Gods and Legions

III

Julian had made every effort to eradicate some of the most egregious examples of waste and excess in the court he had inherited from Constantius. The palace and its dependencies at Constantinople contained literally thousands of cooks, barbers, and cupbearers, and I do not mean thousands in total, Brother, but rather thousands of each. There were as many different wardrobe slaves as there were types of clothing: slaves responsible for the Emperor's palace garments and others for his city clothes, slaves charged with his military field uniforms and others his full-dress-parade uniforms, slaves responsible solely for his lavish theater garments. There were slaves employed only in polishing eating vessels, while others touched only drinking vessels, and amongst these there were subspecialists who focused on gold polishing, silver polishing, and crystal polishing. The slaves who cared for the jewels dared not tread on the authority of the slaves who monitored the pearls, and the bath slaves ceded ground to the masseur slaves, who in turn deferred to the hairdressers and barbers. At meals the usher slaves supervised the dining room attendants, who in turn lorded it over the waiters who carried in the dishes, and the different waiters who carried them back out. The cupbearers were organized into a complex hierarchy depending upon whether they held the flagon or presented the cup, while the most revered, though often most short-lived, slaves of all were the tasters, whose duty was to ensure the harmlessness of the Emperor's food and drink, and who were hoped to fulfill this task with more meticulousness than those employed by Claudius and Britannicus in generations past.

The numbers of eunuchs with no clear function whatsoever cannot possibly be underestimated, for they swarmed through the salons and corridors like flies in a latrine, though truth be told, there were precious few of the latter because of the vast squadrons of eunuchs employed in the palace toilets to keep them out. The excesses had spread even to the palace guard he inherited, who, though ostensibly soldiers, minced like dandies, to the vast amusement of Julian's rough-hewn Gauls. Rather than the traditional coarse soldier chants, the troops practiced effeminate music-hall songs; instead of sleeping on stone ledges, they demanded feather mattresses. Julian complained that while in the old days a Spartan soldier could be put to death for even daring to appear under a roof while in service, the palace guards in Constantinople drank from jewel-encrusted cups even heavier than their swords, and were more skilled at appraising the purity of a gold coin than at assaying the thickness of an enemy's shield. Rank cowards they were, who, as the comic poet says, considered it superfluous to use art in their thievery, so they plundered openly. Julian longed for the days of the common soldier he had once heard of, who was said to have stolen a Parthian jewel case laden with pearls while sacking a Persian fort, but who threw away the contents, not recognizing their value, preferring instead to keep the box because of his delight at its polished leather covering.

He dismissed all the palatini, the palace parasites, cutting a deep swath through the court's employment rolls, eliminating thousands of positions overnight, to the fury and desperation of the holders of such sinecures. By a single decree he reduced Constantius' palace to an enormous desert, wiping out entire departments of slaves and dependents, allowing no exceptions for age, length of service, or circumstances, even for faithful and honest retainers of the imperial family.

The immediate reaction of the people and the noble classes, however, which was one of outrage and even anxiety for the Emperor's sanity, was soon softened by his innate humbleness and simple common sense. The fiscal and judicial reforms for which he was well known in Gaul were immediately analyzed for applicability here, on the larger scale of the Empire's mightiest city, and their implementation was ordered, to the delight of the common people, who had long been overburdened by the taxes levied to sustain Constantius' excesses. So too did Julian immediately win over Constantinople's Senate, by granting it a number of heretofore unprecedented privileges and points of authority. In a gesture of perhaps even greater symbolic value, he reversed the previous Emperor's custom of summoning the senators to his presence and forcing them to stand uncomfortably before him while he listened to their deliberations. Rather, he humbly went to the Senate chambers himself, sitting at a vacant place in the assembly hall to take part in the debates as a mere one among many, and insisted that all those in attendance remain seated while in his presence.

