Chapter 26

Makrina.

[Pointing out to the left.] Fresh multitudes! Innumerable, unceasing——

[A company of soldiers passes by; a young man in the ranks sinks down on the road from weariness.

A Subaltern.

[Beating him with a stick.] Up with you, lazy hound!

Makrina.

[Hastening up.] Oh, do not strike him!

The Soldier.

Let them strike me;—I am so glad to suffer.

Ammian.

[Entering.] Again a stoppage!—Oh, it is he. Can he really go no further?

The Subaltern.

I do not know what to say, sir; he falls at every step.

Makrina.

Oh, be patient! Who is this unhappy man?—See, suck the juice of these fruits.—Who is he, sir?

Ammian.

A Cappadocian,—one of the fanatics who took part in the desecration of the temple of Venus at Antioch.

Makrina.

Oh, one of those martyrs——!

Ammian.

Try to rise, Agathon! I am sorry for this fellow. They chastised him more severely than he could bear. He has been out of his mind ever since.

Agathon.

[Rising.] I can bear it very well, and I am in my right mind, sir! Strike, strike, strike;—I rejoice to suffer.

Ammian.

[To the Subaltern.] Forward; we have no time to waste.

The Subaltern.

[To the soldiers.] Forward, forward!

Agathon.

Babylonius fell;—soon shall the Babylonian whoremonger fall likewise. The lion of Zaita was slain—the crowned lion of the earth is doomed!

[The soldiers are driven out to the right.

Ammian.

[ToBasilandMakrina.] You strange people;—you go astray and yet you do good. Thanks for your refreshment to the weary; and would that my duty to the Emperor permitted me to treat your brethren as forbearingly as I should desire.

[He goes off to the right.

Basil.

God be with you, noble heathen!

Makrina.

Who may that man be?

Basil.

I know him not.

[He points to the left.

Oh see, see—there he is himself!

Makrina.

The Emperor? Isthatthe Emperor?

Basil.

Yes, that is he.

TheEmperor Julianwith several of his principal officers, escorted by a detachment of guards, with their captainAnatolus, enters from the left.

Julian.

[To his retinue.] Why talk of fatigue? Should the fall of a horse bring me to a standstill? Or is it less becoming to go on foot than to bestride an inferior animal? Fatigue! My ancestor said that it befits an Emperor to die standing. I say that it befits an Emperor, not only in the hour of death, but throughout his whole life, to set an example of endurance; I say—— Ah, by the great light of heaven! do I not see Basil of Caesarea before my eyes?

Basil.

[Bowing deeply.] Your meanest servant, oh most mighty lord!

Julian.

Ah, I know what that means! Truly you serve me well, Basil!

[Approaching.

So this is the villa that has become so renowned by reason of the epistles that go forth from it. This house is more talked of throughout the provinces than all the lecture-halls together, although I have spared neither care nor pains to restore their glory.

Tell me—is not this woman your sister, Makrina?

Basil.

She is, sire!

Julian.

You are a fair woman, and still young. And yet, as I hear, you have renounced life.

Makrina.

Sire, I have renounced life in order truly to live.

Julian.

Ah, I know your delusions very well. You sigh for that which lies beyond, of which you have no certain knowledge; you mortify your flesh; you repress all human desires. And yet I tell you this may be a vanity, like the rest.

Basil.

Think not, sire, that I am blind to the danger that lurks in renunciation. I know that my friend Gregory says well when he writes that he holds himself a hermit in heart, though not in the body. And I know that this coarse clothing is of small profit to my soul if I take merit to myself for wearing it.

But that is not my case. This secluded life fills me with unspeakable happiness; that is all. The wild convulsions through which, in these days, the world is passing, do not here force themselves, in all their hideousness, upon my eyes. Here I feel my body uplifted in prayer, and my soul purified by a frugal life.

Julian.

Oh my modest Basil, I fear you are ambitious of more than this. If what I hear be true, your sister has gathered round her a band of young women whom she is training up in her own likeness. And you yourself, like your Galilean master, have chosen twelve disciples. What is your purpose with them?

