Chapter IX: Part II: I (1)

Hard by the stables, in the Hippodrome of Constantinople, there was a room which served as a sort of common den for grooms, women-riders, actors, and charioteers. Even in daytime lamps were kept burning in this stifling resort, where the air smelt strongly of dung-heap and stable. When the curtain at the door was lifted a dazzling flood of light invaded this den; and in the sunny distance could be seen empty tiers of seats, and the magnificent staircase joining the Imperial box to the apartments of Constantine's palace. Egyptian obelisks also were seen in the arena and in the centre, on the yellow sand, a gigantic sacrificial altar of marvellous workmanship, wrought of three entwined serpents of bronze, bearing on their flat heads a Delphian tripod.

Crackings of whips, shouts of riders, snortings of horses, came from the arena, and the muffled sound of wheels on the soft sand went by like a rushing of wings. No races were going on, but merely the preparatory exercise for the races which were to take place a few days later. In one corner of the stable a naked athlete, rubbed over with oil and covered with dust, a girdle of leather round his hips, was raising and lowering dumb-bells. Throwing back his shaggy head, he arched his back till the joints cracked, and at every effort his face grew crimson and the veins of his neck swelled.

Preceded by slaves, a young Byzantine woman of patrician rank approached the athlete. She was dressed in a morning robe of delicate hues; and a veil thrown over her head covered her aristocratic and slightly-faded features.

She was a zealous Christian, widow of a Roman senator; beloved of monks for her generous donations to monasteries, and abounding charity. At first she concealed her escapades, but soon perceived that to combine the love of the church with the love of the circus was quite the fashion.

Everybody knew that Stratonice detested the coxcombs of Constantinople, curled and painted, nervous and capricious as she was herself; it was her temperament and fancy to mingle the most costly perfumes of Arabia with the enervating heat of circus and stable. Hot tears of repentance, fervent confessions to tactful confessors, were of no avail; and this little woman, frail and delicate as some ivory trinket, cared for nothing but the coarse caresses of a certain famous circus-rider.

Stratonice was watching the exercises of the gymnast with a practised eye, while he, preserving a stupid expression on his beefy face, paid her not the slightest attention. She muttered something to her slave, with simple wonder admiring the powerful back and the terrible Herculean muscles rolling under the red skin of the shoulders, when, bending with deep inhalations, like the wind of a forge, he raised the iron weights above his handsome tawny head.

The curtain was lifted. The crowd of spectators recoiled, and two Cappadocian mares, a white and a black, pushed into the stables, ridden by a young horsewoman, who, with a guttural cry, adroitly leapt from one beast to another, and thence to the ground.

She was solidly-built, hale and sprightly as her mares, and upon her bare body shone fine drops of sweat.

Zephirinus, the elegant sub-deacon of the Basilica of the Holy Apostles, smilingly hastened towards her. A great lover of the circus, a frequenter of races and racing-stables, this young man would wager heavy sums for the blue (_veneta_) against the green (_prasina_). With his red-heeled morocco boots, his painted eyes, and curled hair, Zephirinus had much more the appearance of a young girl than of a servant of the church. Behind him stood a slave, burdened with packets of pretty stuffs and boxes, purchases of every kind from famous shops.

"Krokala, here are the perfumes you asked for the day before yesterday."

The sub-deacon offered the equestrienne a flask sealed with blue wax.

"I've been hunting in shops all the morning, and have only found it in one. It is pure nard, and arrived yesterday from Apamea!"

"And what purchases are these?" demanded Krokala.

"Oh, the silks in fashion!... ornaments--sets of jewels!"

"All of them for your----?"

"Yes, all for my most noble sister, the devout matron Bezilla; one _must_ help one's near relatives! She trusts nobody's taste but mine for choosing stuffs. From early morning I am under her orders. My head goes round, but I don't complain. No!... No!... Bezilla is so good ... such a holy woman!"

"Unfortunately old," laughed Krokala. "Here, boy, wipe the sweat off the black mare with fresh fig leaves."

"Old age also has its virtues," replied the sub-deacon, gently rubbing together his white hands; they were loaded with rings.

Then he whispered in Krokala's ear: "This evening?"

"I'm not sure ... perhaps. Are you going to bring me something?"

"You needn't be afraid, Krokala, I won't come empty-handed! There's a piece of stuff ... a quite marvellous pattern."

He kissed two of his fingers, adding: "Something perfectly dazzling!"

"Where did you pick it up?"

"Oh, at Pyrmix's of course, near the baths. For what do you take me? You might make a long _tarantinidion_ out of it. You can't imagine what embroidery there is on it! Guess the subject!"

"I don't know!... Flowers--animals?"

"In gold and silk--the whole story of Diogenes, the Cynic."

"Ah, that must be pretty!" cried the girl. "Come, by all means, I shall expect you."

Zephirinus glanced at the _clepsydra_, a water-clock placed in a niche in the wall.

"I am late--quite late! I must go on to a money-lender, a jeweller, then the patriarch, and then to the church. Till then, good-bye."

"Don't forget," Krokala cried to him, with a mischievous gesture.

The sub-deacon disappeared, followed by his slave.

A crowd of grooms, dancing girls, gymnasts, and tamers of wild beasts invaded the stables. With his face protected by a mask, the gladiator, Mermillion, was heating a bar of iron red-hot; he was taming a lion newly received from Africa, and which could be heard roaring through the stable-wall.

"You'll be the death of me, granddaughter, and you'll go to hell yourself! Oh, oh, how my back hurts! I'm done for!"

"Is that you, grandfather Gnyphon? What do you want?" asked Krokala in a vexed voice.

Gnyphon was a little old man with cunning tearful eyes, which shone under eyebrows active as two white mice. He had the violet nose of a drunkard, wore Libyan breeches, patched and botched here and there, and on his head a Phrygian cap.

