The Death of the Gods

by Dmitry Merezhkovsky

  “Ah! we are willing to die for you!”

  Others stretched out their hands, groaning—

  “Have pity on us; be our Augustus!”

  The heart of Julian was thrilled. He loved these rough faces, the barrack-atmosphere, and the unrivalled enthusiasm in which he felt his own power.

  He saw that the mutiny was dangerous and in earnest, observing that the legionaries did not interrupt each other, but shouted unanimously, and became suddenly hushed, as if their action had been concerted beforehand.

  There was either a deafening hubbub, or absolute silence.

  Finally, Julian, with an effort that might well have been thought sincere—

  “My children! my dear comrades! behold me ... I am yours in life and in death. I can refuse you nothing!”

  “Crown him! The diadem!” they cried, triumphantly.

  But no diadem was to be found.

  Strombix proposed—

  “Let Augustus order that his wife’s necklet of pearls be brought here!”

  Julian answered that a woman’s ornament would be unfitting, and an ill presage with which to inaugurate a reign.

  But the men were unsatisfied. They insisted on seeing a sign of regality shining on the head of their chosen, to make him their Emperor indeed. One of the legionaries snatched from his war-horse the phaleræ, or forehead trapping, with its string of metal disks, for the crowning of Augustus.

  But neither did this please him, for the ornament stank with the sweat of the horse. Everyone cast about to find another decoration, and at last the standard-bearer of the Petulant legion, the Sarmatian Aragaris, pulled from his neck the metal chain denoting his rank, and Julian wound it twice round his own head. This chain made him Emperor of Rome.

  “Hoist him on a shield! on a shield!” shouted the soldiery.

  Aragaris tendered his round buckler. Hundreds of arms heaved the Emperor. He saw a sea of helmeted heads, and heard, like the rolling of thunder, the exultant cry—

  “Glory to Julian, the divine Augustus!”

  It seemed the will of destiny. One by one the torches were extinguished. The clamour died away; and the eastern sky was barred with soft white bands. The dark and dull mass of the palace-towers became clear in all its ugliness; a single lighted window was still visible. Julian guessed that this must be the light in the cell where Helena lay dying.

  And when at dawn the wearied army dispersed, he went to the bedside of his wife. It was too late. The dead woman lay quietly on her virgin couch; the lips severely closed. Julian felt no remorse, but painful curiosity moved him as he gazed at the dark face of his wife, wondering—

  “What was that last desire? What did she wish to say to me?”

  * * *

  XXII

  The Emperor Constantius meantime was passing at Antioch a somewhat melancholy period. At night he had alarming visions and kept six lamps burning in his chamber till daybreak in the vain endeavour to relieve his fears of darkness. Hour after hour would he lie motionless and moody, starting at the least sound. Once he dreamed he saw his father, Constantine the Great, holding a sturdy and mischievous child in his arms. Constantius took the child and placed him on his right hand, attempting the while to hold in his left a great ball of crystal. But the child in wilfulness pushed the globe, which fell and broke; and its fragments, piercing like needles, buried themselves in the body of Constantius, darting with intolerable pain, burning, and hissing into his brain, eyes, and heart. The Emperor awoke, bathed in a cold perspiration. He consulted sorcerers, diviners, celebrated magicians. Troops were assembled at Antioch for a campaign against Julian. Sometimes after a moody fit of immobility the Emperor was seized with an impulse to action; the greater number of Court officials found this haste unreasonable, and confided to each other their fears as to the mental state of the august sovereign.

  The autumn was reaching its end when he left Antioch. At noon, about three miles from the city, near the village of Hypocephalus, the Emperor saw an unknown mutilated body lying on the road. Facing the south the corpse was stretched to the right of Constantius, who was on horseback. The head was separated from the body.

  The Emperor grew pale and turned away. None of the riders round him uttered a word, all being aware that the omen was an evil one. In the town of Tarsus in Cilicia, Constantius had shivering fits and felt weakness, but he paid them no attention nor consulted leeches, believing that riding in the hot sun over the steep mountains would produce reaction and relief.

  He rode towards the little town of Mopsucrenam at the foot of Mount Tarsus, the last halting-place before crossing the Cilician border.

