seeks the thicket where its fellows cannot see it. I could no longer
endure to be seen in the streets of Antioch;—and now I shrink from
showing myself to the army.
MAXIMUS.
No one sees you, friend; for they grope in blindness. But you shall be
as a physician to restore their sight, and then they shall behold you in
your glory.
JULIAN.
[_Gazing down into the ravine._] How far beneath us! How tiny they seem,
as they wind their way forward, amid thicket and brushwood, along the
rocky river-bed!
When we stood at the mouth of this defile, all the leaders, as one man,
made for the pass. It meant an hour’s way shortened, a little trouble
spared,—on the road to death.
And the legions were so eager to follow. No thought of taking the upward
path, no longing for the free air up here, where the bosom expands with
each deep draught of breath. There they march, and march, and march, and
see not that the heaven is straitened above them,—and know not there are
heights where it is wider.—Seems it not, Maximus, as though men lived
but to die? The spirit of the Galilean is in this. If it be true, as
they say, that his father made the world, then the son contemns his
father’s work. And it is just for this presumptuous frenzy that he is so
highly revered!
How great was Socrates compared with him! Did not Socrates love
pleasure, and happiness, and beauty? And yet he renounced them.—Is there
not a bottomless abyss between not desiring, on the one hand, and, on
the other, desiring, yet renouncing?
Oh, this treasure of lost wisdom I would fain have restored to men. Like
Dionysus of old, I went forth to meet them, young and joyous, a garland
on my brow, and the fulness of the vine in my arms. But they reject my
gifts, and I am scorned, and hated, and derided, by friends and foes
alike.
MAXIMUS.
Why? I will tell you why.
Hard by a certain town where once I lived, there was a vineyard,
renowned far and wide for its grapes; and when the citizens wished to
have the finest fruits on their tables, they sent their servants out to
bring clusters from this vineyard.
Many years after I came again to that city; but no one now knew aught of
the grapes that were once so renowned. Then I sought the owner of the
vineyard and said to him, “Tell me, friend, are your vines dead, since
no one now knows aught of your grapes?” “No,” he answered, “but let me
tell you, young vines yield good grapes but poor wine; old vines, on the
contrary, bad grapes but good wine. Therefore, stranger,” he added, “I
still gladden the hearts of my fellow citizens with the abundance of my
vineyard, only in another form—as wine, not as grapes.”
JULIAN.
[_Thoughtfully._] Yes, yes, yes!
MAXIMUS.
You have not given heed to this. The vine of the world has grown old,
and yet you think that you can still offer the raw grapes to those who
thirst for the new wine.
JULIAN.
Alas, my Maximus, who thirsts? Name me a single man, outside our
brotherhood, who is moved by a spiritual craving.—Unhappy I, to be born
into this iron age!
MAXIMUS.
Do not reproach the age. Had the age been greater, you would have been
less. The world-soul is like a rich man with innumerable sons. If he
share his riches equally, all are well to do, but none rich. But if he
disinherit all but one, and give everything to him, then that one stands
as a rich man amid a circle of paupers.
JULIAN.
No similitude could be less apt than this.—Am I like your single heir?
Is not that very thing divided among many which the ruler of the world
should possess in fuller measure than all besides—nay, which he alone
should possess? Oh how is not power divided? Has not Libanius the power
of eloquence in such fulness that men call him the king of orators? Have
not you, my Maximus, the power of mystic wisdom? Has not that madman
Apollinaris of Antioch the power of ecstatic song in a measure I needs
must envy him? And then Gregory the Cappadocian! Has he not the power of
indomitable will in such excess, that many have applied to him the
epithet, unbecoming for a subject, of “the Great”? And—what is stranger
still—the same epithet has been applied to Gregory’s friend, Basil, the
soft-natured man with girlish eyes. And yet he plays no active part in
the world; he lives here, this Basil—here in this remote region, wearing
the habit of an anchorite, and holding converse with none but his
disciples, his sister Makrina, and other women, who are called pious and
holy. What influence do they not exert, both he and his sister, through
the epistles they send forth from time to time. Everything, even
renunciation and seclusion, becomes a power to oppose my power. But the
crucified Jew is still the worst of all.
MAXIMUS.
Then make an end of all these scattered powers! But dream not that you
can crush the rebels, by attacking them in the name of a monarch whom
they do not know. In your own name you must act, Julian! Did Jesus of
Nazareth come as the emissary of another? Did he not proclaim himself to
be one with him that sent him? Truly in you is the time fulfilled, and
you see it not. Do not all signs and omens point, with unerring finger,
to you? Must I remind you of your mother’s dream——?
