The bas-relief represented a religious procession of the ancient Athenians. "That is what I desired ... beauty like theirs! Why from day to day do men become more and more deformed and misfeatured? Where are the immortal old men, the austere heroes, the proud lads, the pure women in their white and floating robes? Where is that strength, that gaiety of heart? Galileans! Galileans! what have you done with these things?" He gazed at the bas-relief with eyes full of infinite sadness and infinite love. "Julian," asked Oribazius, gently, "do you believe in Maximus?" "Yes." "Wholly?" "What do you mean?" "I've always thought, Julian, that you suffer from the same malady as your enemies, the Christians!" "What malady?" "Faith in miracles." Julian shook his head. "If there be neither miracles nor gods my whole life is a madness!... No, we won't speak of that. And do not be too hard upon me on account of my love for ancient ceremonies. I scarcely can explain it to you. The old simple things stir tears in me; and I love the evening more than the morning, autumn better than spring. I love all that is fleeting!... even the perfume of flowers that have faded.... What would you have, my friend? The gods shaped me so!... That pleasant melancholy, that golden faery twilight, are necessary to me. In the depth of antiquity there is to me something ineffably gracious and fair such as I find in no other region--the shining of sunset on marble mellowed by time. Do not rob me of the mad love of what is no more. Everything that has been, is fairer than the thing that is! Remembrance has more power over my soul than hope...." Julian was silent, and with a smile on his lips looked into the distance, his head leaning back against the column. "You speak as a poet," answered Oribazius. "But the dreams of a poet are perilous when the fate of a world is in his hands. Ought not he who reigns over men to be something more than a poet?" "Whose life is higher?" "That of the creator of a _new_ life?..." "New! new!" exclaimed Julian. "To be plain with you, your novelty sometimes strikes terror into me! It seems to me to be cold and hard as death. I tell you, my heart is in antiquity. The Galileans, like you, are always seeking novelty and stamping the old idols under foot!... Trust me, new life lies only in what is old; immortal is it and proud, however it be thus insulted!" He drew himself up to his full height, pale and haughty, his eyes brilliant-- "They think that Hellas is dead!... And from every quarter of the compass black monks come swooping down, like ravens, on its marble body, and pick at it, joyously shrieking, 'Hellas is dead!' But they forget that Hellas cannot die, that Hellas is in our hearts! Hellas is the divine beauty of man upon earth. She but slumbers, and when she shall awake, woe to the crows of Galilee!"