Basil.

To send them forth into all lands, that they may strengthen our brethren in the fight.

Julian.

Truly! Equipped with all the weapons of eloquence, you send your army against me. And whence did you obtain this eloquence, this glorious Greek art? From our schools of learning. What right have you to it? You have stolen like a spy into our camp, to find out where you can most safely strike at us. And this knowledge you are now applying to our greatest hurt!

Let me tell you, Basil, that I have no mind to suffer this scandal any longer. I will strike this weapon out of your hands. Keep to your Matthew and Luke, and other such unpolished babblers. But henceforth you shall not be permitted to interpret our ancient poets and philosophers; for I hold it unreasonable to let you suck knowledge and skill from sources in the truth of which you do not believe. In like manner shall all Galilean scholars be forbidden our lecture-halls; for what is their business there? To steal our weapons and use them against us.

Basil.

Sire, I have already heard of this strange determination. And I agree with Gregory in maintaining that you have no exclusive right either to Grecian learning or to Grecian eloquence. I agree with him when he points out that you use the alphabet which was invented by the Egyptians, and that you clothe yourself in purple, although it first came into use among the people of Tyre.

Ay, sire—and more than that. You subdue nations, and make yourself ruler over peoples, whose tongues are unknown and whose manners are strange to you. And you have a right to doso. But by the same right whereby you rule the visible world, he whom you call the Galilean rules the invisible——

Julian.

Enough of that! I will no longer listen to such talk. You speak as though there were two rulers of the world, and on that plea you cry halt to me at every turn. Oh fools! You set up a dead man against a living one. But you shall soon be convinced of your error. Do not suppose that amid the cares of war I have laid aside the treatise I have long been preparing against you. Perhaps you think I spend my nights in sleep? You are mistaken! For “The Beard-Hater” I reaped nothing but scorn,—and that from the very people who had most reason to lay certain truths to heart. But that shall in nowise deter me. Should a man with a cudgel in his hand shrink from a pack of yelping dogs?—Why did you smile, woman? At what did you laugh?

Makrina.

Why, sire, do you rage so furiously against one who, you say, is dead?

Julian.

Ah, I understand! You mean to say that he is alive.

Makrina.

I mean to say, oh mighty Emperor, that in your heart you feel of a surety that he lives.

Julian.

I? What next!Ifeel——!

Makrina.

What is it that you hate and persecute? Not him, but your belief in him. And does he not live in your hate and persecution, no less than in our love?

Julian.

I know your tortuous tricks of speech. You Galileans say one thing and mean another. And that you call rhetoric! Oh mediocre minds! What folly!Ifeel that the crucified Jew is alive! Oh what a degenerate age, to find satisfaction in such sophistries! But such is the latter-day world. Madness passes for wisdom. How many sleepless nights have I not spent in searching out the true foundation of things? But where are my followers? Many praise my eloquence, but few, or none, are convinced by it.

But truly the end is not yet. A great astonishment will come upon you. You shall see how all the scattered forces are converging into one. You shall see how, from all that you now despise, glory shall issue forth—and out of the cross on which you hang your hopes I will fashion a ladder for One whom you know not of.

Makrina.

And I tell you, Emperor Julian, that you are nought but a scourge in the hand of God—a scourge foredoomed to chasten us by reason of our sins. Woe to us that it must be so! Woe to us for the discords and the lovelessness that have caused us to swerve from the true path!

There was no longer a king in Israel. Therefore has the Lord stricken you with madness, that you might chastise us.

What a spirit has he not darkened, that it should rage against us! What a blossoming tree has he not stripped to make rods for our sin-laden shoulders!

Portents warned you, and you heeded them not. Voices called you, and you heard them not. Hands wrote in letters of fire upon the wall, and you rubbed out the writing ere you had deciphered it.

Julian.

Basil—I would I had known this woman before to-day.

Basil.

Come, Makrina!

