The ethnostate must teach that the highest form of Wisdom consists in keeping one’s blood pure. The first commandment of the new law-table is “Thou shalt keep thy blood pure”. Another commandment must dictate the necessity of not enslaving non-whites.
Excerpted from the prologue of March of the Titans: The Complete History of the White Race by Arthur Kemp:
When reviewing the historical development of all nations, quite often mention is made of a “rise and fall” of a particular civilization. This poses a major question: Why have some civilizations lasted a thousand years or more, while others rise and collapse within a few hundred? Why is it, for example, that nations such as Japan, Sweden, and England—all nations with limited natural resources—could have progressive active cultures for more than one thousand years; whereas mighty civilizations such as Classical Rome, Greece, or Persia, amongst others, collapse after only a few centuries?
Politically correct historians blame the rise and fall of the great nations of the past on politics, economics, morals, lawlessness, debt, environment, and a host of other superficial reasons. However, Japan, England, and Sweden have gone through similar crises scores of times, without those countries falling into decay. It is obvious that there must be some other factor at work—something much more fundamental than just variations in politics, morals, lawlessness, or any of the other hundreds of reasons that historians have manufactured in their attempts to explain the collapse of civilizations.
Originally created by Proto-Nordics, Alpines, and Mediterraneans, and then influenced by waves of Indo-European invaders, the white civilizations in the Middle East all flourished, producing the wonders of the ancient world. These regions were either invaded or otherwise occupied (through the use of laborers, immigration, or in rare cases, by conquest) by nonwhite nations of varying races. When the original white peoples who created those civilizations vanished or became an insignificant minority (through death and absorption into other races), their civilizations “fell” in exactly the same way that the Amerind civilization in North America “fell.”
500 BC—First Turning Point
It was around the year 500 BC that the first great turning point in white history was reached. This was the decline of the first great white civilizations in the Middle East and their subsequent replacement by nations and peoples of a substantially different racial makeup.
Up until this time the development of the white race’s territorial expansion was such that they were a majority in Europe and all of Russia west of the Urals. They formed a significant component of the population of the Middle East and their rule extended into the Indus River Valley in Northern India.
In India, the invading Indo-Aryans established a strict segregation system to keep themselves separate from the local dark skinned native population. This system was so strict that it has lasted to this day and has become known as the caste system.
However, even the strictest segregation (and Aryan laws prescribing punishments such as death for miscegenation) did not prevent the majority population from eventually swallowing up the ruling Aryans until the situation has been reached today where only a very few high caste Brahmin Indians could still pass as Europeans.
Exactly the same thing happened in Central Asia, Egypt, Sumeria, and to a lesser degree, modern Turkey. Slowly but surely, as these civilizations relied more and more on others to do their work for them, or were physically conquered by other races, their population makeup became darker and darker.
Miscegenation with Nonwhite Slaves Caused Egyptian Decline
From the time of the Old Kingdom, the original white Egyptians had been using Nubians, blacks, and Semites (or Arabs) to work on many of their building projects or as general slaves.
Egypt: Same country, different people. Above left: The white pharaoh, Queen Nefertiti, circa 1350 BC; Above center: The effects of racial mixing are clearly to be seen on the face of this coffin portrait of a Roman lady in Hawara, Egypt, 100 AD; Above right: The mixed race Egyptian, Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt in the twentieth century. Nefertiti ruled over an advanced civilization; Sadat ruled over a third world country. The reason for the difference in cultures between Nefertiti’s Egypt and Sadat’s Egypt was that the Egyptian people had changed.
At various stages the pharaohs also employed Nubian mercenaries, and ultimately Nubia and Sudan were physically occupied and incorporated into the Egyptian empire. Although the buildings of ancient Egypt are very impressive—many having survived through to the present day, their construction was dependent on the Egyptian ability to organize an unprecedented mass of human labor.
Several attempts were made to prevent large numbers of Nubians from settling in Egypt. One of the first recorded racial separation laws was inscribed on a stone on the banks of the southern Nile which forbade Nubians from proceeding north of that point. Nonetheless, the continuous use of Nubians for labor eventually led to the establishment of a large resident nonwhite population in Egypt, with their numbers being augmented by natural reproduction and continued immigration.
The region was also occupied for two hundred years by the Semitic Hyksos, who intermarried with the local population, and this was followed by other Semitic/Arabic immigration, fueled by the long existing black settlement on the southernmost reaches of the Nile River.
Once again the factors which led to the extinction of the Aryans in India came into play in Egypt: a resident nonwhite population to do the labor, a natural increase in nonwhite numbers, physical integration, and a decline in the original white birthrate.
All these factors compounded to produce an Egyptian population makeup of today that is very different from the men and women who founded Egypt and designed the pyramids.
As the population makeup shifted, so the cultural manifestations, or civilization, of that region changed to the point where the present day population of the Middle East is not by any stretch of the imagination classifiable as white. The Egyptians of today are a completely different people, racially and culturally, living amongst the ruins of another race’s civilization.
Identical Reasons for Decline in Middle East
The decline and eventual extinction of the white population in the Middle East marked the end of the original civilizations in those regions. In all the Middle Eastern countries the Semitic (Arabic) and black populations grew as they were used as labor by the ruling whites. In the case of Sumer, the white rulers were physically displaced by military conquest at the hands of Semitic invaders.
