Synopsis:  Zenobia orders her general Zabdas to capture Anatolia.  After subduing the Marcomanni and the Goths, Aurelian makes preparations to reclaim the East.

“(Aurelian) was naturally of a severe disposition.  A peasant and a soldier, his nerves yielded not easily to the impressions of sympathy, and he could sustain without emotion the sight of tortures and death.  Trained from his earliest youth in the exercise of arms, he set too small a value on the life of a citizen, chastised by military execution the slightest offences, and transferred the stern discipline of the camp into the civil administration of the laws.” – Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Since there were in the army two tribunes, both named Aurelian…the soldiers game him the nickname of ‘Sword-in-hand,’ so that, if anyone chanced to ask which Aurelian had done anything or performed any exploit, the reply would be made ‘Aurelian Sword-in-hand,’ and so he would be identified.” – The Historia Augusta