ent which has not
taken shape and been played out upon the world stage. But of all the
strange careers and of all the wondrous happenings, stranger than
Charles in his monastery, or Justin on his throne, there stands the case
of Giant Maximin, what he attained, and how he attained it. Let me tell
the sober facts of history, tinged only by that colouring to which the
more austere historians could not condescend. It is a record as well as
a story.

* * * * *

In the heart of Thrace some ten miles north of the Rhodope mountains,
there is a valley which is named Harpessus, after the stream which runs
down it. Through this valley lies the main road from the east to the
west, and along the road, returning from an expedition against the
Alani, there marched, upon the fifth day of the month of June in the
year 210, a small but compact Roman army. It consisted of three
legions--the Jovian, the Cappadocian, and the men of Hercules. Ten turmae
of Gallic cavalry led the van, whilst the rear was covered by a regiment
of Batavian Horse Guards, the immediate attendants of the Emperor
Septimius Severus, who had conducted the campaign in person. The
peasants who lined the low hills which fringed the valley looked with
indifference upon the long files of dusty, heavily-burdened infantry,
but they broke into murmurs of delight at the gold-faced cuirasses and
high brazen horse-hair helmets of the guardsmen, applauding their
stalwart figures, their martial bearing, and the stately black chargers
which they rode. A soldier might know that it was the little weary men
with their short swords, their heavy pikes over their shoulders, and
their square shields slung upon their backs, who were the real terror of
the enemies of the Empire, but to the eyes of the wondering Thracians it
was this troop of glittering Apollos who bore Rome's victory upon their
banners, and upheld the throne of the purple-togaed prince who rode
before them.

Among the scattered groups of peasants who looked on from a respectful
distance at this military pageant, there were two men who attracted much
attention from those who stood immediately around them. The one was
commonplace enough--a little grey-headed man, with uncouth dress and a
frame which was bent and warped by a long life of arduous toil,
goat-driving and wood-chopping, among the mountains. It was the
appearance of his youthful companion which had drawn the amazed
observation o