This process continued until almost all remains of the original whites in the greater region were assimilated into the darker populations. Only the occasional appearance of light colored hair or eyes amongst today’s Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians, and Palestinians serve as reminders of the original rulers of these territories.
Lesson—Role of Racially Foreign Labor in the Decline of a Civilization
The lesson is clear: a civilization will remain intact as long as its creating race remains in existence. This applies to all races equally—white, black, Mongolian or any other. As long as a civilization’s founding race maintains its territorial integrity and does not use large numbers of any other alien race to do its labor, that civilization will remain in existence.
If a civilization allows large numbers of racial aliens into its midst (most often as laborers) and then integrates with those newcomers, that civilization will change to reflect the new racial makeup of the population.
Any civilization—be it white, black, Asian, or Aboriginal—stands or falls by the homogeneity of its population, and nothing else. As soon as a society loses its homogeneity, the nature of that society changes. This simple fact, often ignored by historians, provides the key to understanding the rise and fall of all civilizations.
Evidence of black slaves in Egyptian and Grecian society. Left: Nubian (African) slaves as depicted in ancient Egyptian art, and right two Greek vases, dating from the fifth century BC, show the racial types of two slaves, a Semite and a black.
History Is a Function of Race
The early white civilizations in Greece and Rome also fell to this process. The last great Grecian leader, Pericles, actually enacted a law in the year 451 BC limiting citizenship of the state according to racial descent. However, some four hundred years later this law was changed as the population shifts had become more and more evident. Certain Roman leaders tried to turn back the racial clock, but their efforts were in vain. The sheer vastness of the Roman Empire meant that all sorts of races were included in its borders, and this brew ultimately led to the dissolution of the original Roman population.
Those who occupy a territory determine the nature of the society in that territory. This is an immutable law of nature. It is the iron rule upon which all of human endeavour is built—that history is a function of race.
The Rise and Fall of Civilizations Explained
A civilization “rises and falls” by its racial homogeneity and nothing else. As long as it maintains its racial homogeneity, it will last—if it loses its racial homogeneity, and changes its racial makeup, it will “fall” or be replaced by a new culture.
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Note: Why I am reposting this entry is explained: here
Or:
Why am I reproducing excerpts of Zweig’s book?
In the other thread Kurwenal asked me:
Would it not be more enriching to find out why Rosenberg considered Nietzsche to be one of us rather than to discuss which Jewish author gives a more or less faithful account of Nietzsche’s life and theories.
I see your point, and let me say that this blog has paid due homage to Nietzsche in that sense. See these entries:
• “Nietzsche on the Aryan race”
• “Nietzsche on the institution of marriage”
Kurwenal again:
By the way, if you can spare one hour of your time, I have tried to summarize the importance of Wagner and Nietzsche for our cause [links to Counter-Currents added].
I am a huge fan of Richard Wagner too. A couple of days ago for example I had to do some driving in Mexico City and the only way I could protect my mind from the nasty surroundings was precisely by listening the complete Second Act of Parsifal. It worked! I didn’t feel so depressed even when navigating in a sea of non-white troglodytes.
But there’s something more as to why I am excerpting Zweig, and it is so important that I will promote this response as a separate blog entry.
The reason that many years ago I read Zweig’s book and Ross’ and Janz’s biographies of Nietzsche has nothing to do with the discussion in this thread. It has to do with my quest about why Nietzsche, and many other people, lost their minds.
Before arriving to the nationalist camp my field of interest was advancing a counter-hypothesis to the medical model of mental disorders, insofar as I believe that biological psychiatry is a pseudoscience. That’s what, originally, moved me to read thick volumes originally written in German about Nietzsche’s life.
One of my dreams is that, if an ethno-state is formed in North America, their architects will do tabula rasa on the fraudulent professions of mental health (a “therapeutic state” as some critics of psychiatry say). White people will have to rediscover a field of research that the current System started to bury since the late 1970s, and especially in the 80s and 90s. Presently very few remember the trauma model of mental disorders (I started a Wikipedia article under that title). And my big hope is that this model, which unlike biopsychiatry is not unscientific, will be considered very seriously in the new white nation.
The gist of this model is that biographical narrative is pivotal to understand the personal tragedies that drive some people mad. That is the reason why I am adding chapter excerpts of Zweig’s The Struggle with the Daimon. It has nothing to do with a desire to pathologize Nietzsche. As you can see in my linked posts above, he obviously had great insights on important subjects. But we also got to understand why some people with perfectly healthy brains suffer permanent psychotic breakdowns.
This is a “software” problem of the human mind, not a “hardware” problem as the current System wants us to believe. (See my book Hojas Susurrantes for a full explanation of it.)
To obtain a real likeness of the man, we need to see him in his actual surroundings. What were they? A dinning-room in some modest boarding-house, quarters in an equally modest hotel among the Swiss mountains or on the Italian Riviera; insignificant fellow-boarders, for the most part elderly females, experts in small talk.
Quietly and even timidly he sought the place reserved to him at the table, and he remained shrouded in an uncanny silence during the meal. One felt that this was a man who dwelt among the shadows, a man beyond the pale of human society and conversation, one who winced at the slightest noise. He would bow courteously to his fellow-guests, wishing them politely “God day”; and in return his fellow-guests would with equal polite indifference greet “the German professor.” There was never any wine or beer or coffee served where he sat; he smoked neither cigar nor cigarette after meals.