Despite Julian's extensive reforms of the palace and the fiscal and judiciary systems, however, he somehow neglected to look closely into the workings of the palace kitchens. This was perhaps because, despite the proximity of his tiny pantry office, it was only during rare, mandatory occasions of state that he even sampled the extent of its services. Naturally, he had forbidden the staff from serving him dainty delicacies, such as the peacock tongues and sow's udders that Constantius had so adored; more often than not, he simply sent a steward to bring him a plate of fruit for his repasts, even then sometimes neglecting to eat or indifferent to what he did consume. It was for this reason, perhaps — his very indifference to food — that he allowed the dining facilities and budget to remain untouched and forgotten.

The far-flung and wasteful talent languishing in the kitchen, however, finally burst into full flower several weeks after the games about which I spoke earlier, when he was persuaded by his chief steward that it would be in keeping with protocol to host a banquet in honor of the newly elected senators who had recently taken office. Julian acquiesced absentmindedly, and pointedly asked me to attend and to be sure the steward arranged for me to dine on a couch beside him so that he would not be required to endure the blather of the puffing politicians. Otherwise, he left all else in the hands of the cooks. A black day that was to be.

The chief cook, a literature buff, apparently, had by unknown contrivances determined that that day was the two-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of Trimalchio's legendary dinner, and he resolved to replicate it morsel for morsel; a more obscene, puerile meal I have never seen in my life. For days beforehand, a vast army of slaves bustled merrily about the premises, between the massive kitchens and that part of the Imperial Palace known as the Brazen House because of its roof of brass tiles. It is in this magnificent structure that the four battalions of the Imperial Guards are quartered, adjacent to the state prison for men accused of treason and therefore requiring high security. Here too are the various throne rooms and vast colonnaded galleries in which the Emperor is expected to receive foreign dignitaries and heads of state. Most important, however, it is here that the state banqueting halls are located, and the entire focus of the palace's kitchen activity was for days centered on establishing the critical supply line to these halls, severely disrupting the quiet of Julian's pantry office with the shouts and laughter of the pastry cooks, sweetmeat makers, bakers, butchers, wine stewards, water-drawers, furnace-stokers, fish purveyors, and all the rest of the mob that Constantius had somehow found necessary to prepare a meal.

The evening of the banquet began smoothly enough: The guests had been happily if benignly entertained by a number of choristers and musicians presenting excerpts from ancient classic dramas, and dancers in keeping with Julian's austere tastes — no fire jugglers or nude Syrian girl acrobats for him! Maximus, who attended with his usual stained tunic and unkempt beard, and whose position on the couch was just on the other side of the host from mine, maintained his customary sour grimace and piercing expression. This was despite the fact that out of deference to the evil little man's stature, Julian had taken care in advance to ban the usual troop of comic dwarves and buffoons that Constantius had often favored to lighten the mood of his guests. I stared at Maximus as he smirked and whispered sycophantically into the Emperor's ear, until he caught my glance and deflected it with a scowl. Despite my personal resentment of him, as a physician I still bore some concern for the man, for it seemed that his rash was spreading — the rough, angry-looking patch of pustules I had first noticed upon his arrival in the city had spread from beneath his left ear to down his jawline and was approaching his left cheek.

When the music and entertainment began to grow tiresome, and appetites had been appropriately whetted by the small tidbits served by the bustling table slaves, Julian looked up and nodded at the watchful usher at the door, who turned into the corridor and clapped his hands sharply. Conversation in the room fell silent in expectation, as a long parade of richly dressed palace eunuchs filed in, bearing silver platters on their shoulders steaming with the incredible results of the past four days' hard work in the kitchens. The head steward's and chef's repressed creativity had taken on full bloom.

