Apollonius' invitation to the revellers of the previous night to be present in the Temple court, was honored by the attendance of all that company with the exception of Captain Dion. These, the Governor's guests of honor, occupied a platform near to the gate of the Holy Place, while the soldiers from barracks in the city and camps in the fields swarmed like bees, and settled in disorderly masses everywhere about the Temple mount. The overlooking walls were topped with a dense array of conical felt hats and bronze helmets, while thousands of legs, ending in the heavy cothurn--the buskin worn with gruesome propriety by both tragedians and soldiers--depended from the coping, and dangled above the heads of the crowd that stood below. Warriors from the mountains of Bithynia chaffed in unintelligible speech with those from the Euphrates, as together they clung to cornices and capitals like chattering bats. Wherever an elevation or projection offered a glimpse of the Temple plaza there was a mouth full of derision for the religion of a people that had not so much as a statue or idol to worship. At Apollonius' nod an enormous trumpet brayed forth the signal. Men took down the bar that blocked the gateway, where once hung the splendid doors--those which Kallisthenes had burned. A procession, such as might appropriately have had its rehearsal in Pandemonium, entered the sacred precincts. It was headed by a huge Syrian who personated the Jewish High Priest. His gigantic proportions were magnified by an enormous tub, which he wore on his head to burlesque the genuine Pontiff with his flower-shaped mitre inscribed "Holiness to the Lord." On the breast of this buffoon was a clumsy shield, painted coarsely in panels of twelve different colors, to represent the Urim and Thummim, from whose twelve mysterious jewels once flashed the will of the Lord. The pomegranates, wrought in silk upon the vestments of the real priest, and the tiny bells which interspersed them, were imitated by a string of dried gourd shells which clattered against one another as the mountebank strode along. Behind him came a herd of swine, prodded by soldiers clad as common priests. The mock Pontiff shouted a lewd prayer to Jehovah, and drove his short sword into the throat of a huge black boar, the signal for the slaughter of the herd. Obscene songs and shouts mingled with the death squeals of the victims, while the blasphemers, stripping bare their lower limbs, danced in the blood which drenched the sacred pavement. One huge sow was covered with a white blanket on which was inscribed the four letters indicating the name of the God of Israel. This beast was led to what remained of the foundation of the old altar, and there disemboweled. Her broth was scattered about the Holy of Holies, and her offal flung by the hilarious crowd into one another's faces.