"You've come again for money," grumbled Krokala, "and you've been drinking again."

"It's a sin to use such language. You'll have to answer for my soul to God. Just think what you've brought me to. I am living now in the Smokatian quarter; I hire a little cellar from an image-carver, and every day I have to see him making his horrible idols in marble. There's a nice occupation for a Christian! I scarcely open my eyes in the morning, when tap, tap, tap,--my landlord's hammering his marble--bringing white devils into the world; damnable gods that stand laughing at me. How am I to keep out of the wine-shop? O Lord, have mercy on us! I'm simply weltering in Pagan horrors, like a pig in a sty, and it'll be reckoned against us ... and who'll be responsible, I'd like to know? Why, you! You're rolling in money, and yet you leave a poor miserable old man----"

"You lie, Gnyphon! You're not poor; you're a miser; you've got a money-box under the bed!"

Gnyphon made a despairing gesture: "Hush--hush!"

To change the subject he said: "Do you know where I'm going?"

"To the tavern, of course!"

"Worse than that. To the Temple of Dionysus! That temple, since the days of holy Constantine, has been buried under rubbish; but to-morrow, by the august order of the Emperor Julian, it will be all shining again. And I've hired myself out to do the sweeping, although I shall lose my soul and be packed off to hell for it. But I've allowed myself to be tempted because I'm poor and hungry. My granddaughter doesn't do anything to support me.... That's what I've come to!"

"You let me be, Gnyphon. Here you are! Now go! And don't come again when you're drunk!"

Krokala flung some pieces of silver to her grandfather, and then, leaping on an Illyrian stallion, stood erect on his croup, touched him with the whip, and set off at a gallop round the Hippodrome. Gnyphon clacked his tongue, and said with pride--

"To think it was I who brought her up!"

The firm, bare body of the horsewoman shone in the morning sun, and her floating red hair matched the colour of the stallion.

"Eh, Zotick," cried Gnyphon to an old slave who was raking horse-dung into a basket, "come with me to clean the temple of Dionysus! You're a master in these things! I'll pay you three obols for it."

"Of course I will," answered Zotick. "Just a moment to trim the lamp for the goddess, and I'm at your service."

The goddess was Atalanta, patron of grooms, dunghills, and stables. Coarsely carven in wood, and looking little more than a smoky log, Atalanta figured in a damp corner. But Zotick, who had been bred among horses, used to worship her, often praying with tears in his eyes, arraying her coarse blockish feet with sweet violets, in the belief that she healed all his ills, and would preserve him in life and in death.

Gnyphon went out into the open space, the Forum of Constantine, which was circular, and adorned with colonnades and triumphal arches. In the midst a gigantic porphyry column rose from a massive pedestal, and bore on its summit, at a height of a hundred and twenty cubits, a bronze statue of Apollo by Phidias, which had been carried off from a Phrygian city. The head of the Sun-god had been broken, and, with barbaric taste, the head of the Christian Emperor, the apostolic Constantine, had been fitted in its stead to the neck of the image.

His brow was surrounded by gilt rays. In his right hand Apollo Constantine held the sceptre, and in his left the globe. At the foot of the colossus was lodged a little Christian chapel, a kind of palladium, in which worship was still offered in the time of Constantine. The Christians defended the practice by the argument that in the bronze body of Apollo, within the Sun-god's very breast, a talisman was hidden--a piece of the Most Holy Cross brought from Jerusalem. The Emperor Julian closed this chapel.

Gnyphon and Zotick proceeded along a narrow and lengthy street, which led straight to the Chalcedonian stairs, not far from the fortress. Many public edifices were being built, and others were rebuilding, for so hastily had they been erected to please Constantius that they already were crumbling away. Inquisitive gazers were wandering in this street, stopping at merchants' shops; porters were passing by, slaves following their masters. Overhead, hammers resounded; cranes were creaking, and saws grinding the white stone. Labourers were heaving at the end of ropes huge timbers, and blocks of marble glittered against the blue. A smell of damp plaster came from the new houses, and a fine white dust fell on the heads of passers-by. On this side and that, between the dazzling white walls steeped in sunlight, the smiling blue waves of the Propontic, trimmed with galley-sails like the wings of sea-gulls, shone at the end of narrow alleys.

Gnyphon heard, as he went by, a conversation between two workmen who were weighing mortar into a sack--

"Why did you become a Christian?" asked one of them.

"Just think, the Christians have six times as many feast days as Hellenists! Nobody harms you.... I advise you to follow my example. One is much freer among Christians."

Where four roads met, the pressure of a crowd pinned Gnyphon and Zotick against the wall. In the middle of the street there was a block in the traffic; the chariots could neither advance nor draw back; shouts, oaths, blows of the whip, were exchanged. Forty oxen were dragging, on an enormous stone-wheeled cart, a jasper column. The earth shook under its weight.

"Whither are you dragging that?" asked Gnyphon.

"From the Basilica to the Temple of Hera. The Christians had carried it off for their church. Now it is going back to its proper position."

Gnyphon glanced at the dirty wall against which he was leaning, on which Pagan urchins had drawn the usual impious caricatures of the Christians.

Gnyphon turned and spat with indignation.

On one side of the crowded market-place they observed the portrait of Julian, arrayed in all the symbols of Imperial power. The winged god Hermes was coming down from the clouds towards him. The portrait was fresh and the colours not yet dry.

Now according to the Roman law every passer-by had to salute any picture of Augustus.

The Agoranome, or inspector of the market, stopped a little old woman carrying a large basket of cabbages.

"I never salute the gods," wept the old woman. "My father and mother were Christians."

"You haven't got to salute the god, but the Emperor!"

"But the Emperor is alongside of the god! So how should I salute him?"