The theme of the meal was the twelve signs of the zodiac, with the arrangement of each of the twelve courses focusing on a specific astrological sign. Julian looked on in dismay at the inventiveness of the representations depicted on the serving platters: for the Ram, headcheese of sheep; for the Twins, matching pairs of stuffed kidneys. The majestic African Lion was represented by a delicate plate of Numidian figs; Pisces by massive platters of poached mullet from Corsica and the finest lamprey from the Straits of Sicily; and Capricorn not by a goat, as one might first expect, but rather by huge shelled lobsters garnished with fresh asparagus, and with their foreclaws mounted on their heads in such a way as to look like a goat. Virgo was rather tastelessly depicted by the paunch of a barren sow that inexplicably lay writhing and heaving on a tray in front of us, until the bearded slave who served it drew a hunting knife and plunged it into the foul-looking organ, whereupon a brace of live thrushes burst out, startling the diners. Sagittarius the Huntress was represented by plates of fresh game garnished by — what else? — bulls' eyes, which were nauseating both in themselves and in contemplation of the poor quality of the pun. Between each course, slaves dispersed among the couches with ewers and poured warm, perfumed water over our hands to remove the odor and detritus of the previous course. The palate-cleanser was Libra, an enormous pair of scales set in the middle of each table bearing sweet muffins on one side and delicate cakes on the other, white as snow and kneaded of the finest flour.

The dinner was concluded with the dessert: an enormous, dripping Priapus carved of ice, with cored apple slices chilling as they ringed his tumescent organ, and surrounded by peaches, grapes, and flavored ice. The effect, to my mind, was thoroughly disgusting, though received appreciatively by the other diners. Throughout, copious quantities of Falernian wine were consumed, so old the date had been effaced by the dust that time had gathered on the aged jars but which could not have been less than a century. The mix of water gradually became less and less substantial, 'in order,' Julian said, 'to better appreciate the fine vintage,' until against all custom, and particularly his own personal practice, almost the entire party was consuming it neat, with growing gusto.

Appreciative belches were politely emitted, in keeping with the philosophical doctrine that the highest wisdom is to follow the dictates of nature. Under Constantius this practice had been pushed to its logical extreme, and several of the more uninhibited guests engaged robustly in other emissions of wind, but a disapproving glance from the Emperor quickly put an end to music of this kind. Even Trimalchio had had the decency to leave his couch and exit the triclinium when pressed by urgent need. Even more flatulent than the reaction to the dinner, however, was the conversation of the immediate guests around Julian's table. It began with the most prosaic remarks about the new Emperor's liking of Constantinople's weather and his appreciation of various historical points of interest, and soon touched upon more sensitive topics of Constantius' past policies and the political stances of certain individuals not present at the dinner.

All this I politely ignored, smiling pleasantly and picking halfheartedly at my headcheese. It was when the topic turned to religion, however, that my interest was piqued, though I remained wary of entering into any serious discussion, for all present had by this time consumed ample quantities of wine and were not above spouting the first ill-considered thoughts that came to mind concerning such-and-such religious practices. Julian, too, became a more animated participant in the discussion, looking to me often for confirmation of his points of theology concerning Christian doctrine and increasingly attempting to draw me into the lively conversation, even baiting me to do so.

'What was it the Apostle Paul said?' he asked, looking at me, his words slightly slurred.

'My lord, I am no Scriptures scholar. Even had I memorized all of Paul's writings, would you have me repeat them to you now?'

He waved me off impatiently. 'Ah, my friend, I won't let you shirk your conversational duties so easily. You know perfectly well what the great man said about salvation — you were raised among bishops as a child, just as I was. "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Was it not that?'

'Indeed it was. His letter to the Romans, too. Very appropriate.'

Julian chuckled as he saw I was warming to the topic — but still I remained chary. 'And that statement is, in fact, the very essence of Christianity, is it not?'

'Of course.'

'And one who acknowledges its truth and is witnessed to have accomplished those two things might rightly be said to be a proper Galilean, correct?'

'A proper Christian — yes, my lord.'

He waited a moment, giving me an opportunity to expand upon my responses, yet all I could feel was the heat of the room, the uncut wine making my head swim, and I knew I had no desire to participate in a farcical discussion in the presence of senators and palace toadies. Julian's eyes narrowed slightly at my clear refusal to play along with his attempts at a debate.

