"A miracle! Glory to Apollo! Glory to the Healer!"
"Come to me," called the sick, "say a word, and I shall be cured!"
Julian turned, and looked at the god in the light of sunset, and for
the first time all going on in the hospice seemed to him a sacrilege.
The clear eyes of the Olympian should look down no more on these
monstrosities. Julian felt a wild desire to purify the ancient
palæstra, to rid it of all Pagan and Galilean vermin, to sweep out the
whole human dunghill. Oh, had Apollo lived again, how his eyes would
have lightened, his arrows flown and purged the place of the paralytic
and infirm!
Julian left the hospice of Apollo in haste. The Emperor had understood
perfectly that his information was correct and that the principal
inspector was a peculator. But such fatigue and disgust rose in his
heart that he had no courage to push further his investigation of the
rascality.
It was late when he returned to the palace. He gave an order that he
would receive no one, and withdrew to the terrace which looked out on
the Bosphorus.
Previous to his visit to the guest-house, the whole day had worn away
in wearisome details of business, legal decisions, and the audit of
accounts. A great number of instances of peculation had been brought
to light, and allowed the Emperor to see that even his best friends
were deceiving him. All these philosophers, these rhetoricians, poets,
panegyrists, were robbing the treasury, and robbing it just as much as
had the eunuchs and Christian bishops in the reign of Constantius.
Guest-houses, alms-houses for philosophers, inns of Apollo and
Aphrodite, were so many pretexts for gain by the cunning, and the more
so that not only to Galileans, but also to Pagans themselves, these
institutions seemed a fantastic notion, even a sacrilege, on the part
of Cæsar.
Julian felt his body aching under ceaseless and profitless fatigue.
Extinguishing the lamp, he lay down upon his narrow camp-bed.
"I must reflect in quiet," he said to himself, gazing at the nocturnal
sky. But the power of reflection did not come. A great star was
shining in the darkened ether and Julian through half-closed eyelids
looked at it. Coldly, coldly, the star's image sank into his heart.
X
At Antioch the great, the capital of Syria, not far from Syngon, the
principal street, splendid hot baths, _Thermæ_, stood just at the
meeting of four roads.
These baths were fashionable and expensive. Crowds of clients used to
go there to learn the last gossip of the town. Between the
_apodyterium_, the room for undressing, and the _frigidarium_, or room
for cooling and rest, lay a fine hall with mosaic floor and marble
walls; this was the hot-air bath, the _sudatorium_ or _laconicum_.
From adjoining halls came laughs of the bathers and the noise of
powerful jets of water falling into huge basins. Naked slaves ran
hither and thither, jostling one another and opening jars of perfume.
At Antioch bathing was considered neither as an amusement nor as a
necessity, but as the principal charm and most varied art of life. The
capital of Syria was moreover renowned, the world over, for the
abundance, the exquisite taste, and the purity of its waters. A full
bath or a full bucket seemed empty, so transparent were the streams
from the aqueducts of Antioch.
Through the warm and milky vapours of the sudatorium could be caught
glimpses of the red and naked bodies of notable citizens. Some were
half-reclining, others seated. Some were being rubbed over with oil;
all, with the utmost solemnity, were talking together, while they
perspired. The beauty of a pair of ancient statues, an Antinous and an
Adonis, placed in niches overhead, threw into still greater
prominence the hideousness of the living.
A fat old man came out with a majestic, albeit misshapen, body. He was
the merchant Bouzaris, whose finger and thumb controlled the whole of
the corn-markets of Antioch. A sprightly young man was respectfully
supporting him under the arm. Although both were naked, it was easy to
distinguish at a glance which was patron and which client.
"Let the vapour be turned on me," commanded Bouzaris, in his hoarse
voice. From the profundity of his tones could be calculated the
prodigious number of millions which he commanded on the market.
Two metal taps were turned, and the warm steam, escaping with a hiss
from the vent-hole, enveloped the figure of the merchant in thick
mist. He stood in the middle of the white cloud, like some squat and
monstrous god in process of apotheosis, tunding his red and fleshy
belly like a drum.
Sitting hard by in a prominent place was Marcus Ausonius, the former
inspector of the guest-house. Huddled up, crouching on his heels by
the massive side of the merchant, the meagre little man resembled a
featherless and shivering chicken.
Julius Mauricus, the scoffer, was there, trying to make his dry
nervous body perspire. He was lean as a stick.