"No matter! You were told to salute and not to argue!"

Gnyphon dragged Zotick farther on as quickly as possible.

"Devilish trick," he grumbled, "either salute the accursed Hermes, or be accused of insulting the sovereign! No way out!... Oh! oh! oh! the day of Antichrist! In one way or another we're always sinning! When I see you, Zotick, envy gnaws my very soul. You live with your dunghill goddess, and have no cares."

They reached the Temple of Dionysus, hard by a Christian monastery, the windows and doors of which were fast barred as against the approach of an enemy. The Hellenists accused the monks of having pillaged the temple.

When Gnyphon and Zotick went into the temple, carpenters and timberers were already at work. The planks which had been used to close the quadrilateral to the sky were dragged down, and the sun poured into the gloomy building.

"Just look at the cobwebs, look, look!" Between the capitals of the columns hung masses of grey webs, which were being hastily cleaned away by means of rag-mops on immense poles. A bat, disturbed in his lair, flew away from a dark crevice, rushing hither and thither to hide himself from the light, striking himself against all the corners. The rustling of his soft wings could be distinctly heard. Zotick began sorting the rubbish and throwing it into baskets while the old man mumbled, "Ah, these cursed fellows! what foulness they have heaped up!"

A great bunch of rusty keys was brought up and the treasure-room opened. The monks had carried off everything of value. Precious stones encrusted on the sacrificial cups were gone, the gold and purple adornments on the vestments had been torn off. When the splendid sacrificial robe was displayed a brown cloud of moths escaped from its folds. At the bottom of the hollow of a tripod, Gnyphon saw a handful of ashes, the remains of myrrh burned before the triumph of the Christians by the last priest during the last sacrifice.

From this heap of sacred rubbish, poor rags, and broken goblets, rose a perfume of death and mildew, a sad and tender odour, as of incense to gods profaned.

A gentle melancholy came over Gnyphon's heart. He smiled, remembering something perhaps of his childhood; sweet cakes of barley and thyme, field daisies and jessamine which he used to carry with his mother to the altar of the village goddess; his childish prayers, not to the distant God, but to the little gods polished by the frequent touch of hands, carven in beechwood--the holy Penates. He pitied the vanished gods, and sighed sadly, but suddenly returned to himself and muttered--

"Suggestions of the Devil!"

The workmen were carrying up a heavy slab of marble, an antique bas-relief, stolen many years before and discovered in the hovel of a cobbler whose kitchen oven it had served to repair. Philomena, the old wife of a neighbouring clothier, a devout Christian, hated the cobbler's wife, who used to let her ass stray into Philomena's cabbage-yard. War had been maintained between them for years, but the Christian woman was in the end triumphant; for acting on her information the workmen had penetrated into the cobbler's house, and in order to carry off the bas-relief and slab had been obliged to demolish the oven.

This was a terrible blow to the cobbler's wife. Brandishing her shovel, she called down vengeance from all the gods on the impious; pulled her hair out in handfuls, groaning over her scattered pots and pans while her children squealed round her like the young birds of a devastated nest. But the bas-relief was carried off, despite her struggles, and Philomena set about the work of cleansing it. The draper's wife zealously scrubbed the marble which had been blackened by smoke and made greasy with spilt broth. Little by little the severe lines of the divine sculpture became visible. The young Dionysus, naked and proud, lay half-reclined, as if fatigued by Bacchic feasting, letting his hand, which held a cup, fall idly. A leopardess was licking up the last drops from the goblet, and the god, giver of joy to all living things, was gazing with a benign smile at the strength of the beast subdued by the grape. The bas-relief was hauled into position. The jeweller, clambering up before the image of Dionysus, inlaid the orbits of the god with two splendid sapphires, to serve as eyes.

"What's he doing there?" asked Gnyphon.

"Can't you see? They are eyes."

"Yes, certainly, but where do the stones come from?"

"From the monastery."

"But why have the monks allowed it?"

"How could they prevent it? The divine Augustus Julian himself ordered it. The god's blue eyes were used as an ornament on the robe of the Crucified that's all.... They talk about charity and justice, and they themselves are the worst of brigands! See how beautifully the stones fit into their old setting!..."

The god fixed his sapphire eyes on Gnyphon. The old man recoiled and crossed himself, seized with dread.

"Lord have mercy on us! It's horrible!"

Remorse filled his soul, and while sweeping he began, as was his wont, to talk to himself--

"Gnyphon! Gnyphon! what a poor creature you are!... Just like a mangy dog one might say.... You're ending your days in a nice way! Why have you gone and damned yourself? The fiend has over-tempted you!... And now you go into everlasting fire without a chance of salvation. You've smirched soul and body, Gnyphon, by serving the abomination of the heathen!... Better had it been for thee hadst thou never been born!"

"What are you groaning at, old man?" Philomena the draper's wife enquired.

"My heart is heavy!... Oh, how heavy!"

"Are you a Christian?"

"Christian?--I am a betrayer of Christ!" answered Gnyphon, using his broom vigorously.

"Would you like me to take away your sin so that not a trace of heathen defilement shall stick to you? You see I'm a Christian too, and yet afraid of nothing. Do you think I'd have undertaken work like this, if I hadn't known how to purify myself after it?"

Gnyphon stared at her, incredulous.

But the draper's wife, having ascertained that nobody could hear them, muttered mysteriously--

"Yes!... there is a means! I must tell you about it! A pilgrim made me a present of a little bit of Egyptian wood, called persis, which grows at Hermopolis, in the Thebaïd. When Jesus and His mother on their ass were going through the gates of the town, the persis tree bowed down before them to the earth; and ever since it has been a miraculous healer. I've got a little splinter of it, and I'll break off a bit for you. There's such a power in that wood, that if you put a bit into a vat of water and leave it there for a night the water becomes holy. You'll just wash yourself from head to foot in it, and the heathen abomination will leave you like magic, and you'll feel yourself light and pure. Isn't it written in the Bible, 'Thou shalt dip in the water and shalt become as white as snow'?"