Immediately the meal was ended he would retire to his room, a typical chambre garnie, exiguous and chilly and dowdy. The table was usually littered with sheets of manuscript, with jottings on scraps of paper, with proofs. Not a flower, not an ornament, hardly a book, seldom a letter would be found.
One fine day he might take a stroll, but he would invariably go alone, alone with his thoughts. Never did he encounter a soul to cheer him, never did he have a companion, never did he meet an acquaintance. He hated gray weather, rain, snow which dazzled his eyes; and during such inclement days he would remain a prisoner in his dingy room. He never paid calls, never came in touch with other human beings. Of an evening he supped on a few biscuits and very weak tea, which having swallowed, he would resume his endless communing with his thoughts. A gulp of chloral or another soporific, and he would snatch at sleep, a sleep which is the facile boon of those who do not think overmuch and who are not perpetually harassed by the daimons.
Everywhere he went, the chambre garnie was the same. The names of the towns he visited changed from Sorrento to Turin, from Venice to Nice or Marienbad, but the chambre garnie remained identical, a rented room, a room totally lacking in any feeling of home.
During all the years of his pilgrimage he never once put up in friendly and cheerful surroundings, never at night felt the warm body of a woman pressing against him; never did the sun rise to see him famous, after a thousand nights of dark and silent labour. How immeasurably vaster was Nietzsche’s loneliness than is the picturesque highland of Sils-Maria where between luncheon and tea our tourists wander in the hope of capturing some of the glamour that clings to a spot sanctified by his presence. Nietzsche’s solitude was as wide as the world; it spread over the whole of his life until the very end. Conversation wearied and irritated him who constantly gnawed at his own vitals and whose hunger for himself, and himself alone, was never satiated.
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Chechar’s note:
Of course: these are only excerpts of a chapter of The Struggle with the Daimon, as in earlier or later installments of this series. A new edition of Zweig’s book, with syntax modified for readers of our century (I prefer the 1930 edition that I quote by direct typing from the text), is now available in the market.
By John Martínez
What you say doesn’t invalidate my remark that people who are cowering in front of the anti-White dictatorship often misinterpret their own behavior as foolish sentimentality.
Immigrants are pouring into Western countries at the invitation of Western governments, and at the consternation of most White people. If White people had their say, for example, in a referendum, immigration would stop. So, if you would like to blame White people, you have to blame their lack of courage, not their foolish sentimentality.
Anti-White dictatorship?! I beg you pardon. Last time I checked every single Western European and Northern American government had been elected by popular, democratic vote. Who voted these governments into office and where do these politicians come from? From what you’re saying, one might get the impression that these politicians are aliens from outer space who came to Earth in order to abet the niggerization / arabization / mestization of these countries, or that it is extraterrestrials who are voting for these folks, instead of adult nationals who have had ample opportunity to see (and live with) the consequences of their stupid political choices for several decades now.
Look, I have all sympathy for the people of North Korea, for example. They certainly haven’t had any say in their government ever since the mid 50’s. Their country was kidnapped by a gang of sociopaths with the aid of a million-strong army. They are real victims. There is a real case to be made that they are not responsible for what is happening to them. But for you to refer to contemporary North American and Western Europeans as poor, oppressed folks, terrorized into cowardice by autocratic, unaccountable governments (as you take it for granted that that is the case) is disingenuous, with all due respect.
I said something to this effect on another thread and a reader, Roger, apparently an English European himself, agreed 100% with me.
Trying to argue that their stupidity and their cowardice is in fact just cowardice is beside the point. The point is that Western Whites are ultimately fully responsible for what is befalling them. And trying to exonerate them from their sin against both their ancestors and their future generations is to assure that nothing will be done about it.
Whites have let the kikes in and have let them take control of their governments, finances, academia and press. Whites have allowed the inferior non White scum to colonize their societies. To blame “the elites” or “the political class” is a lame excuse because these segments of society are part and parcel of the said societies. Besides, the political class depends on votes to stay in power and what’s more, “the elites” can perfectly well be boycotted into poverty, since we are not talking about Ancient Regime aristocracy here. If stupid liberal Whites can boycott a restaurant chain because its owner said something that displeased gays (link) the reason why the treacherous elite stays where it is, is because Whites want it to be there.
To quote John Derbyshire (discussing the Jewish Question) in a context that twists the meaning of what he said (I despise his philosemitism with all my heart):
97 percent of the U.S. population [and the European one, for that matter] ended up dancing to the tune of the other three percent. If that is true, the only thing to say is the one Shakespeare’s Bianca would have said: “The more fool they.”*
If Whites can mobilize for idiotic causes like homosexual “marriage”, “human rights”, “wymyn’s rights”, “global warming” and at the same time they don’t organize to tackle real issues like Third World immigration it is because they don’t want to. They are not interested. If they are not aware of the JQ, it is because they are not interested. And if they keep voting for treacherous politicians who have [messed] their asses it is because they don’t mind it. So let them live with the consequences. At the end of the day, you have to sleep on the bed you made, right?
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* In Act 5, Scene 2 of The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare there’s a line, “The more fool you for betting on my loyalty.”
“Why were you so ungrateful to our gods
as to desert them for the Jews?”