'Then why,' he said, feigning a look of puzzlement, 'are Christians said to fear and despise me, and claim I am not one of them? Here, I shall say it: "Jesus is lord." Now am I saved?'

I felt all eyes at our table upon me, and noticed that all other conversation in the room had fallen silent. I spoke clearly and evenly. 'I do not know of any Christians who despise you, though they might doubt your commitment to their faith. By merely speaking those words, you have fulfilled only half the requirement. You must also believe in your heart.'

'Ah — so whether or not I am saved is contingent upon whether or not I believe. If I believe I will receive salvation, then I will receive salvation. Circular logic, is it not? What if I do not, or cannot completely believe — will I be partially saved?'

'No, my lord,' I said. 'You can no more be partially saved than can a woman be partially pregnant.'

A few of the diners tittered appreciatively at the weak witticism, but were quickly silenced by Julian's stony face.

'So in other words, my entire fate is based on whether or not I believe. Not on good works, not on charity, not on love. I need only utter the magic words and believe them, whether I am an illiterate peasant, a king, or a scholar, although, in fact, the more I am the latter, the less likely I am to believe. What kind of a religion are we establishing here, that is based so much on the vagaries of one's heart rather than on one's actions in the world?'

'My lord, you belittle our faith,' I rejoined, striving to contain my anger at his mocking tone. 'You cast it in overly simplified terms, to which no religion could stand up. This is not the proper venue for a discussion of this kind. If you insist, we shall talk of these things tomorrow, in private, when you are not so-'

'Calm, calm, Caesarius, I meant no offense,' he interrupted, smiling lightheartedly. 'I call our other guests to witness that I have said nothing vicious or untrue, have I?' Most of the others at the table diverted their gaze or laughed uneasily. 'Here, on my honor, I confess my belief that God raised Christ from the dead, for I truly do believe that, Caesarius, as much as I believe that Athena appeared personally to Odysseus to assist him on his return home, and that Apollo spoke directly to Croesus through the oracle. Is there any disputing now that I am as much a Christian as the Pope himself? I believe those things!'

'"The devils also believe, and tremble," say the Scriptures.' The room fell into shocked silence.

Julian's eyes narrowed again. 'What exactly are you implying, Caesarius?'

'Only this,' I said slowly. 'The passage from Paul you cited presupposes that you have also acknowledged the verity of the Ten Commandments, the foundation of the Christian faith, the first of which is that you shall have no other gods. When you say "Jesus is Lord," you must mean he is the Lord of all, not a lord. Your belief in Athena and Apollo negates your profession of fealty to Christ.'

I sat back in my seat, incensed at Julian for putting me on the spot in this way. He stared at me, smirking, and for the first time I noticed true malice in his eyes. 'Ah,' he said, 'so there is a catch. An implied definite article modifying the noun "Lord" in Paul's passage, which neither the Greek language nor its translations into the Latin were able to make explicit, apparently due to their linguistic and structural shortcomings, and which insightful Paul, writing in a language other than his mother tongue, was unable to clarify. Forgive me my denseness on this matter, Caesarius, in not recognizing what every Christian peasant across the length and breadth of Europe and Africa has apparently easily accepted. So there is only one lord, you say?'

I licked my lips, sensing I was being boxed into a corner, but not sure precisely how. 'You know that is true, my lord,' I said, and immediately bit my tongue.

Julian seized upon my words triumphantly, as he had been waiting to do. 'Did you call me "lord"?' he asked mockingly. 'And I seem to recall your referring to the Emperor Constantius by the same term, did you not? And what will you call my successor, I wonder, should you be fortunate enough to continue your service under him? What has become now of your singular "lord," dear Caesarius? Or is there indeed a plurality of such eminences which you, in your wisdom, have not yet had the opportunity to explain to me?'

