[Pressing forward.] Yes, yes; Caesar is great!
Others.
[Clapping their hands.] Caesar is peerless!
Julian.
[Looks for a time alternately at Decentius and the others; thereupon breaks out into a loud, short laugh.] So blind is friendship, Decentius! So blind, so blind!
[He turns to the rest, and taps the roll of paper in his hand.
Here I read far other tidings! listen and drink in the refreshing dew of knowledge. This is the Emperor’s despatch to all the proconsuls of the empire;—our excellent Decentius has brought me a copy of it. Here we learn that I have accomplished nothing in Gaul. It was, as I told you, a dream. Here we have the Emperor’s own words: it was under the Emperor’s happy auspices that the imminent danger to the empire was averted.
Florentius.
All the affairs of the empire flourish under the Emperor’s auspices.
Julian.