  On the way he suffered several times from violent giddiness, which obliged him to dismount and lie down in a litter. Subsequently the eunuch Eusebius tells how, when lying in the palanquin, the Emperor took from his bosom and tenderly kissed a precious stone on which was engraven the profile of the late Empress Eusebia Aurelia.

  At one of the cross-roads he asked whither one of the ways led, and when he was told to the abandoned palace of the kings of Cappadocia, at Macellum, his brow clouded. Mopsucrenam was reached at night-fall. Constantius was weary and full of gloom. Hardly had he entered the house which had been prepared when one of the courtiers, against the command of Eusebius, thoughtlessly announced to the Emperor that two couriers from the southern provinces were awaiting him.

  Constantius ordered them to be admitted, in spite of the supplications of Eusebius, his favourite chamberlain, who advised him to postpone business till the morrow. The Emperor declared that he felt better, and suffered from nothing but a slight pain at the nape of his neck.

  The first courier, trembling and livid, was ushered in.

  “Tell me all, immediately!” exclaimed Constantius, dismayed at the man’s expression.

  The courier then narrated the audacious movements of Julian, who, before the assembled army, had torn up the Imperial rescript. Gaul, Pannonia, Aquitania, had submitted to Julian, and the traitorous army was advancing to encounter Constantius, with all the legions to be gathered from those provinces.

  The Emperor stood up, his face disfigured by fury, and, seizing the messenger by the throat, shook him.

  “You lie, caitiff! You lie! You lie!... There is still a God in heaven to shield the kings of the earth ...and He will not permit, do you understand!... Fools!... He will not permit....”

  He had a spasm of weakness, and covered his eyes with his hand; the courier, more dead than alive, slunk to the door.

  “To-morrow,” stammered Constantius wildly; “to-morrow we absolutely must set out!... by forced marches, direct ... as the crow flies ... over the mountains.... We absolutely must go to Constantinople.”

  Eusebius approached him, with the humblest of bows—

  “Divine Augustus! The Lord God has granted you, you His chosen, victory over your enemies. You have annihilated Magnentius, Constantius, Vetranio, Gallus. You will crush this impious——”

  But Constantius, wagging his head without listening, muttered—

  “Then He exists not; if it is all true, and I am single-handed, alone! Who dares to say that ‘He’ exists, when such crimes can be accomplished! I’ve been thinking so a long time....”

  He cast a dull look on the courtiers present and said—

  “Call in the other.”

  A physician came up—a courtier-like person, with a clean-shaven rosy face, an Armenian who assumed the airs of a Roman patrician. He observed respectfully that too keen emotion might be harmful to the Emperor, that he should rest.... Constantius waved him away like an irritating fly.

  The second courier was shown in. He was Cintula, the tribune of the Imperial stables, who had escaped from Lutetia. He brought the terrible news that the inhabitants of Sirmium had opened their doors to Julian, and welcomed him as the saviour of the country. In two days he would debouch on the great Roman road leading to Constantinople.

  The Emperor either did not hear, or did not understand, the last words
of the messenger. His face became strangely rigid. He made a gesture of dismissal to all present. Eusebius alone remained to talk the business over with him. In another quarter of an hour Constantius ordered that he should be assisted to his chamber, and made several steps. Then a cry escaped him; he pressed his hands to his head, as if he suddenly felt terrible pain. Courtiers ran to support him. The Emperor did not lose consciousness. By his face and movements, and the veins, standing out like whipcord on his forehead, it was evident that he was making fearful efforts to speak. Finally he stammered slowly, word by word, as if being throttled by an iron collar—

  “I—want—to—speak—and—I—cannot!” Those were his last words; paralysis had stricken the whole of his right side. His arm and leg fell inert.

  He was carried to bed, but his eyes were wakeful and intelligent, and he struggled to utter something—some important order perhaps. From his lips came only confused sounds, like weak lowings. No one understood what he wanted, and the invalid fixed his clear gaze in turn on each present. Eunuchs, courtiers, generals, slaves, thronged round the dying man, helplessly desirous of doing his last behest.