"Oh, my benefactress!" groaned Gnyphon, "save me! Give me a chip of that wonderful wood!"

"Ah! you may well call it precious!... Just to do a good turn to a neighbour I'll give it you for a drachma."[9]

"What's that you're saying, mother? Why, I never earned a drachma in my life! Will you take three obols?"[10]

[9] Worth about 8_d._

[10] Six to the drachma.

"Miser!" cried the draper's wife indignantly. "You stick at a drachma!... Isn't your immortal soul worth so much?"

"But after all do you think I shall be quite pure?" objected Gnyphon. "Perhaps the sin has so soaked into me that nothing can...."

"I'll solemnly swear to it," insisted the draper's wife. "Try it and you'll feel the miracle at once!... Your soul will shine like the sun--as pure as a white dove...."

II

At Constantinople Julian organised Bacchic processions. Seated in a chariot drawn by white mules, he held in his right hand a golden thyrsus, surmounted by cedar-fruit, and in the other a cup garlanded with ivy. The rays of the sun flooded the crystal wine-cup with vermilion. On each side of the chariot paced tame leopards, sent from the island of Serendib. In front, Bacchantes sang to the beat of timbrels, waving bright torches; and through the clouds of smoke lads, wearing the horns of Fauns, spilt wine into goblets. As they pushed laughing along, the red wine often splashed the bare shoulder of some Bacchante, and dashed the sunshine with rosy spray. An obese old man, a certain rascally money-lender--who, by the way, was head of the Imperial Treasury,--mounted on an ass, played the part of Silenus to perfection. The Bacchantes danced along, waving their hands towards the Emperor--

O Bacchus, ever girt with gleaming cloud!

Thousands of voices intoned the chant from the _Antigone_ of Sophocles--

But now be glad of Victory! She meets our gladness with an
answering smile; And Thebes, the many-charioted, hears
far-resounding praise. Now then have done with wars,--forget your
strifes! Visit all temples of the gods with night-long dance and
song; And thou, O Theban Bacchus, lead our mirth! Lead thou, and
shake the earth!

Suddenly Julian heard a burst of laughter, the shrill scream of a woman, and the quavering voice of an old man--

"Ah, my pretty chicken!"

It was the Bacchic priest, a good-humoured septuagenarian, who had pinched the bare elbow of a comely Bacchante. Julian's face darkened, and he summoned the old dotard, who ran up, still dancing--

"My friend," whispered Julian in his ear, "observe the dignity which befits your age and rank!"

"I am a simple and unlearned man. And I may venture to tell your Majesty that while philosophy is beyond me, I venerate the gods. Ask anyone you please on that head--I have always been faithful to them. Only ... when I see a pretty girl ... my blood gets up! I am an old satyr...." Seeing the displeased face of the Emperor he stopped, assumed a more solemn air, and relapsed into still denser stupidity.

"Who is that young girl?" asked Julian.

"She who is carrying the sacred vessels on her head?"

"Yes."

"A courtesan of Chalcedon...."

"What!... You have authorised a courtesan to touch the holy vessels of the gods with her foul hands!"

"But, divine Augustus, you yourself ordained this procession. Who was there to choose from? All the noble women are Galileans. And then ... none of them would have consented to have exhibited themselves half-naked...."

"Then they are all...."

"No, no! Some of them are dancing-girls, tragic actresses, horsewomen from the Hippodrome. See how gay they are and free from false shame! Believe me, the people like that! That's what they want. And there's a patrician woman!..."

The last-named was a Christian, an old maid looking out for husbands. On her head rose a helmet-shaped wig, a galerum made of blond hair powdered with gold--thickly covered with gems as an Indian idol; impudently painted, she drew her tiger-skin across her withered bosom, and smiled affectedly.

Julian looked down on the people with a sudden impulse of distaste.

Rope-dancers, drunken legionaries, venal women, circus-riders, gymnasts, actors, swarmed and wantoned all round him.

The procession arrived at a place where four streets met. One of the Bacchantes ran to a tavern, whence came an unpleasant smell of rancid frying fish, and bought some greasy cakes for three obols. These she ate, greedily licking her lips; and finished by wiping her hands on the purple silk of her robes, which had been granted for the procession by the Imperial Treasury.

The chorus of Sophocles soon became wearisome. Husky voices took up a street-song. The whole proceeding appeared to Julian to have been desecrated. A drunken man was picked up; and some thieves, playing the part of Fauns, were arrested. They defended themselves, and a fight ensued. The only personages in the whole company whose demeanour remained dignified and beautiful were the panthers.

At last they drew near the temple. Julian came down from his chariot.

"Can I really present myself before the altar of Dionysus surrounded by this human refuse?"

A chill of disgust ran through his body. He saw the brutal faces wasted with debauchery, corpse-like through their paint; the painful nudity of bodies deformed by fasting and anæmia. He breathed the atmosphere of low wine-shops, houses of ill-fame. The breath of the crowd, tainted with rotten fish and sour wine, smote him through the aromatic smoke. Scrolls of papyrus were stretched out to him from every side:

"I was promised a place in your stables.... I have been paid nothing for renouncing Christ...."

"Don't desert us, Divine Augustus! Protect us! We denied for your sake the faith of our fathers!... If you give us up what will become of us?"

These were the voices drowned by the chorus of the feast.

Julian went into the temple, and contemplated the marvellous statue of Dionysus. His eyes, weary with human deformity, reposed on the pure lines of that divine body. He became oblivious of the crowd as if he were alone--the only man amidst a herd of animals.

