The Death of the Gods by Merezhkovsky Dmitry

Author:Merezhkovsky, Dmitry
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Ozymandias Press
Published: 2016-06-05T04:00:00+00:00

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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

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