  At moments the clear eye became angered and the lowing hoarse. At last Eusebius understood, and brought wax and tablets. At the sight of these a flash of joy was seen on the Emperor’s face. He gripped the steel stylus awkwardly, like a child. After some struggles, he succeeded in tracing a few letters on the soft wax, and the courtiers with difficulty deciphered the word “Baptism.” Constantius fixed his supplicating look on Eusebius, and everybody wondered at not having understood before. He was desirous of being baptised before death, having, like his father Constantine, always postponed this sacrament to the last, in the belief that he could then miraculously cleanse his soul and leave it whiter than snow. A messenger was despatched for the bishop. There proved to be none in Mopsucrenam, and recourse was had to the Arian priest of the basilica. He was a timid man, with a bird-like face, red-nosed, with a goat’s beard, and a provincial manner.

  When disturbed by the messengers, Father Nymphodion was enjoying his tenth wine-cup, and seemed in too cheerful a mood. It was impossible to make clear to him the matter in hand, and he grew angry at what he believed to be raillery. But when at length convinced that fate had designated him to baptise an Emperor he nearly lost his reason. When he entered the chamber of the sick man, the Emperor gazed on the trembling priest with such humility that it was evident he feared to die, and was eager to hasten the ceremony. Meantime the town had been scoured in vain for a basin of gold or silver. It is true that a jewelled one was available, but it had served for the bacchic mysteries of Dionysus; and the common copper basin used by the parishioners of the basilica was therefore preferable. This copper basin was brought to the bed and warm water poured into it. The doctor was about to feel its temperature, but the Emperor made a brusque movement and groaned, lest the water should be sullied. The dying man’s tunic was taken off. Strong arms of legionaries raised him, like a child, and immersed him. The wasted face of Constantius, his eyes fixed and wide open, stared at the cross fixed above the Labarum, the golden standard of Constantine. It was an obstinate and vacuous stare, as of children when they see some dazzling object and cannot turn away from it.

  The ceremony did not soothe the sick man, who seemed to have forgotten everything. Volition came into his eyes for the last time when Eusebius again stretched out to him the waxen tablet, but Constantius, unable to write, only traced with his finger the name “Julian.” Did he desire to pardon his enemy or to bequeath his vengeance?

  For three days he lay in the extremity of death; courtiers murmured to each other that this was evidently some special punishment of God, who would not permit him to die. But they referred to him always as “The Divine Augustus,” “His Holiness,” and “The Eternal.” His sufferings must have been great; the low moaning turned into a steady death-rattle, which went on day and night. Courtiers came in and went out, eagerly hoping for the end. The eunuch Eusebius alone never left his master. Many a crime had this eunuch upon his conscience; all the tangled threads of reports, espials, and ecclesiastical broils were gathered in his hands. But he alone in the palace proved his love to his master, and at night when everyone was sleeping, or had withdrawn, worn out by the task of nursing, Eusebius remained by the bedside, arranging pillows, cooling the dry lips with ice, or kneeling at the feet of the Emperor in prayer. When none saw, Eusebius would gently lift the purple coverlet and weepingly kiss the feet, now pale and benumbed. Once it seemed to him that Constantius noticed this caress and thanked him with a look. Something fraternal and tender passed between the two cruel, ill-starred, and solitary men.

  Eusebius closed the eyes of the Emperor; the Church recited over him, before the body was committed to the tomb—

  “Rise again, O king of the earth! Answer the summons of thy coming Judge, the King of kings!”

  * * *

  XXIII

  Not far from Succi, a mountainous defile in the Hæmus range between Mœsia and Thrace, two men were making their way along a narrow path, at night, through a forest of beeches. They were the Emperor Julian and Maximus the enchanter. The full moon was shining in a clear sky, and strangely illuminating the gold and purple of autumn foliage. From time to time a wan yellow leaf would fall swirling with a slight rustle. The air was full of moisture and the musty smell of a tardy autumn—that soft, chill melancholy odour which puts men in mind of death. The soft masses of leaves made a brushing sound under the feet of the travellers, and round them in the silent woods burned the magnificent obsequies of the departing year.

  “Master,” asked Julian, “why is not that divine lightness mine, that gaiety which used to make so splendid the men of Hellas?”