I was furious at his petty tone, and at the sophistic direction the conversation had taken.

'With all due respect, Augustus,' I said, 'you know as well as I that common court courtesy dictates that I refer to you by the title "lord." It is a linguistic convention. You are disputing semantics, not religion.'

He smiled contemptuously and turned to the men seated around him, who were staring wide-eyed and gape-jawed at my challenge to the Emperor. They quickly, and nervously, smiled back at him, but failed to meet his gaze, and he stood up, draining his cup and holding it out to the steward behind him for a refill.

'The most notable example I have witnessed this evening of the pot calling the cauldron black,' he said. 'My dear friend Caesarius now claims that we must somehow assume that the Apostle Paul meant one lord, not many, and that we must somehow assume that Paul's definition of the word "lord" was different from that used by any other man either before or since. Our Galilean here parses the meaning of Paul's simple phrase to support his own views, making Paul say something completely different from what the bare words of the text show. And when I ask an honest question about a discrepancy, as any honest reader should, it is I who am accused of disputing semantics. Is this a fair summary of our discussion thus far?'

The two rows of heads along both sides of the table nodded vigorously in agreement at Julian's assessment of my apologetics, and then all faces turned back to me. Maximus, I noticed, had perked up considerably and was staring at me with a broad smirk that exposed his crumbling teeth.

'My dear Caesarius,' he continued, 'if you and I, who have been friends now for many years, are unable to agree on a concept as simple as the definition of the word "lord," how then are we to resolve the disputes raging across the Christian world from Spain to Armenia, concerning the very nature of Christ Himself?'

My stomach had shrunken to a tight, hard little ball inside me, but I resolved to take a stand against this grossly unfair attack.

'Caesar Augustus,' I argued, 'religion is a matter of faith, not science, and it is in the nature of men that their differences increase in direct proportion to the strength of their faith. The divisions among Christians must not be viewed as a weakness in the core of Christianity, but rather as a sign of the strength of men's faith. The Greeks invented philosophy to take the place of religion, and were successful because our ancestors' pagan beliefs contradicted men's desire both for reason and for reasonable faith. In Christianity, however, the Greek philosophers have met their match, and have been defeated.'

Julian stared at me bug-eyed, and I held his gaze a long moment, until finally, shaking his head groggily, he burst out laughing. A hard, brittle laugh that sounded alone and hollow against the smooth plaster walls of the dining hall as he looked down both sides of the room with humorless eyes. After a moment several of his tablemates joined him with hearty guffaws, and with the precedent set, all those present joined in, their hooting and coughing swirling around me like so many pestering starlings. I sat motionless and expressionless until he finally calmed himself and wiped a tear from one eye.

'So,' he gasped, as the noise died away immediately, some of the men still with expressions on their faces indicating puzzlement as to what they were actually laughing about. 'Our silent Christian has balls after all, and a religion, he says, that is the rival of Homer, Plato, and Aristotle combined! Caesarius, my man of reason, my camp alchemist and anatomist, now professes faith over science. I'm not sure what to make of your medicine now, dear friend — perhaps it would be put to better use serving my horse rather than my own pagan heart and lungs!'

Here again he broke into another round of uncontrollable snorts and cackles, the others also joining in with their own strained and delayed versions of his mirth, some of them looking at me with dismay and, I believe, pity. I had had enough of Julian's public humiliation of me. I rose slowly from the table and addressed him with as much coolness and dignity as I could muster.

'My lord,' I said deliberately, 'I am not a trained philosopher or rhetorician as are you. Since it is God we are speaking of, we do not understand it. If we could understand it, it would not be God. We seek one unknowable, God, with another unknowable, ourselves, which in the end is impossible, a tautology that even a pagan philosopher can see: we cannot be understood, even by ourselves, because we are made in God's image. I limit myself to being an interested observer of the physical world and of men's actions within it, rather than of the obscure thoughts and reasons men may have for such actions. By attacking me this way, you attack the Church itself, and therefore you commit an unspeakable evil.'

