XXIII
Not far from Succi, a mountainous defile in the Haemus range[8] betweenMoesia and Thrace, two men were making their way along a narrow path,at night, through a forest of beeches. They were the Emperor Julianand Maximus the enchanter. The full moon was shining in a clear sky,and strangely illuminating the gold and purple of autumn foliage. Fromtime to time a wan yellow leaf would fall swirling with a slightrustle. The air was full of moisture and the musty smell of a tardyautumn--that soft, chill melancholy odour which puts men in mind ofdeath. The soft masses of leaves made a brushing sound under the feetof the travellers, and round them in the silent woods burned themagnificent obsequies of the departing year.
[8] The Balkans.
"Master," asked Julian, "why is not that divine lightness mine, thatgaiety which used to make so splendid the men of Hellas?"
"You are not a man of Hellas."
Julian sighed--
"Alas, our ancestors were barbarians, Medes; and the sluggish blood ofthe North flows in my veins. It is true, I am no son of the Hellenes!"
"My friend, Hellas has never existed," murmured Maximus, with his oldbewitching smile.
"What do you mean?" asked Julian.
"The Hellas that you love has never existed."
"Do you mean to say that my faith is futile?"
"We are only to believe," answered Maximus, "in what is not, but shallbe. Your Hellas shall exist, shall be the reign, the kingdom of divinemen, men daring all things, fearing none."
"Fearing none!... Master, powerful enchantments are thine.... Delivermy soul from fear!"
"Fear of what?"
"I cannot say, but from childhood I have been afraid--afraid of life,of death, of myself, of the mystery in all things, of the darkness....I had an old nurse, Labda, like a Parca, a Fate, who used to spin meterrible tales of my family, the Flavii. These mad old-wives' taleskeep singing in my ears still, at night, when I am alone. They willruin me some day ... I wish to be free, as one of the old Hellenes ...and I have no gladness in me.... Sometimes I think I am a coward,Master!... Master, save me! Deliver me from that eternal fear, theseconsuming darknesses!"
"Ah, I have long known the need of your soul," said Maximus, gravely,"and from this very day I will cleanse you from this Galileancorruption--slay the shadow of Golgotha in the radiance ofMithra--warm afresh your body, frozen at baptism, in the hot blood ofthe Sun-god!... My son, rejoice! for I will give you such freedom,such joy as no man on earth has yet possessed!"
They issued from the wood, and followed a narrow path, hewn throughthe rock, above a chasm in which a torrent ran seething. Stones,loosened by their feet, rolled echoing down and plunged into thewater. High over the forest they saw the distant snow-covered summitsof Mount Rhodope. Julian and Maximus at last reached and entered themouth of a cave. It was the temple of the Sun-god Mithra, wheremysteries, forbidden by the Roman laws, were performed. In this cavernthere was no sign of splendour; the bleak walls were engraven withcabalistic signs of Zoroastrian religion, triangles, enlaced circles,winged beasts, and constellations. Here and there the vaultedobscurity was relieved by dull flames of torches or the form of aninitiating priest in strange and sweeping robes.
Julian was arrayed in the Olympian robe, embroidered with Indianmonsters, stars, suns, and hyperborean dragons. He held a flambeau inhis right hand. Maximus had acquainted him with the responses to bemade to his initiator, and Julian had learned them by heart, althoughtheir meaning hitherto was unintelligible to him.
With Maximus he went down rock-hewn steps into a long and deep foss.Here the air was already humid and stifling; but to make it more so,overhead a wooden trap-door, riddled with holes like a strainer, waslowered across, from edge to edge. The trampling of hoofs resounded,and the sacrificers placed three black bulls, three white bulls, and ared bull with gilded hoofs and horns on the trap above the two men.Then the initiators, intoning a hymn which mingled with the bellowingof the beasts, felled with axes one bull after another. They fell ontheir knees and struggled, the wooden framework trembled under theirweight, while the farthest vaults of the cavern resounded to the criesof the red bull, which was hailed as the god Mithra. Percolatingthrough the holes in the trap, the blood fell in a hot shower upon thehead of Julian. This slaying of the bull consecrated to the Sun wasthe supreme mystery of the Pagans. Throwing off his outer clothes andstanding in his white tunic only, Julian offered head, breast, and allhis limbs to the terrible trickling rain. Then Maximus, shaking thetorch overhead, cried--
"Let thy soul be steeped in the expiating blood of thy god, the Sun,in the purest blood of the ever radiant heart of thy god, the Sun; letit be cleansed in his morning and in his evening light! Dost thou, Omortal, still hold anything in fear?"
"Yes," was the response.
"Let thy soul become a parcel of thy god, the Sun! The quenchless andinviolable Mithra takes thee to himself! Dost thou still fearanything, O mortal?"
"I fear nothing more on the earth," answered Julian, who was nowstreaming with blood from head to foot. "I am even as He is!"
"Take this crown," said Maximus, placing a wreath of acanthus-leaveson the head of Julian, with the point of his sword.
But the catechumen flung the coronal upon the ground with a cry--
"The Sun only is my crown, the Sun alone!"
