Julian (12 page)

"Naphtha," said Oribasius.

"But that was not all. The statue smiled at us. The bronze face smiled. Then Hecate laughed. I have never heard such a sound! All heaven seemed to mock us, as we fled from that place."

"I must go to Ephesus," I said. Sosipatra turned to Ecebolius. "He has no choice, you know. At Ephesus his life begins."

•          •          •

The next day I received word that Aedesius would see me. I found him lying on a cot, his bearded wife beside him. Aedesius was a small man who had once been fat, but now because of illness and age the skin hung from him in folds. It was hard to believe that this frail old man had once been the pupil of Iamblichos and actually present on that occasion when Iamblichos caused two divine youths to appear from twin pools in the rock at Gadara. Yet despite his fragility, Aedesius was alert and amiable.

"Sosipatra tells me that you have a gift for philosophy."

"If a passion can be called a gift."

"Why not? Passion is a gift of the gods. She also tells me that you plan to go to Ephesus."

"Only if I cannot study with you."

"Too late for that." He sighed. "As you see, I am in poor health. She gives me four more years of this life. But I doubt that I shall last so long. Anyway, Maximus will be more to your taste. He was my student, you know. After Priscus of Athens, he was my best student. Of course Maximus prefers demonstration to argument, mysteries to books. But then there are many ways to truth. And from what Sosipatra tells me, he was born to be your guide. It is clearly destiny."

Priscus
: It was clearly a plot. They were all in on it. Years later, Maximus admitted as much. "I knew all along I was the right teacher for Julian. Naturally, I never dreamed he would be emperor." He did not dream it; he willed it. "I saw him simply as a soul that I alone could lead to salvation." Maximus then got Sosipatra and Aedesius to recommend him to Julian, which they did. What an extraordinary crew they were! Except for Aedesius, there was not a philosopher in the lot.

From what I gather, Julian in those days was a highly intelligent youth who might have been "captured" for true philosophy. After all, he enjoyed learning. He was good at debate. Properly educated, he might have been another Porphyry or, taking into account his unfortunate birth, another Marcus Aurelius. But Maximus got to him first and exploited his one flaw: that craving for the vague and incomprehensible which is essentially Asiatic. It is certainly not Greek, even though we Greeks are in a noticeable intellectual decline. Did you know that thanks to the presence of so many foreign students in Athens, our people no longer speak pure Attic but a sort of argot, imprecise and ugly? Yet despite the barbarism which is slowly extinguishing "the light of the world", we Athenians still pride ourselves on being able to see things as they are. Show us a stone and we see a stone, not the universe. But like so many others nowadays, poor Julian wanted to believe that man's life is profoundly more significant than it is. His sickness was the sickness of our age. We want so much not to be extinguished at the end that we will go to any length to make conjurortricks for one another simply to obscure the bitter, secret knowledge that it is our fate not to be. If Maximus hadn't stolen Julian from us, the bishops would have got him. I am sure of that. At heart he was a Christian mystic gone wrong.

Libanius
: Christian mystic! Had Priscus any religious sense he might by now have experienced that knowledge of oneness, neither "bitter" nor "secret", which Plotinus and Porphyry, Julian and I, each in his own way—mystically-arrived at. Or failing that, had he been admitted to the mysteries of Eleusis just fourteen miles from his own house in Athens, he might have understood that since the soul is, there can be no question of its not-being. But I agree with Priscus about Maximus. I was aware at the time of the magicians' plot to capture Julian, but since I was forbidden to speak to him I could hardly warn him. Yet they did Julian no lasting harm. He sometimes put too much faith in oracles and magic, but he always had a firm grip of logic and he excelled in philosophic argument. He was hardly a Christian mystic. Yet he was a mystic—something Priscus could never understand.

Julian Augustus

Ecebolius was eager to go to Ephesus, rather to my surprise; I had thought he would have wanted to keep me from Maximus. But he was compliant. "After all,
I
am your teacher, approved by the Emperor. You cannot officially study with Maximus, or anyone else. Not that I would object. Far from it. I am told Maximus is most inspiring, though hopelessly reactionary. But we hardly need worry about your being influenced at this late date. After all, you were taught Christian theology by two great bishops, Eusebius and George. What firmer foundation can any man have? By all means let us visit Ephesus. You will enjoy the intellectual life. And so shall I."