Julian's eyes narrowed. 'And by killing my father and my brothers, by killing my wife and my son, by doing all in their power to do me in as well, what have the Christians done to me? That, too, was evil.'

I recoiled, that he could attribute his family tragedy to Christians. 'What Constantius did to you was not done in Christ's name, but rather in his own madness. You cannot blame his faith for his evil. You would certainly not allow me to blame the excesses of Hellenism on your… lapses. He will be judged by God. Vengeance on innocent Christians is not yours to take.'

'Nor is your blind faith mine to have.'

I knew then, Brother, that in the thickness of my tongue I had failed in the most important discussion of my entire life. I was through with that dinner, through with Julian's friendship, through with his obsession with Maximus, and if I had not been so blinded and distracted over the past year by all the events that had transpired, I would have recognized the irreparable breach that had opened between us long before, on that cold mountain pass in Thrace.

'My lord,' I said coldly, rising from my seat, 'I refuse to be party to further mocking or abuse. I therefore beg to be excused from this dinner, as well as from my professional duties as your physician.'

With that I stepped over my couch, nodded curtly, and strode calmly down the side of the long table to the door at the far end of the room, feeling every eye upon me, the very silence of the room seeming to magnify the soft, shuffling sound of my sandals on the clean-swept floor. It was the longest walk I ever made, a walk encumbered by the emotions roiling within me, of fury at the ordeal to which Julian had publicly subjected me, of pride at leaving the table and my position at the Emperor's side for the sake of principle, of relief at ending the confusion I had been suffering by serving a man whom I increasingly viewed as an enemy to Christianity — and of worry about my physical safety and that of my family, at turning my back on the most powerful man in the world.

As I reached the door, I looked back briefly and saw that Julian was smiling, and already leaning over to Maximus, engaged in a lighthearted conversation, while all along the table the conversation was beginning again to be animated. The clink of knives on serving plates resumed, and I knew that within a moment my presence would scarcely be missed, and it would be as if the dispute had never taken place — a dispute which to me had meant the end of a career, possibly the end of my life had it been carried to its logical extreme, but which to Julian and the rest at the table was merely a heated discussion abruptly cut off by an overwrought Christian zealot who, like all his coreligionists, took himself far too seriously for polite company.

I strode down the corridor in a blind rage, turning corners at random, entering empty halls, until I arrived at last at a tiny peristyle built into an unused space between two wings, a small, bubbling fountain in the middle embellished with a mosaic portrait of Jesus surrounded by the twelve Apostles. A small shaft of sunlight beamed down diagonally from the skylight onto one of the peristyle's fluted columns, illuminating the delicate pink and yellowish veins in the finely polished marble, showing it for all the world like a pale human limb, drained of blood and with the skin carefully peeled back as in an autopsy, each artery and vessel exposed for the physician's examination.

I walked to the column in a daze and stood staring at it, willing myself to clear away the rushing thoughts and confusion crowding upon my brain, focusing my eyes on the bright, sunlit stone, forcing myself to concentrate only on the essential of life. Emptying my mind, I brought my face closer to the stone, tracing with my eyes the meandering, bifurcating pink and yellow lines, following each to its tiny, indistinct end and then retracing my steps along the capillary until my vision began to blur from the strain and intensity of my focus and the sweat from my forehead burned my eyes. I closed them, and pressed my cheek, my whole body against the marble, which was cold except for the thin, narrow stripe that had been warmed by the beam of sun, and suddenly all the rage and frustration that had been built up in me by Julian's words and actions over the past year broke out. Struggling for control, I slid slowly down the veiny marble, sinking to my knees, still grasping the column with my arms for support, the trail of living perspiration on the fluting glistening and marking the path of my decline and redemption.

For a brief moment only, before it dried, the moisture lent an aspect of life and suffering to the cold, dead skin of the stone, and then even it evaporated and was gone.

