Oh pious and righteous Emperor, punish these desperate men!
Publia.
My lord, give me back my Hilarion!
Phocion.
All good citizens implore your favour towards this city.
Julian.
Seek to win the favour of the gods, and of mine you need have no doubt. And surely it is fitting that Antioch should lead the way. Does it not seem as though the Sun-God’s eye had dwelt with especial complacency on this city? Ask of travellers, and you shall hear to what melancholy extremes fanaticism has elsewhere proceeded in laying waste our holy places. What is left? A remnant here and there; and nothing of the best.
But with you, citizens of Antioch! Oh, my eyes filled with tears of joy when first I saw that incomparable sanctuary, the very house of Apollo,[Apollo,] which seems scarcely to be the work of human hands. Does not the image of the Glorious One stand within it, in unviolated beauty? Not a corner of his altar has broken or crumbled away, not a crack is to be seen in the stately columns.
Oh, when I think of this,—when I feel the fillet round my brow—when I look down upon these garments, dearer to me than the purple robe of empire, then I feel, with a sacred tremor, the presence of the god.
See, see, the sunlight quivers around us in its glory!