Garguillus, too, was stretched on the mosaic floor, still well-fed,
soft as gelatine, enormous in bulk as the carcass of a slain boar. A
Paphlagonian slave, panting under the protracted effort, was scrubbing
the blubber of his back with a piece of damp cloth; while the now
wealthy poet, Publius Porphyrius, was staring in a melancholy manner
at his own gouty legs.
"Do you know, my friends?" he asked, "about the letter from the white
bulls to the Roman Emperor?"
"No. Tell it."
"One line only: 'Conquer Persia, and we are doomed!'"
"Is that all?"
"What more was there to say?"
Undulations of laughter heaved the body of Garguillus.
"By Pallas, it's telling and to the point! If the Emperor comes back
in triumph from Persia, he'll offer in sacrifice to the Olympians such
masses of white bulls that these animals will get rarer than the bull
Apis!... Slave! Rub the small of my back, the small of my back!...
harder, harder!"
And, in turning over, his body made the sound, against the mosaic
floor, of a great bundle of wet linen flopped on the ground.
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Julius, "they say from the Isle of Taprobane, in
the Indies, they're sending great numbers of very rare white birds and
big wild swans from Scythia. All that for the gods! The Roman Emperor
is fattening the Olympians. It's true they have had time to get hungry
since the days of Constantine!"
"The gods guzzle while we starve!" cried Garguillus. "It's now three
days since one has been able to get a decent Colchis pheasant in the
market, or even a tolerably eatable fish."
"He's a greenhorn and an innocent!" remarked the corn-merchant.
Everybody turned round respectfully.
"A greenhorn, I tell you!" resumed Bouzaris. "I say that if you
pinched the nose of your Roman Cæsar you'd find nothing but milk in
him like a babe of two weeks!... He wanted to lower the price of
bread; forbade us to sell it at the price we set on it! And so he
brought four hundred thousand measures of wheat from Egypt...."
"Well, did you lower the price?"
"Listen! I stirred up the wheat-sellers. We closed the shops. Better
let our grain rot than give in. So the people ate the Egyptian corn.
We won't give him ours. He's made his cake, let him eat it!"
Bouzaris triumphantly clapped his palms on his belly.
"That's enough steam! Now pour!" ordered the merchant.
And the handsome curly-headed slave, who resembled Antinous, unsealed
over his head a slender amphora containing the costliest Arabian
cassia. The aromatics flowed over the red sweating body. Bouzaris
spread the thick scented drops over himself with satisfaction, and
then wiped his gross fingers in the golden hair of the slave standing
with bowed head before him.
"Your excellency has quite rightly observed that the Emperor was
nothing more than a greenhorn," said the parasite friend, with a
profound bow. "He has recently published a pamphlet aimed at the
inhabitants of Antioch and entitled, _The Beard-hater_, in which, in
response to the insults of the populace, he says in effect--'You laugh
at my beard and my coarseness of manners. Laugh as much as you please!
I, too, laugh at myself. But I don't want trials, informers, prisons,
or punishments!' Now is that worthy of a Roman Emperor? Is it
dignified?"
"The Cæsar Constantius of pious memory," declared Bouzaris, "can't be
spoken of in the same breath with Julian! In his clothes, in his
bearing, one could see at once he was a Cæsar. But this one, God
forgive me, is only an abortion of the gods, a lame monkey, a
bandy-legged bear who hangs about the streets unshaven, uncombed,
unwashed, with stains of ink on his fingers. Why it makes me sick to
see him!... Books, learning, philosophy.... Ah, we'll make you pay
dear for all that! A ruler mustn't laugh with his people! He must keep
them in hand. Once let the people slip, and he'll never get a grip on
them again...."
Then Marcus Ausonius, who up to that time had been mute, murmured
thoughtfully--
"Well, one can forgive most things, but why does he take away the last
remaining joy in life--the circus, and the fights of gladiators? My
friends, the sight of blood causes, and will always cause, an
inexplicable pleasure to man.... 'Tis a sacred and mysterious
enjoyment. There's no gaiety without bloodshed, no greatness on the
earth. The smell of blood is the smell of Rome!"
The last scion of the Ausonii glanced naïvely round at his hearers.
Sometimes he looked like a boy, sometimes like an old man. The swollen
torso of Garguillus heaved on the floor. Raising his head, he glanced
at Ausonius.
"Neatly put. Smell of blood, smell of Rome!... Go on, Marcus, you're
inspired to-day...."
"I say what I feel, my dear fellows. Blood is so pleasant to man that
even the Christians can't do without it. They want to purify the world
through bloodshed. Julian is making a great mistake. In taking away
the circus from the people he's robbing them of their chief
enjoyment, which is naturally sanguinary. The populace would have
pardoned almost anything; but it won't pardon that!"