JULIAN.
She dreamed that she brought forth Achilles.
MAXIMUS.
Must I remind you how fortune has borne you, as on mighty pinions,
through an agitated and perilous life? Who are you, sire? Are you
Alexander born again, not, as before, in immaturity, but perfectly
equipped for the fufilment of the task?
JULIAN.
Maximus!
MAXIMUS.
There is One who ever reappears, at certain intervals, in the course of
human history. He is like a rider taming a wild horse in the arena.
Again and yet again it throws him. A moment, and he is in the saddle
again, each time more secure and more expert; but off he has had to go,
in all his varying incarnations, until this day. Off he had to go as the
god-created man in Eden’s grove; off he had to go as the founder of the
world-empire;—off he _must_ go as the prince of the empire of God. Who
knows how often he has wandered among us when none have recognised him?
How know you, Julian, that you were not in him whom you now persecute?
JULIAN.
[_Looking far away._] Oh unfathomable riddle——!
MAXIMUS.
Must I remind you of the old prophecy now set afloat again? It has been
foretold that so many years as the year has days should the empire of
the Galilean endure. Two years more, and ’twill be three hundred and
sixty-five years since that man was born in Bethlehem.
JULIAN.
Do you believe this prophecy?
MAXIMUS.
I believe in him who is to come.
JULIAN.
Always riddles!
MAXIMUS.
I believe in the free necessity.
JULIAN.
Still darker riddles.
MAXIMUS.
Behold, Julian,—when Chaos seethed in the fearful void abyss, and
Jehovah was alone,—that day when he, according to the old Jewish
scriptures, stretched forth his hand and divided light from darkness,
sea from land,—that day the great creating God stood on the summit of
his power.
But with man arose will upon the earth. And men, and beasts, and trees,
and herbs re-created themselves, each in its own image, according to
eternal laws; and by eternal laws the stars roll through the heavenly
spaces.
Did Jehovah repent? The ancient traditions of all races tell of a
repentant Creator.
He had established the law of perpetuation in the universe. Too late to
repent! The created _will_ perpetuate itself—and is perpetuated.
But the two onesided empires war one against the other. Where, where is
he, the king of peace, the twin-sided one, who shall reconcile them?
JULIAN.
[_To himself._] Two years? All the gods inactive. No capricious power
behind, which might bethink itself to cross my plans——
Two years? In two years I can bring the earth under my sway.
MAXIMUS.
You spoke, my Julian;—what said you?
JULIAN.
I am young and strong and healthy. Maximus—it is my will to live long.
[_He goes out to the right. MAXIMUS follows him._
SCENE SECOND
_A hilly wooded region with a brook among the trees. On an elevation a
little farm. It is towards sunset._
_Columns of soldiers pass from left to right at the foot of the slope.
BASIL OF CAESAREA, and his sister MAKRINA, both in the dress of
hermits, stand by the wayside and offer water and fruits to the
weary soldiers._
MAKRINA.
Oh, Basil, see—each paler and more haggard than the last!
BASIL.
And countless multitudes of our Christian brethren among them! Woe to
the Emperor Julian! This is a cruelty more cunningly contrived than all
the horrors of the torture-chamber. Against whom is he leading his
hosts? Less against the Persian king than against Christ.
MAKRINA.
Do you believe this dreadful thing of him?
BASIL.
Yes, Makrina, it becomes more and more clear to me that ’tis against
_us_ the blow is aimed. All the defeats he has suffered in Antioch, all
the resistance he has met with, all the disappointments and humiliations
he has had to endure on his ungodly path, he hopes to bury in oblivion
by means of a victorious campaign. And he will succeed. A great victory
will blot out everything. Men are fashioned so; they see right in
success, and before might most of them will bend.
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.
[_To BASIL and MAKRINA._] 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? Is _that_ the Emperor?
BASIL.
Yes, that is he.
_The EMPEROR JULIAN with several of his principal officers,
escorted by a detachment of guards, with their captain
ANATOLUS, 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 do so. 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! _I_ feel——!
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!
_I_ feel 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 surrounded BASIL and MAKRINA, 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 light _is_.
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._
SCENE THIRD.
_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 time JULIAN enters with his
retinue from the ships. ORIBASES, the physician, the philosophers
PRISCUS and KYTRON, 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 well 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 Chamberlain EUTHERIUS comes 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.
It _must_ be done in less! Thirty days! A whole month! And while we are
creeping forward here, I must let those madmen——
NEVITA.