Then he stamped on the acanthus, and lifting his arms skyward repeateda third time--
"Now, until death, my crown is the Sun!"
The mystery was over. Maximus kissed the initiate. On the face of theold man as he did so hovered a gleam of strange significance.
While they were retracing their steps through the beech-forest theEmperor spoke to the enchanter--
"Maximus, I think you are hiding from me some secret deeper yet." Heturned towards the old man his pale face, on which, as was the custom,the traces of the sacred blood were not yet wiped away.
"What do you wish to know, Julian?"
"What lot shall fall to me?"
"You will conquer."
"And Constantius?"
"Constantius is no more."
"What mean you?"
"Wait! the Sun shall reveal your glory!"
Julian dared not question further. Both men regained the camp insilence. In Julian's tent a courier from Asia Minor, the tribuneCintula, stood waiting. He knelt and kissed the edge of the Imperialpaludamentum--
"Glory to the divine Augustus Julian!"
"Do you come with a message from Constantius?"
"Constantius is no more!"
"What say you?"
Julian trembled and threw a glance at Maximus, whose face remainedinscrutable.
"By the will of God," continued Cintula, "your enemy departed thislife in the town of Mopsucrenam, not far from Macellum."
That evening the army assembled on a hill. The death of Constantiuswas already made known to them.
Augustus Claudius Flavius Julian took his station on a hillock so thatall the soldiers could see him; crownless, weaponless, unarmoured, andenswathed head to foot in purple. To conceal the traces of the blood,which might not be washed off, he had enveloped his head and veiledhis face in the purple silk. In this attire he bore the appearancerather of a sacrificial priest than of an emperor. Behind him rose theruddy forest wrapping the base of Mount Haemus. Above his head hung,like a golden banner, the yellow branches of a maple. Far as the eyecould see, the plain of Thrace lay below, crossed by the white marblepavement of the Roman road stretching victoriously away to thePropontic Sea. Julian gazed at his army. When the legions moved theirstations, red flashes from the sunset were reflected upon burnishedhelmets, breastplates, and eagles; the lances above the cohorts seemedlike lighted tapers. By Julian's side was Maximus, who spoke inCaesar's ear--
"Look forth upon this sight of glory! your hour is come! Act now!"
The magician pointed to the Christian banner, the Labarum, with itscrest of the monogram of Christ, the flag made on the pattern of thatfiery standard bearing the inscription
, "Through this shalt thouconquer," which Constantine the Great had seen miraculous in theheavens.
The troops made no stir. Julian in a clear and solemn voice addressedthem--
"Comrades, our work is finished. Now we will go to Constantinople!Give thanks to the Olympians, who have given us the victory!"
These words were only heard by the first ranks, but there werenumerous Christians among them. These were roused by the laststartling expression.
"Lord have mercy on us! what is it he says?" cried one.
"Do you see that old man with the white beard?" said another to hiscomrade.
"Yes."
"That's the Devil, who, in the body of Maximus the enchanter, istempting Caesar!"
But the more distant ranks, who had not heard Julian's words, cried--
"Glory to Augustus Julian! Glory! Glory!" and louder and louder yetfrom outskirts of the hill, as far as they were covered by thelegions, arose a cry repeated by thousands of voices--
"Glory!... Glory!..."
Mountains, air, earth, and forest trembled with the voice of themultitude.
"Look, look!" murmured the dismayed Christians; "the Labarum is beinglowered!" And in fact the holy banner was being veiled before theEmperor. A military blacksmith came down from the wood with a brazierand red-hot pincers.
Julian, whose face, in spite of the ruddy gleams of the purple and thesun, was dark with strong emotion, wrenched the golden cross, with itsmonogram of precious stones, from the staff of the Labarum. Pearls,emeralds, and rubies were scattered on the ground, and the glitteringcross buried in the earth, stamped under the sandal of the RomanCaesar.
From a casket Maximus immediately drew forth a little silver statue ofthe Sun-god, Mithra-Helios; and the smith in a few instants solderedit to the staff of the Labarum.
Before the army had recovered from its astonishment and fear,Constantine's sacred banner rose above the head of the Emperor,crowned with the image of Apollo. An old soldier, who was a devoutChristian, turned away and veiled his eyes to avoid seeing the sightof horror.
"Sacrilege! sacrilege!" he muttered, turning pale.
"Woe, woe, upon us!" groaned another; "Satan has entoiled ourEmperor!"
Julian knelt before the standard and, stretching out his arms to thelittle silver image, exclaimed--
"Glory to the invincible Sun, king of all gods!... Augustus worshipsthe eternal Helios; god of light, god of reason, god of the gladnessand joy upon Olympus!"
The last rays of sunset lighted the bold beauty of the god of Delphi,and rayed his head. The legionaries stood in silence, save that in thewood the dry leaves could be heard falling. The conflagration of thesunset, the purple of the sacrificial king, the withered woods, allthese breathed a magnificence as of sumptuous obsequies. One of themen in the front rank muttered a single word so distinctly that itreached Julian's ear, and thrilled him--
"_Anti-Christ!_"
PART II
The Death of the Gods Page 24