The Emperor proceeded to the sacrifice. The people watched with amazement the Roman Cæsar, as Pontifex Maximus, in his zeal for religion doing the work of a slave--splitting wood, bringing twigs, drawing water, and cleansing the altar.

A rope-dancer said to his neighbour--

"Look how he keeps at it! He really loves his gods!"

"By this right hand," remarked the other, "few people care for father and mother as he cares for his gods!"

"You see," laughed a third, "how he puffs out his cheeks to kindle the fire again!... Blow, blow!... It won't catch!... Your uncle Constantine put _that_ fire out."

The flames jetted up, illumining the Emperor's face.

Dipping the holy water brush into a shallow cup, a silver patine used to cover the chalice, he besprinkled the sacrificial water over the heads of the crowd. Some grimaced, others started, at feeling the cold drops on their faces.

When all the ceremonies were over, Julian remembered that he had prepared a philosophical discourse for the people.

"Men," said he, "the god Dionysus is the beginning of your souls' liberty. Dionysus breaks every chain that binds you; he mocks the strong, sets free the slave...."

But he perceived such a dull stupidity upon every face, such an expression of tedium and weariness, that the words died on his lips. A mortal disgust for humanity arose in his heart. He made a sign to the lance-bearers to come round him.

Grumbling and disappointed, the crowd dispersed.

"I'm going straight to church to get absolution. Do you think I shall be forgiven?" said one of the Fauns, snatching off his own false beard and horns with an angry gesture.

"It wasn't worth losing one's soul for that, eh?" observed with wrath a lady of doubtful reputation.

"Nobody wants your soul, or would give three obols for it!"

"The cursed devils!" yelled a drunkard. "They didn't give us enough wine to get the taste of it!"

In the sacristy of the temple the Emperor washed face and hands, took off the splendid Dionysian dress, and put on again the simple white tunic of the Pythagoreans. The sun was declining, and he waited the fall of dusk to retrace his way to the palace unperceived.

Julian went into the sacred wood of Dionysus, where the silence was broken only by the humming of bees and the tinkle of a brook. A sound of steps made him turn round. It was his old friend, one of Maximus' favourite pupils, the young Alexandrian doctor, Oribazius.

They walked on the narrow path side by side. The sun was shining through large golden leaves of the vine.

"Look!" said Julian smiling. "Here great Pan is still alive!"

Then in a lower tone he added, hanging his head--

"Oribazius!... You saw it?"

"Yes," responded the student. "But perhaps the fault lay with you, Julian.... What did you hope for?"

The Emperor made no answer.

They came near a little ruined temple that ivy had invaded and overrun. Fragments lay about in the deep grass. A single column only remained standing; and on its lovely capital, clear-cut as the petals of a lily, shone the last rays of sunset.

The friends sat down on the flags together and inhaled the air, sweet with mint and thyme and wormwood. Julian put the leaves aside and pointing to an antique broken bas-relief--

"Oribazius! That is what I hoped for!"

The bas-relief represented a religious procession of the ancient Athenians.

"That is what I desired ... beauty like theirs! Why from day to day do men become more and more deformed and misfeatured? Where are the immortal old men, the austere heroes, the proud lads, the pure women in their white and floating robes? Where is that strength, that gaiety of heart? Galileans! Galileans! what have you done with these things?"

He gazed at the bas-relief with eyes full of infinite sadness and infinite love.

"Julian," asked Oribazius, gently, "do you believe in Maximus?"

"Yes."

"Wholly?"

"What do you mean?"

"I've always thought, Julian, that you suffer from the same malady as your enemies, the Christians!"

"What malady?"

"Faith in miracles."

Julian shook his head.

"If there be neither miracles nor gods my whole life is a madness!... No, we won't speak of that. And do not be too hard upon me on account of my love for ancient ceremonies. I scarcely can explain it to you. The old simple things stir tears in me; and I love the evening more than the morning, autumn better than spring. I love all that is fleeting!... even the perfume of flowers that have faded.... What would you have, my friend? The gods shaped me so!... That pleasant melancholy, that golden faery twilight, are necessary to me. In the depth of antiquity there is to me something ineffably gracious and fair such as I find in no other region--the shining of sunset on marble mellowed by time. Do not rob me of the mad love of what is no more. Everything that has been, is fairer than the thing that is! Remembrance has more power over my soul than hope...."

Julian was silent, and with a smile on his lips looked into the distance, his head leaning back against the column.

"You speak as a poet," answered Oribazius. "But the dreams of a poet are perilous when the fate of a world is in his hands. Ought not he who reigns over men to be something more than a poet?"

"Whose life is higher?"

"That of the creator of a _new_ life?..."

"New! new!" exclaimed Julian. "To be plain with you, your novelty sometimes strikes terror into me! It seems to me to be cold and hard as death. I tell you, my heart is in antiquity. The Galileans, like you, are always seeking novelty and stamping the old idols under foot!... Trust me, new life lies only in what is old; immortal is it and proud, however it be thus insulted!"

He drew himself up to his full height, pale and haughty, his eyes brilliant--

"They think that Hellas is dead!... And from every quarter of the compass black monks come swooping down, like ravens, on its marble body, and pick at it, joyously shrieking, 'Hellas is dead!' But they forget that Hellas cannot die, that Hellas is in our hearts! Hellas is the divine beauty of man upon earth. She but slumbers, and when she shall awake, woe to the crows of Galilee!"

"Julian," murmured Oribazius, "I fear for you.... You wish to accomplish the impossible.... Crows do not feed on the living, and the dead do not rise again.... Ah, Cæsar! what if the miracle does not succeed?"

