"I will tell you," said Procopius, pouring out the "Tacitus," "It is my misfortune that I was not the historian of Alexander or Scipio. Since I recovered from philosophy and theology, my whole nature has longed for men, for real men of flesh and blood. So these spindle-shanked emperors and bishops and generals, who subtilise everything with their reason, disgust me. We have become a crippled generation; the hero time lies far behind us! Only honest Belisarius is a hero like those of the olden time. He might have encamped with Agamemnon before Troy! He is not stupid; he has good sense; but only the natural sense of a noble wild animal for its prey, for his vocation. Belisarius's vocation is heroism! And I delight in his broad chest and his flashing eyes and mighty thighs with which he masters the strongest stallion. And I am glad when, sometimes, his blind delight in blows upsets all his fine plans. I love to see him rush amongst the enemy and fight like an infuriated boar. But I dare not tell him so; for then all would be over; in three days he would be cut to pieces. On the contrary, I keep him back. I am his 'reason,' as he calls me. And he puts up with my prudence because he knows that it is not cowardice. More than once I have been obliged to save him from a difficulty into which the frowardness of his heroism had brought him! The most amusing of these stories is that of the horn and tuba." "Which of the two do you blow, O my Procopius?" "Neither; only the trumpet of fame and the pipe of mockery!" "But what about the horn and trumpet?"