After Caesarius' courageous but ineffectual debate with the Emperor, he returned home to us at Nazianzus, a beaten, tired man. For many days after his arrival he scarcely moved, sitting despondently in the kitchen or praying for hours on end in the tiny chapel I had built on one end of our modest dwelling. Caesarius was so quiet, and moved so rarely, that though the house was small for three grown men and a woman, his presence was barely felt.

In time, he roused himself, seeming to have put behind him the events of Gaul and his long accompaniment of the Antichrist Emperor. He even began to apply some of the considerable medical skills he had acquired, treating the maladies of the poor folk and lepers of the town, bringing babies to light, even curing lame farm stock, though this was more of a psychological need for him than a financial one — he had returned from Constantinople bearing a considerable quantity of gold from his long service with two emperors, and over the previous few years had sent back even more to our father, who had distributed all but a few pennies of expenses to the poor. Caesarius resolved to settle down to the career of a small-town physician and, it was my fondest hope, eventually prepare himself for a life of holiness and meditation within a religious community, for which I believed he would be extremely well suited.

During that time he ignored what little news of the outside world filtered through to our small town — and such news was far from comforting. Julian moved his court to Antioch, and in an effort to purge himself of the mystic sign of God's promise he had received at his baptism, he washed his entire body in the blood of a bull during the diabolical rite of the taurobolium, pledging fealty to the false god Mithras. Daily, it was said, he participated in ghastly sacrifices, slaughtering countless dozens of animals with his own hands, wrenching out their inner organs for interpretation by the seers of the gods' intent, reveling in the blood and gore of the foul ceremonies.

And his apostasy was not limited merely to his own practices: for though professing freedom of religion for all in the Empire, he devised peculiarly clever atrocities to inflict on Christians. All religious sites, he decreed, were to be returned to their founding sect — which meant, in almost all cases, that converted Christian churches were to be restored to temples of the false pagan gods. Equally insidious was his conclusion that since Christians did not believe in the truth of the Greek gods, Christian instructors should be forbidden from teaching, and therefore profaning, any of the ancient Greek works of literature. He gave orders that Christians could not serve in the army, nor be appointed to government positions except at the personal whim of the Emperor himself. The ultimate intent was to remove Christians from the Empire's mainstream culture and political movements, resulting in a burdensome intellectual sterility and making our work much more difficult. So too did he permit open persecution of our faith. Churches in Syria and Phoenicia were desecrated by anti-Christian mobs. Priests were tortured, virgins violated. Victims had their abdomens slit open and filled with barley, after which the suffering martyrs were given to the pigs as living feed troughs.

Even old Marcus, Bishop of Arethusa, who thirty years before had rescued the infant Julian when other members of his family were being put to death, was not spared. He was ordered to repair a temple he had allegedly desecrated, but this he refused to do. Julian declined to hand down a death sentence, perhaps out of respect for his old guardian; instead he left Marcus' fate to the citizens of Arethusa. The townspeople, possessed by the devil, applied mob justice, dragging the bishop through the streets by his feet, tearing out his beard and then giving him over to the cunning torment of wicked schoolboys, who amused themselves by skewering him with their styli. Finally, half unconscious and pierced with multiple wounds, he was smeared with honey and exposed in the sun to the stings of insects until dead. Each sting was an accusation against Julian.