—Julian, addressing the Christians
The Memoir of Julian Augustus
Some arrived on horseback, others in litters. Each was accompanied by a retinue of soldiers, clerks, eunuchs, slaves. All wore some variation of military dress, for ever since Diocletian the court has been military in its appearance, symbolic of Rome’s beleaguered state.
For six years Gallus and I had seen no one except Bishop George and our guards. Now all at once there passed before us the whole power of the state. Our eyes were dazzled by glittering armor and elaborate cloaks, by the din of a thousand clerks and notaries who scurried about the courtyard, demanding their baggage, quarreling with one another, insisting on various prerogatives. The noisy clerks with their inky fingers and proud intelligent faces were the actual government of Rome, and they knew it.
The last official to arrive was the most important of all: the Grand Chamberlain of the Sacred Palace, the eunuch Eusebius. He was so large that it took two slaves to pull him out of his ivory and gold litter. He was tall, stout and very white. Beneath the peacock blue of his silk tunic one could see the rolls of flesh quiver as he moved. Of all the officers of the state, only he wore civilian clothes. In fact, he looked like a winsome lady of fashion with mouth artfully rouged and hair arranged in long oiled ringlets. The gold thread of his cape flashed in the sunlight.
Eusebius smiled a tiny smile, exposing small dark teeth; several babyish dimples appeared in his full cheeks. He inclined his head; the neck fat creased; a long curl strayed across his brow.
“Nobilissimi,” he said in a soft voice. This was an excellent omen. The title nobilissimus is used only for members of the imperial family. Bishop George never used this title with us nor did our guards. Now, apparently, our rank had been restored.
After a long scrutiny, Eusebius took each us by hand, I can still recall the soft dampness of his touch. “I have so looked forward seeing you both! And how grown up you are! Especially the noble Gallus.” Delicately he felt Gallus’s chest. This sort of impertinence would ordinarily have sent my brother into rage, but that day he was far too frightened. He also knew instinctively that his only protection was his beauty. Complaisantly he allowed the eunuch to caress him as we entered the villa.
Eusebius had the most beguiling voice and manner of anyone I have even known. I should say something here about the voices of eunuchs. They’re like that of a particularly gentle child, and this appeals to the parent in both men and women. Thus subtly do they disarm us, for we tend to indulge them as we would a child, forgetting that their minds are as mature and twisted as their bodies are lacking. Eusebius spun his web about Gallus. He did not bother with me. I was too young.
Gallus and Eusebius dined alone together that night. The next day Gallus was Eusebius’s devoted admirer. “He’s also a friend,” said Gallus. We were alone together in the baths. “He told me how he’d been getting reports about me for years. He knows everything I’ve ever done. He even knows about her.” Gallus named the Antiochene, and giggled. “Anyway Constantius does just as Eusebius tells him. Everyone says so. Which means if you have Eusebius on your side, that’s half of the battle. And I’ve got him. He’s going to make a monk out of you. Though if I have anything to say about it, you’ll be a eunuch.”
We heard trumpets. Then the cry “Augustus!” which always precedes an emperor began, at first far off and faint; then closer, louder: “Augustus! Augustus!” My legs began to tremble. I was afraid I might be sick. Suddenly with a crash the double doors were flung open and there in the doorway stood Flavius Julius Constantius, Augustus of the East… slowly and with an extraordinary dignity crossed the room to his throne. I was too busy studying the mosaic floor to get even a glimpse of my imperial cousin. Not until the Master of the Offices gave the signal for everyone to rise was I able at last to observe my father’s murderer.
Constantius was a man of overwhelming dignity. That was the most remarkable thing about him; even his most ordinary gestures seemed carefully rehearsed. Like the Emperor Augustus, we wore lifts in his sandals to make himself appear tall. He was clean-shaven, with large melancholy eyes. He had his father Constantine’s large nose and thin, somewhat peevish mouth. The upper part of his body was impressively muscular but his legs were dwarfish. He wore the purple, a heavy robe which hung from shoulder to heel.
Then the moment came. Bishop George led Gallus and me to the Master of Offices, who in turn led us up to dais and presented us formally to the Emperor. I was terrified. Without knowing how I got there, I found myself embracing Constantius’ knees, as court etiquette requires.
For an instant I was so close to Constantius that I could make out every pore in his face, which was sunburned dark as a Persian’s. I noticed the silkiness of his straight brown hair, only just beginning to turn grey. He was thirty-two, but I thought him ancient. I also remember thinking: what must it be like to be Emperor of Rome? to know that one’s face on coins, one’s monuments, painted and sculptured, is known to all the world? And here—so close to me that I could feel the reciprocal warmth of his skin—was the original of that world-famous face, not bronze or marble but soft flesh and bone, like me, like any other man.
Constantius remained at Macellum for a week. He attended to the business of the state. He hunted. Bishop George had a long interview with him on the day he arrived, but then, to the Bishop’s chagrin, Constantius ignored him. Though Gallus and I dinned at the Emperor’s table every evening, he never spoke to us.
Gallus made a good impression on everyone—somewhat to my surprise, for he was always rather sullen with Bishop George and downright cruel to me and his teachers. But set among the great officers of the state, he was a different person. He laughed; he flattered; he charmed. He was a natural courtier, and one by one he enchanted the members of the Sacred Consistory, as the Emperor’s council is known. Only with Constantius did he make no headway. Our cousin was biding his time. I wonder now what Constantius was thinking. I suspect that even then I may have puzzled him. Gallus was easily comprehended. But who was this silent youth who wanted to become a priest?