Makrina.

Woe is me that ever I saw those shining eyes! Angel and serpent in one; the apostate’s longing wedded to the tempter’s guile! Oh, how have our brethren and sisters borne their hope of victory so high, in the face of such an instrument of wrath? In him dwells a greater than he. Do you not see it, Basil—in him will the Lord God smite us even to death.

Julian.

You have said it!

Makrina.

Not I!

Julian.

First-won soul!

Makrina.

Avaunt from me!

Basil.

Come—come!

Julian.

Stay here!—Anatolus, set a guard about them!—’Tis my will that you shall follow the army—both you and your disciples,—youths and women.

Basil.

Sire, you cannot desire this!

Julian.

’Tis not wise to leave fortresses in our rear. See, I stretch forth my hand and quench the burning shower of arrows which you have sent forth from yonder villa.

Basil.

Nay, nay, sire—this deed of violence——

Makrina.

Alas, Basil—here or elsewhere—all is over.

Julian.

Is it not written “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s”? I require all aid in this campaign. You can tend my sick and wounded. In that you will be serving the Galilean as well; and if you still think that a duty, I counsel you to make good use of your time. His end is near!

[Some soldiers have surroundedBasilandMakrina, others hasten through the thicket towards the house.

Makrina.

Sunset over our home; sunset of hope and of light in the world! Oh Basil! that we should live to see the night!

Basil.

The lightis.

Julian.

The light shall be. Turn your backs to the sunset, Galileans! Your faces to the east, to the east, where Helios lies dreaming. Verily I say unto you, you shall see the Sun-King of the world.

[He goes out to the right; all follow him.

Beyond the Euphrates and Tigris. A wide plain, with the imperial camp. Copses, to the left and in the background, hide the windings of the Tigris. Masts of ships rise over the thickets in long rows, stretching into the far distance. A cloudy evening.

Soldiers and men-at-arms of all sorts are busy pitching their tents on the plain. All kinds of stores are being brought from the ships. Watchfires far away.Nevita,Jovian, and other officers come from the fleet.

Nevita.

See, now, how rightly the Emperor has chosen! Here we stand, without a stroke, on the enemy’s territory; no one has opposed our passage of the river; not even a single Persian horseman is to be seen.

Jovian.

No, sir, by this route, the enemy certainly did not expect us.

Nevita.

You speak as if you still thought this route unwisely chosen.

Jovian.

Yes, sir, it is still my opinion that we should rather have taken a more northerly direction. Then our left wing would have rested on Armenia, which is friendly towards us, and all our supplies might have come from that fruitful province. But here? Hampered in our progress by the heavy freight-ships, surrounded by a barren plain, almost a desert—— Ah! the Emperor is coming. I will go; I am not in his good graces at present.

He goes out to the right. At the same timeJulianenters with his retinue from the ships.Oribases, the physician, the philosophersPriscusandKytron, with several others, appear from among the tents on the right, and advance to meet the Emperor.

Julian.

Thus does the empire grow. Every step I take towards the east shifts the frontier of my dominion.

[He stamps on the earth.

This earth is mine! I am in the empire, not beyond it.—Well, Priscus——?

Priscus.

Incomparable Emperor, your command has been executed. Your marvellous dream has been read to every division of the army.

Julian.

Good, good. And how did my dream seem to affect the soldiers?

Kytron.

Some praised you with joyful voices, and hailed you as divine; others on the contrary——

Priscus.

Those others were Galileans, Kytron!

Kytron.

Yes, yes, most of them were Galileans; and these smote upon their breasts and uttered loud lamentations.

Julian.

I will not let the matter rest here. The busts of myself, which I have provided for erection in the towns I am to conquer, shall be set up round the camp, over all the paymasters’ tables. Lamps shall be lighted beside the busts; braziers, with sweet-smelling incense, shall burn before them; and every soldier, as he comes forward to receive his pay, shall cast some grains of incense on the fire.

Oribases.

Most gracious Emperor, forgive me, but—is that expedient?