Of even more concern were reports of the Emperor's increasingly fragile state of mind. Upon his accession to the throne it had been assumed by all that the era of unstable and paranoid rulers was behind us, and that the Empire would now be led by a rational man who was firm and constant in his philosophy and beliefs. Word began filtering down to us now, however, of the Emperor's wild mood swings and changes of policy; of his petty vindictiveness and an unwonted and unwarranted focus on irrelevancies; of bursts of energy followed by days on end when he could do nothing but bemoan the death of his son and could hardly muster the energy to rise from his bed. Whether this was a result of his persecution of Christ's followers — a kind of divine retribution, if you will — or whether the guilt he felt at such persecution led to his increasingly unstable mind-set, I am unable to say. Which the cause and which the effect? Or for that matter, which the truth and which the lie? Rumor, as Virgil says, has as many mouths and whispering tongues as eyes and waiting ears, bearing falsehood and slander as faithfully as truth. Stories and reports of his actions abounded, and were passed on to us unfiltered by evidence and embellished by wild fancy. As distant as we were from the royal capital, we were helpless to know what to believe.

Thus it was, until the arrival a year later of that obese imposter, the physician Oribasius, who trotted into town one day astride an overburdened, limping army horse, flanked by a dozen bored legionaries and a pair of disgustingly painted eunuchs, who looked around them with distaste at our humble community, and seemed to recoil at the very dust of the street.

This man Oribasius I had never seen in my life, but I had heard of him from the stories told by Caesarius, and recognized him without a moment's hesitation. The same occurred to him as well, for as soon as he spied me in our tiny forum, he hailed me most heartily by name, though lacking in all the respect normally owed to a Christian priest and a bishop, and inquired into the whereabouts of my brother. So astonished was I at this appearance of a vision from Caesarius' past that, lacking in all presence of mind, I gave him directions to our house, for which he thanked me cheerfully. It was only afterwards that I regretted this action and wished I could have ripped my tongue out by the roots for the harm it had begotten. I hastened home as soon as I could to confront the flatulent fraud.

Oribasius was just preparing to leave when I arrived, and after nodding to me curtly, he was heaved onto his suffering horse by the sweating legionaries, and the entire party lumbered off to the east, whence they had arrived scarcely an hour before.

My brother refused to meet my harsh gaze as I demanded the reason for the foul Asclepian's visit. He demurred for a time, and then at my repeated prodding he admitted that Oribasius had, indeed, been sent by Julian, who was requesting, nay pleading, that Caesarius return to his service. The Emperor, in Antioch, was preparing to enter upon another military campaign, the most important of his life, he claimed. Oribasius' skills had apparently served him well during his sedentary court life in Constantinople over the past year, but although the gluttonous demon would be accompanying the army with the baggage train, the Emperor desired that Caesarius ride with him in battle, as he had always done in Gaul in the past.

'Naturally you flatly refused the Antichrist's entreaties,' I said.

'Not… flatly,' he replied.

'Were you merely being polite or does the Emperor's spell still seduce you, Brother?' I asked.

Caesarius lashed out angrily. 'I am under no spell but Christ's,' he retorted. 'If I serve Julian again, it will be for the sake of his immortal soul. Christ said there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just men. Would you deny me the glory of being the tool that dissuades that one sinner?'

Against this argument I had no counter. Nevertheless, I feared in my heart that Julian's mind was set and that there would be precious little my younger brother could do to change him, surrounded as he was by his court of pagans and mystics.

'And you will accomplish this task how?' I persisted. 'By quiet persuasion? By force of arms? Brother, Christians are being martyred, and I fear you are testing God by placing yourself within the Emperor's grasp, even on the pretext of converting him.'

'If Julian is our greatest foe,' he replied simply, 'then I would be derelict in not seeking to conquer his wickedness. The Lord will give me strength, and will guide me in words or in my right arm to dissuade him from further evil.'

I eyed him carefully. 'May both your words and your arm be used only for healing.'

He sighed. 'I have long prayed, Brother, for the gift of eloquence, for the grace of persuasive speech with which to win him over — '

'You pray for the wrong gift, Caesarius,' I interrupted him. 'Eloquence of speech is not yours to have. Simplicity is your true gift. It is by simple speech that you best express yourself, it is by simple words that you best convey your faith in the perfection of the Kingdom to come. Remember: "The sun rose again on another day."'

Thus the last I spake with my brother before his departure for Antioch. His own narrative now continues.