What Ecebolius had come to enjoy was playing Aristotle to my green Alexander. Everywhere we went, academics were curious to know me. That meant they got to know Ecebolius. In no time at all, he was proposing delicately that he "exchange" students with them. "Exchange" meant that they would send him students at Constantinople for which they would receive nothing except the possible favour of the prince. During our travels, Ecebolius made his fortune.

In a snowstorm we were met at the gates of Ephesus by the city prefect and the town council. They were all very nervous.

"It is a great honour for Ephesus to receive the most noble Julian," said the prefect. "We are here to serve him, as we have served the most noble Gallus, who has also honoured us by his presence here." At the mention of Gallus, as though rehearsed, the councillors began to mutter, "Kind, good, wise, noble."

"Where is my brother?"

There was a tense pause. The prefect looked anxiously at the councillors. They looked at one another. There was a good deal of energetic brushing of snow from cloaks.

"Your brother," said the prefect, finally, "is at court. At Milan. He was summoned by the Emperor last month. There has been no word about him. None at all. Naturally, we hope for the best."

"And what is the best?"

"Why, that he be made Caesar." It was not necessary to inquire about the worst. After due ceremony, we were led to the prefect's house, where I was to stay. Ecebolius was thrilled at the thought that I might soon be half-brother to a Caesar. But I was alarmed. My alarm became panic when later that night Oribasius told me that Gallus had been taken from Ephesus under arrest."Was he charged with anything?"

"The Emperor's pleasure. There was no charge. Most people expect him to be executed."

"Has he given any cause?"

Oribasius shrugged. "If he is executed, people will give a hundred reasons why the Emperor did the right thing. If he is made Caesar, they will say they knew all along such wisdom and loyalty would be rewarded."

"If Gallus dies…" I shuddered.

"But you're not political."

"I was born 'political' and there is nothing I can do about it. First Gallus, then me."

"I should think you were safest of all, the scholar-prince."

"No one is safe." I felt the cold that night as I have never felt the cold before or since. I don't know what I should have done without Oribasius. He was the first friend I ever had. He is still the best friend I have, and I miss him here in Persia. Oribasius has always been particularly useful in finding out things I would have no way of knowing. People never speak candidly to princes, but Oribasius could get anyone to tell him anything, a trick learned practising medicine. He inspires confidences.

Within a day of our arrival at Ephesus, Oribasius had obtained a full report on Gallus's life in the city. "He is feared. But he is admired."

"For his beauty?" I could not resist that. After all, I had spent my childhood hopelessly beguiled by that golden creature.

"He shares his beauty rather liberally with the wives of the local magnates."

"Naturally."

"He is thought to be intelligent."

"He is shrewd."

"Politically knowledgeable, very ambitious…"

"Yet unpopular and feared. Why?"

"A bad temper, occasionally violent."

"Yes." I thought of the cedar grove at Macellum.

"People fear him. They don't know why."

"Poor Gallus." I almost meant it, too. "What do they say about me?"

"They wish you would shave your beard."

"I thought it was looking rather decent lately. A bit like Hadrian's." I rubbed the now full growth affectionately. Only the colour displeased me: it was even lighter than the hair on my head, which is light brown. To make the beard seem darker and glossier, I occasionally rubbed oil in it. Nowadays, as I go grey, the beard has mysteriously darkened. I am perfectly satisfied with the way it looks. No one else is.

"They also wonder what you are up to."

"Up to? I should have thought it perfectly plain. I am a student."

"We are Greeks in these parts." Oribasius grinned, looking very Greek. "We never think anything is what it seems to be."

"Well, I am not about to subvert the state," I said gloomily. "My only plot is how to survive."

•          •          •

In spite of himself, Ecebolius liked Oribasius. "Because we are really disobeying the Chamberlain, you know. He fixed your household at a certain size and made no allowance for a physician."

