"Glory to the divine Augustus Julian!"
"Do you come with a message from Constantius?"
"Constantius is no more!"
"What say you?"
Julian trembled and threw a glance at Maximus, whose face remained inscrutable.
"By the will of God," continued Cintula, "your enemy departed this life in the town of Mopsucrenam, not far from Macellum."
That evening the army assembled on a hill. The death of Constantius was already made known to them.
Augustus Claudius Flavius Julian took his station on a hillock so that all the soldiers could see him; crownless, weaponless, unarmoured, and enswathed head to foot in purple. To conceal the traces of the blood, which might not be washed off, he had enveloped his head and veiled his face in the purple silk. In this attire he bore the appearance rather of a sacrificial priest than of an emperor. Behind him rose the ruddy forest wrapping the base of Mount Hæmus. Above his head hung, like a golden banner, the yellow branches of a maple. Far as the eye could see, the plain of Thrace lay below, crossed by the white marble pavement of the Roman road stretching victoriously away to the Propontic Sea. Julian gazed at his army. When the legions moved their stations, red flashes from the sunset were reflected upon burnished helmets, breastplates, and eagles; the lances above the cohorts seemed like lighted tapers. By Julian's side was Maximus, who spoke in Cæsar's ear—
"Look forth upon this sight of glory! your hour is come! Act now!"
The magician pointed to the Christian banner, the Labarum, with its crest of the monogram of Christ, the flag made on the pattern of that fiery standard bearing the inscription, "Through this shalt thou conquer," which Constantine the Great had seen miraculous in the heavens.