Julian.

Why not? I marvel at you, my Oribases!

Priscus.

Ah, sire, you may wellmarvel!marvel!Not expedient to——?

Kytron.

Should not a Julian dare what less god-like men have dared?

Julian.

I, too, think that the more daring course would now be to disguise the counsels of the mystic powers. If it be the case that the divinities have deputed their sovereignty into earthly hands—as many signs justify us in concluding—it would indeed be most ungrateful to conceal the fact. In such hazardous circumstances as these, ’tis no trifling matter that the soldiers should pay their devotions in a quite different quarter from that in which they are due.

I tell you, Oribases, and all of you,—if, indeed, there be present any one else who would set limits to the Emperor’s power,—that this would be the very essence of impiety, and that I should therefore be forced to take strong measures against it.

Has not Plato long ago enunciated the truth that only a god can rule over men? What meant he by that saying? Answer me—what did he mean? Far be it from me to assert that Plato—incomparable sage though he was—had any individual, even the greatest, in his prophetic eye. But I think we have all seen what disorders result from the parcelling out, as it were, of the supreme power into several hands.

Enough of that. I have already commanded that the imperial busts shall be displayed about the camp.

Ah! what seek you in such haste, Eutherius?

The ChamberlainEutheriuscomes from the ships, accompanied by a man in girt-up garments.

Eutherius.

Exalted Emperor,—this man of Antioch is sent by the governor, Alexander, and brings you a letter which, he says, is of great importance.

Julian.

Ah, let me see! Light here!

[A torch is brought; the Emperor opens and reads the letter.

Julian.

Can this be possible! More light! Yes, here it is written—and here—; what next?—Truly this exceeds all I could have conceived!

Nevita.

Bad news from the west, sire?

Julian.

Nevita, tell me, how long will it take us to reach Ctesiphon?

Nevita.

It cannot be done in less than thirty days.

Julian.

Itmustbe done in less! Thirty days! A whole month! And while we are creeping forward here, I must let those madmen——

Nevita.

You know yourself, sire, that, on account of the ships, we must follow all the windings of the river. The current is rapid, and the bed, too, shallow and stony. I hold it impossible to proceed more quickly.

Julian.

Thirty days! And then there is the city to be taken,—the Persian army to be routed,—peace to be concluded. What a time all this will take! Yet there were some among you foolish enough to urge upon me an even more roundabout route. Ha-ha; they would compass my ruin!

Nevita.

Never fear, sire; the expedition shall advance with all possible speed.

Julian.

It must indeed. Can you imagine what Alexander tells me? The frenzy of the Galileans has passed all bounds since my departure. And it increases day by day. They understand that my victory in Persia will bring their extirpation in its train; and with that shameless Gregory as their leader, they now stand, like a hostile army in my rear; in the Phrygian regions secret things are preparing, no one knows to what end——

Nevita.

What does this mean, sire? What are they doing?

Julian.

What are they doing? Praying, preaching, singing, prophesying the end of the world. And would that that were all!—but they carry our adherents away, and entice them into their rebellious conspiracies. In Caesarea the congregation has chosen the judge Eusebius to be their bishop,—Eusebius, an unbaptised man—and he has beenso misguided as to accept their call, which, moreover, the canon of their own church declares invalid.

But that is far from being the worst; worse, worse, ten times worse is it, that Athanasius has returned to Alexandria.

Nevita.

Athanasius!

Priscus.

That mysterious bishop who, six years ago, vanished into the desert.

Julian.

A council of the church expelled him on account of his unseemly zeal. The Galileans were tractable under my predecessor.

Yes, just think of it—this raging fanatic has returned to Alexandria. His entrance was like a king’s; the road was strewn with carpets and green palm-branches. And what followed? What do you think? The same night a riot broke out among the Galileans. George, their lawful bishop, that right-minded and well-disposed man, whom they accused of lukewarmness in the faith, was murdered—torn to pieces in the streets of the city.

Nevita.

