot be exactly translated into English, so I have left it  in Syrian in the text:  marzeah, a religious association or non-citizen community.