♣
In a blaze of pageantry, Constantius departed. Gallus, Bishop George and I stood in the courtyard as he rode past. Mounted, he looked splendid and tall in his armor of chased gold. He acknowledged no one as he rode out of Macellum. In his cold way he was most impressive, and I still envy him his majesty. He could stand for hours in public looking neither to the left or the right; motionless as a statue.
“You will be gone soon enough, most noble Gallus.” Bishop George had now taken to using our titles.
Gallus said good-bye to his officer friends at a dinner to which I was, surprisingly, invited. He made a pleasant speech, promising to remember his friends if he was ever to have a military command. Bishop George then presented him with a Galilean testament bound in massive silver. “Study it well, most noble Gallus. Outside the church there can be no salvation.”
The next day when it was time for Gallus to say good-bye to me, he did so simply. “Pray for me brother, as I pray for you.”
“I shall. Good-bye Gallus.” And we parted, exactly like strangers who, having met for an evening on a post-house, take different roads the next day. After Gallus left, I wept, for the last time as a child. Yet I hated him. They say that to know oneself is to know all there is that is human. But of course no one can ever know himself. Nothing human is finally calculable; even to ourselves we are strange.
The Bishop then gave me his blessing and a Galilean testament, bound not in silver but in cheap leather; apparently I was not destined to be a Caesar! Yet I thanked him profusely and said farewell. The driver cracked his whip. The horses broke into a trot. For the first time in six years I was leaving the confines of Macellum. My childhood was over, and I was still alive.
Note of July 2018:
Instead of a linked PDF I have now reproduced the whole text as a regular entry: here.
The History of the Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire
Chapter XXII:
Julian Declared Emperor
Part II
The ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute, with the utmost diligence, their important commission. But, in their passage through Italy and Illyricum, they were detained by the tedious and affected delays of the provincial governors; they were conducted by slow journeys from Constantinople to Cæsarea in Cappadocia; and when at length they were admitted to the presence of Constantius, they found that he had already conceived, from the despatches of his own officers, the most unfavorable opinion of the conduct of Julian, and of the Gallic army.
The letters were heard with impatience; the trembling messengers were dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the looks, gestures, the furious language of the monarch, expressed the disorder of his soul. The domestic connection, which might have reconciled the brother and the husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by the death of that princess, whose pregnancy had been several times fruitless, and was at last fatal to herself. The empress Eusebia had preserved, to the last moment of her life, the warm, and even jealous, affection which she had conceived for Julian; and her mild influence might have moderated the resentment of a prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his own passions, and to the arts of his eunuchs.
But the terror of a foreign invasion obliged him to suspend the punishment of a private enemy: he continued his march towards the confines of Persia, and thought it sufficient to signify the conditions which might entitle Julian and his guilty followers to the clemency of their offended sovereign. He required, that the presumptuous Cæsar should expressly renounce the appellation and rank of Augustus, which he had accepted from the rebels; that he should descend to his former station of a limited and dependent minister; that he should vest the powers of the state and army in the hands of those officers who were appointed by the Imperial court; and that he should trust his safety to the assurances of pardon, which were announced by Epictetus, a Gallic bishop, and one of the Arian favorites of Constantius.
Several months were ineffectually consumed in a treaty which was negotiated at the distance of three thousand miles between Paris and Antioch; and, as soon as Julian perceived that his modest and respectful behavior served only to irritate the pride of an implacable adversary, he boldly resolved to commit his life and fortune to the chance of a civil war.
He gave a public and military audience to the quæstor Leonas: the haughty epistle of Constantius was read to the attentive multitude; and Julian protested, with the most flattering deference, that he was ready to resign the title of Augustus, if he could obtain the consent of those whom he acknowledged as the authors of his elevation. The faint proposal was impetuously silenced; and the acclamations of “Julian Augustus, continue to reign, by the authority of the army, of the people, of the republic which you have saved,” thundered at once from every part of the field, and terrified the pale ambassador of Constantius. A part of the letter was afterwards read, in which the emperor arraigned the ingratitude of Julian, whom he had invested with the honors of the purple; whom he had educated with so much care and tenderness; whom he had preserved in his infancy, when he was left a helpless orphan.
“An orphan!” interrupted Julian, who justified his cause by indulging his passions: “does the assassin of my family reproach me that I was left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those injuries which I have long studied to forget.” The assembly was dismissed; and Leonas, who, with some difficulty, had been protected from the popular fury, was sent back to his master with an epistle, in which Julian expressed, in a strain of the most vehement eloquence, the sentiments of contempt, of hatred, and of resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the dissimulation of twenty years.
After this message, which might be considered as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who, some weeks before, had celebrated the Christian festival of the Epiphany, made a public declaration that he committed the care of his safety to the Immortal Gods; and thus publicly renounced the religion as well as the friendship of Constantius. The situation of Julian required a vigorous and immediate resolution. He had discovered, from intercepted letters, that his adversary, sacrificing the interest of the state to that of the monarch, had again excited the Barbarians to invade the provinces of the West.
The position of two magazines, one of them collected on the banks of the Lake of Constance, the other formed at the foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to indicate the march of two armies; and the size of those magazines, each of which consisted of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather flour, was a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers of the enemy who prepared to surround him. But the Imperial legions were still in their distant quarters of Asia; the Danube was feebly guarded; and if Julian could occupy, by a sudden incursion, the important provinces of Illyricum, he might expect that a people of soldiers would resort to his standard, and that the rich mines of gold and silver would contribute to the expenses of the civil war.
