The Emperor Constantius meantime was passing at Antioch a somewhat
melancholy period. At night he had alarming visions and kept six lamps
burning in his chamber till daybreak in the vain endeavour to relieve
his fears of darkness. Hour after hour would he lie motionless and
moody, starting at the least sound. Once he dreamed he saw his father,
Constantine the Great, holding a sturdy and mischievous child in his
arms. Constantius took the child and placed him on his right hand,
attempting the while to hold in his left a great ball of crystal. But
the child in wilfulness pushed the globe, which fell and broke; and
its fragments, piercing like needles, buried themselves in the body of
Constantius, darting with intolerable pain, burning, and hissing into
his brain, eyes, and heart. The Emperor awoke, bathed in a cold
perspiration. He consulted sorcerers, diviners, celebrated magicians.
Troops were assembled at Antioch for a campaign against Julian.
Sometimes after a moody fit of immobility the Emperor was seized with
an impulse to action; the greater number of Court officials found this
haste unreasonable, and confided to each other their fears as to the
mental state of the august sovereign.
The autumn was reaching its end when he left Antioch. At noon, about
three miles from the city, near the village of Hypocephalus, the
Emperor saw an unknown mutilated body lying on the road. Facing the
south the corpse was stretched to the right of Constantius, who was on
horseback. The head was separated from the body.
The Emperor grew pale and turned away. None of the riders round him
uttered a word, all being aware that the omen was an evil one. In the
town of Tarsus in Cilicia, Constantius had shivering fits and felt
weakness, but he paid them no attention nor consulted leeches,
believing that riding in the hot sun over the steep mountains would
produce reaction and relief.
He rode towards the little town of Mopsucrenam at the foot of Mount
Tarsus, the last halting-place before crossing the Cilician border.
On the way he suffered several times from violent giddiness, which
obliged him to dismount and lie down in a litter. Subsequently the
eunuch Eusebius tells how, when lying in the palanquin, the Emperor
took from his bosom and tenderly kissed a precious stone on which was
engraven the profile of the late Empress Eusebia Aurelia.
At one of the cross-roads he asked whither one of the ways led, and
when he was told to the abandoned palace of the kings of Cappadocia,
at Macellum, his brow clouded. Mopsucrenam was reached at night-fall.
Constantius was weary and full of gloom. Hardly had he entered the
house which had been prepared when one of the courtiers, against the
command of Eusebius, thoughtlessly announced to the Emperor that two
couriers from the southern provinces were awaiting him.
Constantius ordered them to be admitted, in spite of the supplications
of Eusebius, his favourite chamberlain, who advised him to postpone
business till the morrow. The Emperor declared that he felt better,
and suffered from nothing but a slight pain at the nape of his neck.
The first courier, trembling and livid, was ushered in.
"Tell me all, immediately!" exclaimed Constantius, dismayed at the
man's expression.
The courier then narrated the audacious movements of Julian, who,
before the assembled army, had torn up the Imperial rescript. Gaul,
Pannonia, Aquitania, had submitted to Julian, and the traitorous army
was advancing to encounter Constantius, with all the legions to be
gathered from those provinces.
The Emperor stood up, his face disfigured by fury, and, seizing the
messenger by the throat, shook him.
"You lie, caitiff! You lie! You lie!... There is still a God in heaven
to shield the kings of the earth ...and He will not permit, do you
understand!... Fools!... He will not permit...."
He had a spasm of weakness, and covered his eyes with his hand; the
courier, more dead than alive, slunk to the door.
"To-morrow," stammered Constantius wildly; "to-morrow we absolutely
must set out!... by forced marches, direct ... as the crow flies ...
over the mountains.... We absolutely must go to Constantinople."