"I have no fear. My defeat shall be my victory!" exclaimed the Emperor, with so radiant a happiness on his young face that Oribazius was thrilled, as if the miracle was now to be achieved. "Glory to the rejected! Glory to the conquered! But before my destruction," he added with a proud smile, "we will fight a good fight!... I would that my enemies were worthy of my hate, and not of my contempt!... In truth I love my enemies. They teach me to feel and measure my own force! They bring into my heart the gaiety of Dionysus. Or it shall be the old Titan, snapping his chains, and kindling anew the Promethean fire! Titan against Galilean!... Rejoice, tribes and peoples of the earth! I am the messenger of life who shall set you free! I _am_ the Anti-Christ!"

III

In the neighbouring monastery, behind windows and doors closely sealed, solemn prayers of the religious were resounding above the distant noise of Bacchic chants. To drown them the monks joined their voices in shrill lamentation--

"_Why, Lord, hast Thou abandoned us? Why has Thy anger fallen upon Thy sheep?_

"_Why hast Thou given us up in dishonour to the hand of the heathen?_

"_Why hast Thou let mankind do outrage unto Thee?_"

The ancient words of the prophet Daniel took on an unwonted meaning--

"_The Lord has delivered us to the evil king, the cunningest in all the earth!..._"

Late in the night, when the sun had sunk upon the streets, the monks went back to their cells.

Brother Parphenas could not even think of sleeping. His face was pale and gentle, and in his great eyes, clear as a maiden's, perplexity was visible when he spoke about worldly matters.

He spoke rarely, indistinctly, and in a fashion so quaint, on topics so childish, that it was difficult to hear him without smiling. Sometimes he laughed without cause; and austere monks would say to him--

"What are you cackling at? Is it to please the Devil?"

Then he would timidly explain that he was laughing at his own thoughts, and thus convince everybody that Parphenas was mad.

One great art he possessed--that of illuminating manuscripts; and this art of Brother Parphenas brought to the monastery not only money, but renown in the most distant provinces. Of this he had no suspicion, and if he had been able to understand what reputation means, would rather have been dismayed than delighted.

His artistic occupations, which cost him vast pains (Brother Parphenas pushed perfection of detail to an exquisite finish), were not in his eyes a labour, but an amusement. He never said, "I'm going to work." But he always asked of the old Father Superior Pamphilus, who loved him tenderly, "Father, give me your blessing, I am going to play."

And when he had mastered some difficult combination of ornament, he would clap his hands in self-congratulation. Brother Parphenas so enjoyed the solitude and calm of night that he had learned to work by lamp-light. He used to say that the colours took on unexpected shades, and that the yellow light did no harm to drawings in the realm of pure fancy.

In his narrow cell Parphenas lighted the earthen lamp and placed it on a plank, among his little flasks, fine brushes, and colour-boxes of vermilion, silver, and liquid gold. He crossed himself cautiously, dipped his brush, and began to paint the outspread tails of two peacocks above a frontispiece. The golden peacocks, on a green field, were drinking at a streamlet of turquoise, with raised beaks and outstretched necks. Other rolls of parchment lay by him, unfinished. His world was a supernatural and charming world. Bordering the text of the page ran an embroidery of fabulous creations; a faery architecture of fantastic trees and animals. Parphenas thought of nothing while he created these things, but a happy serenity transformed his face. Hellas, Assyria, Persia, the Indies, Byzantium idealised, and the troubled vision of future worlds, of all peoples, and of all ages; these mingled in the paradise of the monk, and shone, with a glitter as of jewels, round the initial letters of the holy books.

This one represented the Baptism. St. John was pouring water on the head of Christ, and at his elbow the Pagan god of rivers was amiably tilting a water-jar, while the former proprietor of the bank (that is to say, the Devil) held a towel in readiness to offer the Saviour after the ceremony.

Brother Parphenas in his innocence had no fear of the old gods. They used to amuse him. He regarded them as long ago converted to Christianity. He never failed to place the god of mountains, in the shape of a naked youth, on the summit of every hill. When he was drawing the passage of the Red Sea, a woman holding an oar symbolised the Sea, and a naked man, inscribed Bodos, stood for the Abyss engulfing Pharaoh, while on the bank sat a melancholy woman, in a tan-coloured tunic, denoting the Desert.

Here, there, and everywhere, in the curve of a horse's neck, the fold of a robe, the simple pose of a god lying on his elbow, were evidences of antique grace and simplicity.

But on this night his "play" interested the artist no more. His tireless fingers were shaky, and the smile had left his lips.

Listening awhile, he opened a cedar-wood box, took out an awl used in the binding of books, crossed himself, and shielding the ruddy flame of the lamp with his hand, noiselessly issued from his cell. It was hot in the silent corridor. No sound was heard but the buzzing of a fly taken in a spider's web.

Parphenas went down to the church, which was lighted by a single lamp, placed before the old ivory-carved diptych. Two large sapphires in the aureole of Jesus, who was sitting on the Virgin's arm, had been carried off by the Pagans, and transferred to their original setting in the Temple of Dionysus. These black hollows in the yellow ivory were to Parphenas wounds in some living body.

"No, I cannot bear it," he murmured, kissing the hand of the Infant Jesus. "I cannot bear it; 'twould be better to die!"

These sacrilegious marks in the ivory tortured and angered him more than outrage on a human being.

In a corner of the church he discovered a rope-ladder, used in lighting chapel-lamps. Carrying this ladder he went forth into a narrow passage leading to the outer gate, in front of which the fat brother-cellarer, Chorys, was snoring on the straw. Parphenas glided past like a shadow. The lock of the door made a grinding noise. Chorys sat unblinking, and then rolled round on the straw.

Parphenas leapt over a low wall and found himself in the deserted street, into which the full moon was shining. There was a low roar of the sea. The young monk went along the Temple of Dionysus up to a point in which the wall was plunged in shadow. Thence he threw up the rope-ladder, so that it hooked itself to the metal pinnacle which decorated the corner. The ladder swung from the claw of a sphinx. The monk clambered by it to the roof.