He proposed this bold enterprise to the assembly of the soldiers; inspired them with a just confidence in their general, and in themselves; and exhorted them to maintain their reputation of being terrible to the enemy, moderate to their fellow-citizens, and obedient to their officers. His spirited discourse was received with the loudest acclamations, and the same troops which had taken up arms against Constantius, when he summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared with alacrity, that they would follow Julian to the farthest extremities of Europe or Asia. The oath of fidelity was administered; and the soldiers, clashing their shields, and pointing their drawn swords to their throats, devoted themselves, with horrid imprecations, to the service of a leader whom they celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul and the conqueror of the Germans.
This solemn engagement, which seemed to be dictated by affection rather than by duty, was singly opposed by Nebridius, who had been admitted to the office of Prætorian præfect. That faithful minister, alone and unassisted, asserted the rights of Constantius, in the midst of an armed and angry multitude, to whose fury he had almost fallen an honorable, but useless sacrifice. After losing one of his hands by the stroke of a sword, he embraced the knees of the prince whom he had offended. Julian covered the præfect with his Imperial mantle, and, protecting him from the zeal of his followers, dismissed him to his own house, with less respect than was perhaps due to the virtue of an enemy.
The high office of Nebridius was bestowed on Sallust; and the provinces of Gaul, which were now delivered from the intolerable oppression of taxes, enjoyed the mild and equitable administration of the friend of Julian, who was permitted to practise those virtues which he had instilled into the mind of his pupil. The hopes of Julian depended much less on the number of his troops, than on the celerity of his motions. In the execution of a daring enterprise, he availed himself of every precaution, as far as prudence could suggest; and where prudence could no longer accompany his steps, he trusted the event to valor and to fortune. In the neighborhood of Basil he assembled and divided his army.
One body, which consisted of ten thousand men, was directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the cavalry, to advance through the midland parts of Rhætia and Noricum. A similar division of troops, under the orders of Jovius and Jovinus, prepared to follow the oblique course of the highways, through the Alps, and the northern confines of Italy.
The instructions to the generals were conceived with energy and precision: to hasten their march in close and compact columns, which, according to the disposition of the ground, might readily be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves against the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards; to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude examination by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of their strength, and the terror of his name; and to join their sovereign under the walls of Sirmium. For himself Julian had reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part.
He selected three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like their leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat; at the head of this faithful band, he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of the Marcian, or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the Danube; and, for many days, the fate of Julian was unknown to the world. The secrecy of his march, his diligence, and vigor, surmounted every obstacle; he forced his way over mountains and morasses, occupied the bridges or swam the rivers, pursued his direct course, without reflecting whether he traversed the territory of the Romans or of the Barbarians, and at length emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he designed to embark his troops on the Danube.
By a well-concerted stratagem, he seized a fleet of light brigantines, as it lay at anchor; secured a apply of coarse provisions sufficient to satisfy the indelicate, and voracious, appetite of a Gallic army; and boldly committed himself to the stream of the Danube.
The labors of the mariners, who plied their oars with incessant diligence, and the steady continuance of a favorable wind, carried his fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days; and he had already disembarked his troops at Bononia, only nineteen miles from Sirmium, before his enemies could receive any certain intelligence that he had left the banks of the Rhine. In the course of this long and rapid navigation, the mind of Julian was fixed on the object of his enterprise; and though he accepted the deputations of some cities, which hastened to claim the merit of an early submission, he passed before the hostile stations, which were placed along the river, without indulging the temptation of signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor.
The banks of the Danube were crowded on either side with spectators, who gazed on the military pomp, anticipated the importance of the event, and diffused through the adjacent country the fame of a young hero, who advanced with more than mortal speed at the head of the innumerable forces of the West. Lucilian, who, with the rank of general of the cavalry, commanded the military powers of Illyricum, was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful reports, which he could neither reject nor believe. He had taken some slow and irresolute measures for the purpose of collecting his troops, when he was surprised by Dagalaiphus, an active officer, whom Julian, as soon as he landed at Bononia, had pushed forwards with some light infantry.
The captive general, uncertain of his life or death, was hastily thrown upon a horse, and conducted to the presence of Julian; who kindly raised him from the ground, and dispelled the terror and amazement which seemed to stupefy his faculties. But Lucilian had no sooner recovered his spirits, than he betrayed his want of discretion, by presuming to admonish his conqueror that he had rashly ventured, with a handful of men, to expose his person in the midst of his enemies.
“Reserve for your master Constantius these timid remonstrances,” replied Julian, with a smile of contempt: “when I gave you my purple to kiss, I received you not as a counsellor, but as a suppliant.” Conscious that success alone could justify his attempt, and that boldness only could command success, he instantly advanced, at the head of three thousand soldiers, to attack the strongest and most populous city of the Illyrian provinces.
As he entered the long suburb of Sirmium, he was received by the joyful acclamations of the army and people; who, crowned with flowers, and holding lighted tapers in their hands, conducted their acknowledged sovereign to his Imperial residence. Two days were devoted to the public joy, which was celebrated by the games of the circus; but, early on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to occupy the narrow pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount Hæmus; which, almost in the midway between Sirmium and Constantinople, separates the provinces of Thrace and Dacia, by an abrupt descent towards the former, and a gentle declivity on the side of the latter.