"But Oribasius is a very special physician."

"Granted, he helped my fever and banished 'pain's cruel handmaid…'"

"He also has the advantage of being richer than I. He helps us pay the bills."

"True. Sad truth." Ecebolius has a healthy respect for money, and because of that I was able to keep Oribasius near me. We were at Ephesus some days before I was able to see Maximus. He was in retreat, communing with the gods. But we received daily bulletins from his wife. Finally, on the eighth day, at about the second hour, a slave arrived to say that Maximus would be honoured to receive me that afternoon. I prevailed on Ecebolius to allow me to make the visit alone. After much argument he gave in, but only on condition that I later write out for him a full account of everything that was said.

Maximus lived in a modest house on the slopes of Mount Pion, not far from the theatre which is carved out of its side. My guards left me at the door. A servant then showed me into an inner room where I was greeted by a thin, nervous woman.

"I am Placidia, wife of Maximus." She let go my robe whose hem she had kissed. "We are so sorry my husband could not see you earlier, but he has been beneath the earth, with the goddess Cybele." She motioned to a slave who handed her a lighted torch which she gave me. "My husband is still in darkness. He asks for you to join him there."

I took the torch and followed Placidia to a room of the house whose fourth wall was covered by a curtain which, when she pulled it back, revealed the mountainside and an opening in the rock. "You must go to him alone, most noble prince."

I entered the mountain. For what seemed hours (but must have been only minutes), I stumbled towards a far-off gleam of light which marked the end of the passageway. At last I arrived at what looked to be a well-lit chamber cut in the rock, and filled with smoke. Eagerly, I stepped forward and came up hard against a solid wall, stubbing my toes. I thought I had gone mad. In front of me was a room. But I could not enter it. Then I heard the beautiful deep voice of Maximus: "See? The life of this world is all illusion and only the gods are real."

I turned to my left and saw the chamber I thought I had seen in front of me. The smoke was now gone. The room appeared to be empty. Yet the voice sounded as if the speaker were close beside me. "You tried to step into a mirror. In the same way, the ignorant try to enter the land of the blessed, only to be turned away by their own reflection. Without surrendering yourself, you may not thread the labyrinth at whose end exists the One."

My right foot hurt. I was cold. I was both impressed and irritated by the situation. "I am Julian," I said, "of the house of Constantine."

"I am Maximus, of the house of all the gods." Then he appeared suddenly at my elbow. He seemed to emerge from the rock. Maximus is tall and well proportioned, with a beard like a grey waterfall and the glowing eyes of a cat. He wore a green robe with curious markings. He took my hand. "Come in," he said. "There are wonders here."

The room was actually a natural grotto with stalactites hanging from the ceiling and, at its centre, a natural pool of still dark water. Beside the pool was a bronze statue of Cybele, showing the goddess seated and holding in one hand the holy drum. Two stools were the only furnishings in the cave. He invited me to sit down.

"You will go on many journeys," said Maximus. My heart sank. He sounded like any soothsayer in the agora. "And I shall accompany you to the end."

"I could hope for no better teacher," I said formally, somewhat taken aback. He was presumptuous.

"Do not be alarmed, Julian…" He knew exactly what I was thinking. "I am not forcing myself upon you. Quite the contrary. I am being forced. Just as you are. By something neither of us can control. Nor will it be easy, what we must do together. There is great danger for both of us. Especially for me. I dread being your teacher."

"But I had hoped…"

"I am your teacher," he concluded. "What is it that you would most like to know?"

"The truth."

"The truth of what?"

"Where do we come from and where do we go to, and what is the meaning of the journey?"

"You are Christian." He said this carefully, making neither a statement nor a question of it. Had there been a witness to this scene, I must have allowed a door in my mind to shut. As it was, I paused. I thought of Bishop George, interminably explaining "similar" as opposed to "same". I heard the deacon chanting the songs of Arius. I heard myself reading the lesson in the chapel at Macellum. Then suddenly I saw before me the leather-bound testament Bishop George had given me: "Thou shalt not revile the gods."

"No," said Maximus gravely. "For that way lies eternal darkness."