  “You are not a man of Hellas.”

  Julian sighed—

  “Alas, our ancestors were barbarians, Medes; and the sluggish blood of the North flows in my veins. It is true, I am no son of the Hellenes!”

  “My friend, Hellas has never existed,” murmured Maximus, with his old bewitching smile.

  “What do you mean?” asked Julian.

  “The Hellas that you love has never existed.”

  “Do you mean to say that my faith is futile?”

  “We are only to believe,” answered Maximus, “in what is not, but shall be. Your Hellas shall exist, shall be the reign, the kingdom of divine men, men daring all things, fearing none.”

  “Fearing none!... Master, powerful enchantments are thine.... Deliver my soul from fear!”

  “Fear of what?”

  “I cannot say, but from childhood I have been afraid—afraid of life, of death, of myself, of the mystery in all things, of the darkness.... I had an old nurse, Labda, like a Parca, a Fate, who used to spin me terrible tales of my family, the Flavii. These mad old-wives’ tales keep singing in my ears still, at night, when I am alone. They will ruin me some day ... I wish to be free, as one of the old Hellenes ... and I have no gladness in me.... Sometimes I think I am a coward, Master!... Master, save me! Deliver me from that eternal fear, these consuming darknesses!”

  “Ah, I have long known the need of your soul,” said Maximus, gravely, “and from this very day I will cleanse you from this Galilean corruption—slay the shadow of Golgotha in the radiance of Mithra—warm afresh your body, frozen at baptism, in the hot blood of the Sun-god!... My son, rejoice! for I will give you such freedom, such joy as no man on earth has yet possessed!”

  They issued from the wood, and followed a narrow path, hewn through the rock, above a chasm in which a torrent ran seething. Stones, loosened by their feet, rolled echoing down and plunged into the water. High over the forest they saw the distant snow-covered summits of Mount Rhodope. Julian and Maximus at last reached and entered the mouth of a cave. It was the temple of the Sun-god Mithra, where mysteries, forbidden by the Roman laws, were performed. In this cavern there was no sign of splendour; the bleak walls were engraven with cabalistic signs of Zoroastrian religion, triangles, enla
ced circles, winged beasts, and constellations. Here and there the vaulted obscurity was relieved by dull flames of torches or the form of an initiating priest in strange and sweeping robes.

  Julian was arrayed in the Olympian robe, embroidered with Indian monsters, stars, suns, and hyperborean dragons. He held a flambeau in his right hand. Maximus had acquainted him with the responses to be made to his initiator, and Julian had learned them by heart, although their meaning hitherto was unintelligible to him.

  With Maximus he went down rock-hewn steps into a long and deep foss. Here the air was already humid and stifling; but to make it more so, overhead a wooden trap-door, riddled with holes like a strainer, was lowered across, from edge to edge. The trampling of hoofs resounded, and the sacrificers placed three black bulls, three white bulls, and a red bull with gilded hoofs and horns on the trap above the two men. Then the initiators, intoning a hymn which mingled with the bellowing of the beasts, felled with axes one bull after another. They fell on their knees and struggled, the wooden framework trembled under their weight, while the farthest vaults of the cavern resounded to the cries of the red bull, which was hailed as the god Mithra. Percolating through the holes in the trap, the blood fell in a hot shower upon the head of Julian. This slaying of the bull consecrated to the Sun was the supreme mystery of the Pagans. Throwing off his outer clothes and standing in his white tunic only, Julian offered head, breast, and all his limbs to the terrible trickling rain. Then Maximus, shaking the torch overhead, cried—

  “Let thy soul be steeped in the expiating blood of thy god, the Sun, in the purest blood of the ever radiant heart of thy god, the Sun; let it be cleansed in his morning and in his evening light! Dost thou, O mortal, still hold anything in fear?”

  “Yes,” was the response.

  “Let thy soul become a parcel of thy god, the Sun! The quenchless and inviolable Mithra takes thee to himself! Dost thou still fear anything, O mortal?”

  “I fear nothing more on the earth,” answered Julian, who was now streaming with blood from head to foot. “I am even as He is!”