The defence of this important post was intrusted to the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals of the Italian division, successfully executed the plan of the march and junction which their master had so ably conceived. The homage which Julian obtained, from the fears or the inclination of the people, extended far beyond the immediate effect of his arms. The præfectures of Italy and Illyricum were administered by Taurus and Florentius, who united that important office with the vain honors of the consulship; and as those magistrates had retired with precipitation to the court of Asia, Julian, who could not always restrain the levity of his temper, stigmatized their flight by adding, in all the Acts of the Year, the epithet of fugitive to the names of the two consuls.
The provinces which had been deserted by their first magistrates acknowledged the authority of an emperor, who, conciliating the qualities of a soldier with those of a philosopher, was equally admired in the camps of the Danube and in the cities of Greece. From his palace, or, more properly, from his head-quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he distributed to the principal cities of the empire, a labored apology for his own conduct; published the secret despatches of Constantius; and solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors, the one of whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the Barbarians. Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded by the reproach of ingratitude, aspired to maintain, by argument as well as by arms, the superior merits of his cause; and to excel, not only in the arts of war, but in those of composition.
His epistle to the senate and people of Athens seems to have been dictated by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to submit his actions and his motives to the degenerate Athenians of his own times, with the same humble deference as if he had been pleading, in the days of Aristides, before the tribunal of the Areopagus.
His application to the senate of Rome, which was still permitted to bestow the titles of Imperial power, was agreeable to the forms of the expiring republic. An assembly was summoned by Tertullus, præfect of the city; the epistle of Julian was read; and, as he appeared to be master of Italy his claims were admitted without a dissenting voice. His oblique censure of the innovations of Constantine, and his passionate invective against the vices of Constantius, were heard with less satisfaction; and the senate, as if Julian had been present, unanimously exclaimed, “Respect, we beseech you, the author of your own fortune.”
An artful expression, which, according to the chance of war, might be differently explained; as a manly reproof of the ingratitude of the usurper, or as a flattering confession, that a single act of such benefit to the state ought to atone for all the failings of Constantius. The intelligence of the march and rapid progress of Julian was speedily transmitted to his rival, who, by the retreat of Sapor, had obtained some respite from the Persian war. Disguising the anguish of his soul under the semblance of contempt, Constantius professed his intention of returning into Europe, and of giving chase to Julian; for he never spoke of his military expedition in any other light than that of a hunting party.
In the camp of Hierapolis, in Syria, he communicated this design to his army; slightly mentioned the guilt and rashness of the Cæsar; and ventured to assure them, that if the mutineers of Gaul presumed to meet them in the field, they would be unable to sustain the fire of their eyes, and the irresistible weight of their shout of onset.
The speech of the emperor was received with military applause, and Theodotus, the president of the council of Hierapolis, requested, with tears of adulation, that his city might be adorned with the head of the vanquished rebel. A chosen detachment was despatched away inpost-wagons, to secure, if it were yet possible, the pass of Succi; the recruits, the horses, the arms, and the magazines, which had been prepared against Sapor, were appropriated to the service of the civil war; and the domestic victories of Constantius inspired his partisans with the most sanguine assurances of success.
The notary Gaudentius had occupied in his name the provinces of Africa; the subsistence of Rome was intercepted; and the distress of Julian was increased by an unexpected event, which might have been productive of fatal consequences. Julian had received the submission of two legions and a cohort of archers, who were stationed at Sirmium; but he suspected, with reason, the fidelity of those troops which had been distinguished by the emperor; and it was thought expedient, under the pretence of the exposed state of the Gallic frontier, to dismiss them from the most important scene of action.
They advanced, with reluctance, as far as the confines of Italy; but as they dreaded the length of the way, and the savage fierceness of the Germans, they resolved, by the instigation of one of their tribunes, to halt at Aquileia, and to erect the banners of Constantius on the walls of that impregnable city.
The vigilance of Julian perceived at once the extent of the mischief, and the necessity of applying an immediate remedy. By his order, Jovinus led back apart of the army into Italy; and the siege of Aquileia was formed with diligence, and prosecuted with vigor. But the legionaries, who seemed to have rejected the yoke of discipline, conducted the defence of the place with skill and perseverance; invited the rest of Italy to imitate the example of their courage and loyalty; and threatened the retreat of Julian, if he should be forced to yield to the superior numbers of the armies of the East.
But the humanity of Julian was preserved from the cruel alternative which he pathetically laments, of destroying or of being himself destroyed: and the seasonable death of Constantius delivered the Roman empire from the calamities of civil war.
The approach of winter could not detain the monarch at Antioch; and his favorites durst not oppose his impatient desire of revenge. A slight fever, which was perhaps occasioned by the agitation of his spirits, was increased by the fatigues of the journey; and Constantius was obliged to halt at the little town of Mopsucrene, twelve miles beyond Tarsus, where he expired, after a short illness, in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fourth of his reign. His genuine character, which was composed of pride and weakness, of superstition and cruelty, has been fully displayed in the preceding narrative of civil and ecclesiastical events.