Far off, cocks crew; a dog barked; and then again came silence, measured only by the slow sighings of the sea.

Parphenas threw the ladder down the inner wall of the temple, and descended.

The eyes of the god, two lengthy sapphires, shone with intense vividness in the moonlight, gazing down on the monk. Parphenas, thrilled by the silence, trembled and crossed himself. He clambered on to the altar where Julian had offered the sacrifice, and his heels felt the warmth of the half-extinguished embers.

The monk drew the awl from his pocket. The god's eyes sparkled close to his face, and the artist felt the careless smile of Dionysus, and the lovely pose of the body. Even while digging out the sapphires, his admiring hand involuntarily spared the body of the marble tempter.

Finally the deed was done. The blinded Dionysus stared horribly on the monk from his hollow orbits. Terror fairly seized Parphenas. It seemed that he was watched. He leapt down from the altar, ran to the rope-ladder, climbed, threw it down the other side of the wall, without taking time to fix it properly. This cost him a fall during the latter part of the descent.

With crimson face, and clothes ragged and disordered, but griping the precious sapphires, he slunk furtively across the street, and ran to the monastery.

The porter did not wake, and Parphenas furtively entered the chapel. At the sight of the diptych, his mind grew calm again. He tried the sapphire eyes of Dionysus into the holes. They fitted admirably, and soon were glittering anew in the aureole of the Infant Jesus. He returned to his cell, lit the lamp, and went to bed. Huddling himself up, and hiding his face in his hands, he burst into a fit of muffled laughter, like a child delighted at some piece of mischief and afraid of discovery. He then straightway fell sound asleep.

When he awoke, the morning waves of the Propontic were shining through the small barred window, and the pigeons cooing and shaking their wings.

The laughter of the previous night was still in the heart of Parphenas. He ran to the painting-table and contentedly looked at his unfinished arabesque of the Earthly Paradise. Adam and Eve were seated in a meadow, glittering in the sunlight; it was a vellum tapestry of purple, blue, and gold. And so the little monk worked on, innocently investing the body of Adam with the proud antique beauty of young Dionysus.

IV

The celebrated sophist, Hekobolis, Court professor of eloquence, had begun to climb the ladder of promotion at the very lowest rungs. He had been a servant attached to the Temple of Astarte at Hieropolis. At sixteen, having stolen some articles of value, he escaped to Constantinople, lived with the dregs of the populace, soaked in every kind of rascality. Later he took to the high-roads, where, roving on ass-back from village to village, he lived from hand to mouth, in company both with respectable pilgrims and with bands of brigands--sacrificers to Dindymene, that goddess beloved of the people. Finally he reached the school of Proeres the rhetorician, and soon became a teacher of eloquence himself.

During the last years of Constantine the Great, when the Christian religion became fashionable at Court, Hekobolis became a Christian. The clergy showed him sympathy, but Hekobolis (though never inopportunely) changed his form of creed as the wind blew: from Arian he became Orthodox, from Orthodox Arian, and every conversion raised him a step in office.

The clergy pushed him up this ascent, and in turn he lent the clergy a helping hand.

His head grew grey; he became pleasantly corpulent, his sage speeches more and more honeyed and insinuating, his cheeks more rosy, his eyes more kindly and brilliant. At moments an evil irony sparkled in them, as of some cold and arrogant spirit, but the eyelids would promptly drop and the sparkle vanish. All his habits were clerical. He was a strict observer of fasts, and an exquisite judge of cookery. His lean diet was more refined than the most sumptuous course of holiday feeding; just as his ecclesiastical witticisms were keener than the frankest pleasantries of the Pagans. He used to be served with a cooling drink made of beetroot and savoured with delicious spices. Many thought it preferable to wine. When denied ordinary wheaten bread he invented cakes of a desert manna, with which, it is said, Pachomius fed himself in Egypt. Ill-natured folk insinuated that Hekobolis was a libertine, and quaint tales were told about him at Constantinople. A young woman avowed to her confessor that she had fallen from chastity--

"It is a great sin! And with whom were you guilty, my daughter?" "With Hekobolis, father!" The priestly visage cleared up. "With Hekobolis; ah, really! Well, well, the holy man is devoted to the Church! Repent, my daughter; the Lord will forgive!"

Such anedoctes were mere tittle-tattle. But his thick red lips were a trifle too prominent in the respectable shorn visage of the dignitary, although he usually kept them tightly closed, with an expression of monastic humility. Women were fond of his company.

Sometimes Hekobolis used to disappear for several days. No one fathomed the mystery, for he kept his own counsel. Neither servant nor slave accompanied him on these enigmatic journeys, from which he would return calmed and refreshed.

Under the Emperor Constantius, he received the appointment of Court rhetorician, with a superb salary, the senatorial laticlave, and the blue shoulder-ribbon, a distinction of the highest dignitaries. Nor was his ambition satisfied.

But at the moment when Hekobolis was preparing to mount a step higher, Constantius unexpectedly died. Julian, the Church's enemy, ascended the throne. Hekobolis lost no whit of his presence of mind. He merely did what many others were doing, but did it neither too soon nor too late.

Julian, in the first days of his reign, organised a theological controversy in his palace. A young doctor of philosophy, esteemed by everybody for his uprightness and noble nature, Cæsar of Cappadocia,--brother of the famous theologian, Basil the Great,--undertook the defence of the Christian faith against the Emperor himself.

In such tournaments of learning Julian authorised an entire independence of language, and even liked to be answered with passion and complete disregard of rank.

Discussion was of the keenest kind, and considerable numbers of sophists, priests, and men of science were present. Usually the opponent little by little gave way, yielding, not to the logic of the Greek philosopher, but to the majesty of the Roman Emperor.

