Diem decore lumine
Noctem sopora gratia.
Perhaps Myrrha's last sigh was breathed to the sound of that solemn hymn. None knew when she died. There seemed no change. Her life mingled painlessly with the impalpable, inviolable, the Eternal, as the warmth of a fair twilight melts into the coolness of night.
Arsinoë buried her sister in the catacombs, and with her own hand engraved on the slab, "Myrrha, vivis!" ("Myrrha, thou livest.")
She scarcely wept. But she bore in her heart contempt for the world, and the resolve to believe in God, or at least to do all she could to attain belief in Him. She desired to distribute her fortune to the poor, and to set out for the Thebaïd. On the very day Arsinoë informed her indignant guardian of these intentions she received from Gaul a curt and enigmatic letter from Cæsar Julian—
"Julian, to the most noble Arsinoë, happiness! Do you remember the matter about which we spoke together at Athens, in front of the statue of Artemis? Do you remember our alliance? Great is my hate, but greater yet is my love. It may be that the lion shall fling away the ass's skin soon. Meantime, let us be gentle as doves and wise as serpents, according to the counsel of the Nazarean Christ."
XX
Composers of Court epigrams, who mockingly nicknamed Julian "Victorinus" or "the little Conqueror," were astonished to receive, time after time, news of the Cæsar's continual victories. The laughable gradually became the terrible. General discussion arose about witchcrafts and secret dæmonic forces backing the fortunes of the friend of Maximus of Ephesus.
Julian had conquered and restored to the Roman Empire Argentoratum, Bracomagum,[2] Tres Tabernæ,[3] Noviomagus,[4] Vangiones,[5] Moguntiacum.[6]