ions of
Darius and Xerxes, shall live again, and we will keep the Barbarians at a
distance as a Patrician forbids his inferiors to count themselves as
belonging to his illustrious house. The Greek gods, Greek heroism, Greek
art and Greek learning, under our rule shall rise from the dust--all the
more promptly for the stringent oppression under which their indomitable
spirit has so long languished."

"You speak to my heart!" cried Karnis. "My old blood flows more swiftly
already, and if I only had a thousand talents left to give. . ."

"You would stake them on the future Greek Empire," said Olympius eagerly.
"And we have adherents without number who feel as you do, my trusty
friend. We shall succeed--as the great Julian would have succeeded but
for the assassins who laid him low at so early an age; for Rome. . ."

"Rome is still powerful."

"Rome is a colossus built up of a thousand blocks; but among them a
hundred and more be but loosely in their places, and are ready to drop
away from the body of the foul monster--sooner rather than later. Our
shout alone will shake them down, and they will fall on our side, we may
choose the best for our own use. Ere long--a few months only--the hosts
will gather in the champaign country at the foot of Vesuvius, by land and
by sea; Rome will open its gates wide to us who bring her back her old
gods; the Senate will proclaim the emperor deposed and the Republic
restored. Theodosius will come out against us. But the Idea for which we
go forth to fight will hover before us, will stir the hearts of those
soldiers and officers who would gladly--ah! how gladly-sacrifice to the
Olympian gods and who only kiss the wounds of the crucified Jew under
compulsion. They will desert from the labarum, which Constantine carried
to victory, to our standards; and those standards are all there, ready
for use; they have been made in this city and are lying hidden in the
house of Apollodorus. Heaven-sent daemons showed them in a vision to my
disciple Ammonius, when he was full of the divinity and lost in ecstasy,
and I have had them made from his instructions."

"And what do they represent?"

"The bust of Serapis with the 'modius' on his head. It is framed in a
circle with the signs of the zodiac and the images of the great Olympian
deities. We have given our god the head of Zeus, and the corn-measure on
his head is emblematic of the blessing that the husbandman hopes for. The
zodiac promises us a go