The long abuse of power rendered him a considerable object in the eyes of his contemporaries; but as personal merit can alone deserve the notice of posterity, the last of the sons of Constantine may be dismissed from the world, with the remark, that he inherited the defects, without the abilities, of his father. Before Constantius expired, he is said to have named Julian for his successor; nor does it seem improbable, that his anxious concern for the fate of a young and tender wife, whom he left with child, may have prevailed, in his last moments, over the harsher passions of hatred and revenge.
Eusebius, and his guilty associates, made a faint attempt to prolong the reign of the eunuchs, by the election of another emperor; but their intrigues were rejected with disdain, by an army which now abhorred the thought of civil discord; and two officers of rank were instantly despatched, to assure Julian, that every sword in the empire would be drawn for his service. The military designs of that prince, who had formed three different attacks against Thrace, were prevented by this fortunate event. Without shedding the blood of his fellow-citizens, he escaped the dangers of a doubtful conflict, and acquired the advantages of a complete victory. Impatient to visit the place of his birth, and the new capital of the empire, he advanced from Naissus through the mountains of Hæmus, and the cities of Thrace.
When he reached Heraclea, at the distance of sixty miles, all Constantinople was poured forth to receive him; and he made his triumphal entry amidst the dutiful acclamations of the soldiers, the people, and the senate. At innumerable multitude pressed around him with eager respect and were perhaps disappointed when they beheld the small stature and simple garb of a hero, whose unexperienced youth had vanquished the Barbarians of Germany, and who had now traversed, in a successful career, the whole continent of Europe, from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Bosphorus.
A few days afterwards, when the remains of the deceased emperor were landed in the harbor, the subjects of Julian applauded the real or affected humanity of their sovereign. On foot, without his diadem, and clothed in a mourning habit, he accompanied the funeral as far as the church of the Holy Apostles, where the body was deposited: and if these marks of respect may be interpreted as a selfish tribute to the birth and dignity of his Imperial kinsman, the tears of Julian professed to the world that he had forgot the injuries, and remembered only the obligations, which he had received from Constantius.
As soon as the legions of Aquileia were assured of the death of the emperor, they opened the gates of the city, and, by the sacrifice of their guilty leaders, obtained an easy pardon from the prudence or lenity of Julian; who, in the thirty-second year of his age, acquired the undisputed possession of the Roman empire.
For two weeks Penny concerned himself with the salvaging of crops. The sweet potatoes were not ready, by two months, for digging. But they were rotting and would be a total loss if they were not dug. Jody worked long hours at them.
The smell of death lay everywhere.
Penny said uneasily, “Somethin’s wrong. That stink’s due to be done with. Things is yit dyin’.”
A month after the flood, in October, he returned with Jody in the wagon beside him to Mullet Prairie to gather the cut and cured hay. Rip and Julia trotted along behind the wagon. Penny allowed Flag, too, to follow for he had begun to make a great commotion whenever he was shut up and left behind in the shed.
(Chechar’s note: But even so they continued to hunt deers…)
Penny stopped the wagon and took up his gun and went with Jody over the fence to the dogs. A buck deer lay in the corner. It shook its head, making a menacing motion with its horns. Penny lifted his gun, then lowered it.
“Now that buck’s sick, too.”
He approached close and the deer did not move. Its tongue lolled. Julia and Rip were in a frenzy. They could not understand the refusal of live game either to run or to fight.
“No use to waste shot.”
He took his knife from its scabbard and went to the deer and slit its throat. It died with the quiet of a thing to whom death is only one short step beyond a present misery. He drove off the dogs and examined it carefully. Its tongue was black and swollen. Its eyes were red and watery. It was as thin as the dying wild-cat.
He said, “This is worse’n I figgered. A plague has hit the wild creeturs. Hit’s the black tongue.”
Jody had heard of human plagues. The wild animals had always seemed to him to be charmed, and beyond all human ills. A creature died in the chase, or when another creature, more powerful, pounced and destroyed. Death in the scrub was clean and violent, never a slow sickness and lingering. He stared down at the dead deer.
He said, “We’ll not eat it, will we?”
Penny shook his head.
“Tain’t fitten.”
The dogs were sniffing farther down the fence-row. Julia barked again. Penny looked after her. A pile of carcasses lay in a heap. Two old bucks and a yearling had died together. Jody had seldom seen his father’s face so grave. Penny examined the plague-killed deer and turned away without speaking. Death seemed to have appeared wholesale out of the air.
“What done it, Pa? What kilt ’em?”
Again Penny shook his head.
“I’ve never knowed what give the black tongue. Mebbe hit’s the flood water, full o’ dead things, has got pizenous.”
A fear shot through Jody like a hot knife.
“Pa–Flag. He’ll not get it, will he?”
“Son, I’ve told you all I know.”
Penny said, “I hope you do a heap of it, for the flood’s done you outen a teacher. The Forresters and me had it settled to board a teacher between us for you and Fodder-wing this winter. When Fodder-wing died, I still figgered I’d do some trappin’ and git cash money that-a-way. But the creeturs is so scarcet now and the hides so pore, hit’s no use.”
This is the image that my dad showed me when I was a kid. He told me that the illustration was beautiful as it reflected how a dad taught his son with a loving mother in the background (with very, very different words of course).
Jody said comfortingly, “That’s all right. I know a heap now.”
“That jest proves your ignorance, young feller. I do hate for you to grow up and not know nothin’. You’ll jest have to make out this year with what leetle I kin learn you.”