But on this occasion it was not so. Cæsar of Cappadocia did not yield. He was a young man, almost feminine in the grace of his movements, and with a steady clearness in his frank eyes. He denominated the Platonic philosophy "the tortuous wisdom of the serpent," contrasting it with the heavenly wisdom of the Gospel. Julian frowned, bit his lips, bridling his anger with difficulty. The argument, like all sincere discussions, ended without results, and the Emperor, recovering his self-possession, quitted the hall with a philosophic jest, and a face of smilingly regretful magnanimity; in reality, pierced to the heart.

Precisely at this moment, Hekobolis, the rhetorician, came up. Julian, who considered him an enemy, asked him--

"What do you want?"

Hekobolis fell on his knees, and began a confession of repentance. For long, he said, he had hesitated; but the reasonings of the Emperor had finally convinced him. He cursed the dark Galilean superstition, and his heart returned to the remembrance of his childhood and the bright gods of Olympus.

The Emperor raised the old man, and, scarcely able to speak with emotion, pressed him convulsively to his bosom, and kissed him on his shaven cheeks and thick red lips. His eyes sought out Cæsar of Cappadocia to feast on his opponent's humiliation.

Julian kept Hekobolis near him for several days, repeating everywhere the story of his conversion, proud of his disciple as a child of a new toy, as a youth of his first mistress.

The Emperor desired to give some Court place of honour to his new friend, but Hekobolis flatly refused, alleging himself to be unworthy such distinction. He had decided to prepare his soul for the virtue of the Olympians by a long novitiate; and to purge his heart of Galilean impiety by personal service to one of the old gods.

Julian therefore nominated him chief sacrificial priest of Bithynia and Paphlagonia.

Persons bearing this title were called by the Pagans Archiepiscopts. The Archbishop Hekobolis thus governed two Asiatic provinces. Having taken the new way, he pursued it with as much success as the old, and even contributed to the conversion of many Christians to Hellenism.

Hekobolis became the high-priest to the celebrated Phoenician goddess, Astarte Atargatis, where in childhood he had served as a slave. This temple was built half-way between Chalcedon and Nicomedia, on a lofty promontory running out into the Propontic Sea. The place was called Gargarus. Pilgrims came thither from all corners of the earth to adore Aphrodite Astarte, goddess of life and love.

V

In one of the halls of his palace at Constantinople Julian was busy with affairs of state.

Between the porphyry columns on the terrace, looking out on the Bosphorus, lay a sparkling view of the pale blue sea. The young Emperor was seated at a round marble table, covered with papyri and rolls of parchment. Silentiaries of the palace stooped over the table, scribbling audibly with reed-pens. Some had a sleepy expression, not being accustomed to get up at such an early hour. Standing a little aloof, behind the colonnade, two men were exchanging observations in a low voice. These were Hekobolis and Julius Mauricus, an official with an intelligent, bilious countenance. This elegant Court sceptic, amidst general superstition, was one of the last admirers of Lucian, the satirist of Samos, author of stinging dialogues, in which he railed so pitilessly at all the idols of Olympus and Golgotha, every tradition of Greece and Rome. Julian was dictating a document to the chief priest of Galicia, Arsacius--

"Do not allow the sacrificial priests to frequent the theatre, to drink in taverns, or follow low trades. Respect the obedient, punish the unfaithful. In every town cause guest-houses to be built for pilgrims, who should therein find ample charity. Not only for Hellenist pilgrims, but for all, to whatever profession of faith they may belong. We ordain to be distributed in Galicia thirty thousand measures of wheat, a hundred and twenty thousand gallons of wine. Distribute a fifth part amongst the poor living near the temple, the rest amongst pilgrims and the sick. It is shameful that the Hellenists starve, when the Jews have not a beggar amongst them and the Galileans feed both their own poor and ours. They act like those who entice children with sweetmeats, beginning by hospitality, inviting to feasts of brotherly love. Little by little they finish by fasts, flagellations, madness, deaths of martyrs, and the horror of hell. Such are the customary means of those enemies of the human race who call themselves Christians and brothers. Combat them by charity, given in the name of the eternal Olympian gods. Announce in all cities and villages that such is my heartfelt will. If I learn that you have acted according to my decree, my favour shall be with you. Explain to the citizens that I hold myself in readiness to come to their help at any moment in all circumstances. But if they desire to obtain my favours, let them bow before Dindymene, the great Cybele, mother of the gods, and let them give glory unto her throughout all peoples, throughout all time."

He wrote the concluding words with his own hand.

Breakfast was served--bread, cheese, fresh olives, and a light white wine. Julian ate and drank without ceasing work. But suddenly he turned and pointing to the golden plate of olives, asked his favourite slave, who had been brought by him from Gaul, and invariably served him at table--

"Why this gold plate? Where is the other in earthenware?"

"Pardon, sire!... it is broken."

"Broken to pieces?"

"No--at the edge only...."

"Bring it here."

The slave ran to get the plate in question.

"It can be used for a long time yet," said Julian.

He smiled.

"My friends, I have long observed that the broken outlasts the new. I confess I have a fancy for cracked things. They have the charm of old friends!... I fear novelty and hate change," and he laughed heartily at himself. "You see what philosophy lies in a broken plate!"

Julius Mauricus twitched Hekobolis by the sleeve--

"Did you hear? That's his character! He keeps his cracked plates and expiring gods; and that is how a world's destiny is decided!"

Julian had become completely absorbed in edicts and laws for reform.

In every city in the Empire it was his wish to found schools, lectureships, debating-halls; special forms of prayer, and philosophic sermons, refuges for the upright, and for those who desired to devote themselves to philanthropic meditation.

"What?" whispered Mauricus to Hekobolis. "Monasteries in honour of Aphrodite and Apollo? A new horror!"