Marcus pronounced the last words solemnly, and then suddenly slipped a
hand behind his back and his face beamed.
"Are you perspiring!" asked Garguillus.
"Yes!" answered Ausonius, with a rapturous smile. "Rub, slave, rub!"
He lay down on the couch. The bath-slave fell to kneading the poor
anæmic limbs, which had a deadly bluish tint.
From their porphyry niches the figures of ancient time looked down
with scorn through the milky smoke.
Meanwhile at the cross-roads, outside the baths, a crowd was
collecting.
At night Antioch glittered with thousands of lights, especially along
the Syngon, which ran through the city for a distance of twenty-six
stadia, with porticoes and colonnades thronged with shops throughout
its length.
In the crowd, pleasantries about the Emperor ran from mouth to mouth.
Street boys rushed about from group to group shouting satirical
ditties. An old woman caught one of the little vagabonds, and, lifting
his shirt, administered sound correction with the sole of her sandal.
"Take that! and that! to teach you to sing such disgraceful things!"
The urchin uttered piercing squeals.
Another, clambering on the back of a comrade, drew on the white wall
with a piece of coal a long-bearded goat, crowned with the Imperial
diadem, while a third wrote underneath in big letters, "This is the
impious Julian!" and trying to make his voice formidable yelled--
"The butcher comes With a big, big knife!"
An old man in the long black ecclesiastical habit passing by, halted,
listened to the boy, and cast up his eyes to heaven--
"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings proceedeth wisdom! Were we
not better off under Cappa and Khi?"
"What do you mean by Cappa and Khi?"
"Don't you understand? The Greek letter Cappa (_K_) begins the name of
Constantius, and Khi (_X_) is the initial of 'Christ.' I mean by that,
that Constantius and Christ did no harm to the inhabitants of Antioch
while the philosophers...."
"True, true! One was better off under Cappa and Khi!"
A drunken man, overhearing this colloquy, hawked the saying about the
streets, and the pleasantry circulated through Antioch, and being
manifestly absurd tickled the popular fancy.
A scene of still greater animation might have been witnessed in the
tavern situated opposite the baths. This tavern belonged to the
Armenian Syrax, who had long ago transferred his commercial
undertakings from Cæsarea to Antioch. From bulging wine-skins and
enormous jars, wine was pouring freely into tin cups. Here, as
everywhere, the conversation turned on the Emperor's doings.
The little Syrian soldier Strombix, the same who had taken part in
Julian's campaign against the barbarians in Gaul, was distinguishing
himself by special eloquence. By his side lolled the faithful giant,
his friend, the Sarmatian, Aragaris. Strombix felt as happy as a fish
in water; he loved risings and rebellions better than anything in the
world.
He was preparing to make a speech. An old rag-picker had just brought
in a sensational piece of news--
"We're all doomed!... The Lord's hand is heavy on us.... Yesterday a
neighbour of mine told me something which at first I refused to
believe!"
"Tell us, good woman!"
"Well, it was at Gaza. The Pagans seized a convent. They made the nuns
come out. They tied them to gallows in the market-place, beat 'em to
death, and after rolling their warm bodies, all hacked to pieces, in
grains of barley, threw 'em to the swine!"
"I saw myself," added a young weaver, "a Pagan at Hieropolis, who was
eating the liver of a deacon!"
"What an abomination!" murmured the auditors crossing themselves.
With the help of Aragaris, Strombix clambered on to a table, which was
still sticky with the spilth of wine, and striking an oratorical
attitude, addressed the crowd, while Aragaris proudly contemplated his
friend.
"Citizens," began Strombix; "how long shall we wait before we rebel?
Don't you know that Julian has sworn, if he returns a conqueror from
Persia, to gather together the holy defenders of the Church and throw
them to beasts in the amphitheatre? To turn the porticoes of basilicas
into granaries, and the churches into stables...."
A hump-backed old man, livid with fear, tumbled over on the tavern
floor. It was the husband of the rag-picker, himself a glass-blower.
Rising, he slapped his thigh despairingly, stared at the company, and
faltered--
"Ah, what a situation!... And there are two hundred corpses in the
wells and the aqueducts!"
"Where? What corpses?"
"Hush!... Hush!" murmured the glass-blower.
"They say that the renegade has long taken his auguries from the
intestines of living men; and all this for his war against the
Persians and his victory over the Christians!"