THE GODS DEPART

before me, but always land, and land, and lands un-
known."

" No doubt the surrounding world is larger than
people used to think,55 said Julianus. " But, after all,
our world gathered about this lovely sea, so full of
glorious memories, is the only world that counts.
We need not trouble ourselves with those dwellers in
outer Cimmerian darkness,'3

" Yes, but we must trouble ourselves," Diocletian
replied impatiently, " or they will trouble us. I've
seen them out there upon the Eastern confines—tall
brown men with faces like hawks ; tall brown women
too, large-eyed and athletic as Zenobia. And IVe
seen hordes of hideous creatures—dwarfish, having
slits for eyes, and long arms like apes. And who
knows what strange monsters Africa may beget—
ludicrous, black, inhuman? No one has yet pene-
trated the farthest wilds of Britain or the islands west
of it. But I have seen shaggy Germans beyond the
Rhine, shaggy Scythians beyond the Danube. In-
numerable they seemed. Mow them down by thou-
sands, and next year there are thousands more, wait-
ing for the sword. And beyond cold and misty seas
dwell the Hyperboreans, from among whom the Goths
descended upon us like a deluge of ice, devastating
those bright cities of Asia, pillaging Thessalonica,
Ephesus, and even Athens—Athens herself.3'

He paused, overwhelmed by the vision of those
countless hordes.

" Little more than a century ago," he continued,
" how secure and quiet the Empire lay ! If peace was
broken, it was usually broken by civil war. At the
worst Rome then fought Rome. The victory was
Roman, and it did not matter to the Empire who was
Caesar, Men went unconcernedly about their busi-

I.D.B. 97 H