But, sire, how were things suffered to go so far? Where was the governor, Artemius?

Julian.

You may well ask where Artemius was. I will tell you. Artemius has gone over to the Galileans. Artemius himself has broken by force of armsinto the Serapeion, that most glorious of earthly temples,—has shattered the statues—has plundered the altars, and destroyed that vast treasury of books, which was of such inestimable value precisely in this age of error and ignorance. I could weep for them as for a friend bereft me by death, were not my wrath too great for tears.

Kytron.

Truly, this surpasses belief!

Julian.

And not to be within reach of these miserable beings to punish them! To be doomed to look idly on while such atrocities spread wider and wider around!—Thirty days, you say! Why are we loitering? Why are we pitching our tents? Why should we sleep? Do my generals not know what is at stake? We must hold a council of war. When I remember what the Macedonian Alexander achieved in thirty days——

Jovian, accompanied by a man in Persian garb, unarmed, enters from the camp.

Jovian.

Forgive me, sire, for appearing before you: but this stranger——

Julian.

A Persian warrior!

The Persian.

[Prostrating himself to the earth.] No warrior, oh mighty Emperor!

Jovian.

He came riding over the plains unarmed, and surrendered at the outposts——

Julian.

Then your countrymen are at hand?

The Persian.

No, no!

Julian.

Whence come you then?

The Persian.

[Throws open his garments.] Look at these arms, oh ruler of the world,—bleeding from rusty fetters. Feel this flayed back,—sore upon sore. I come from the torture chamber, sire!

Julian.

Ah—a fugitive from King Sapor?

The Persian.

Yes, mighty Emperor, to whom all things are known! I stood high in King Sapor’s favour until, impelled by the terror of your approach, I dared to prophesy that this war would end in his destruction. Would you know, sire, how he has rewarded me? My wife he gave as a prey to his archers from the mountains; my children he sold as slaves; all my possessions he divided among his servants; myself he tortured for nine days. Then he bade me ride forth and die like a beast in the desert.

Julian.

And what would you with me?

The Persian.

What would I after such treatment? I would help you to destroy my persecutor.

Julian.

Ah, poor tortured wretch,—how can you help?

The Persian.

I can lend wings to your soldiers’ feet.

Julian.

What mean you by that? Rise and explain yourself.

The Persian.

[Rising.] No one in Ctesiphon expected you to choose this route——

Julian.

I know that.

The Persian.

Now ’tis no longer a secret.

Julian.

You lie, fellow! You Persians know nought of my designs.

The Persian.

You, sire, whose wisdom is born of the sun and of fire, know well that my countrymen are now acquainted with your designs. You have crossed the rivers by means of your ships; these ships, more than a thousand in number, and laden with all the supplies of the army, are to be towed up the Tigris, and the troops are to advance abreast of the ships.

Julian.

Incredible——!

The Persian.

When the ships have approached as near Ctesiphon as possible—that is to say, within two days’ march—you will make straight for the city, beleaguer it, and compel King Sapor to surrender.

Julian.

[Looking round.] Who has betrayed us?

The Persian.

This plan is now no longer practicable. My countrymen have hastily constructed stone dams in the bed of the river, on which your ships will run aground.

Julian.

Man, do you know what it will cost you if you deceive me?

The Persian.

My body is in your power, mighty Emperor! If I speak not the truth, you are free to burn me alive.

Julian.

[ToNevita.] The river dammed! It will take weeks to make it navigable again.

Nevita.

If it can be done at all, sire! We have not the implements——

Julian.

And that this should come upon us now—just when so much depends on a speedy victory.[12]

The Persian.

Oh ruler of the world, I have said that I can lend your army wings.

Julian.

Speak! Do you know of a shorter way?

The Persian.

If you will promise me that after your victory you will restore the possessions of which I have been robbed, and give me a new wife of noble birth, I will——

Julian.

I promise everything; only speak,—speak!

The Persian.

Strike straight across the plains, and in four days you will be under the walls of Ctesiphon.

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