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This king raised banks at the eastern parts of the city, and enlarged it; he also joined the temple of Jupiter Olympius, which stood before in an island by itself, to the city, by raising a causeway between them, and adorned that temple with donations of gold. He moreover went up to Libanus, and had timber cut down for the building of temples.
In the dead of night, Olympius, it is said, was awe-stricken by the sound of a clear voice chanting among the arches and pillars the Christian Alleluia. Either accepting, like a heathen, the omen, or fearing a secret assassin, he escaped from the temple and fled for his life. On the arrival of the rescript of Theodosius the pagans laid down their arms, little expecting the orders of the emperor.
We have often disputed over the death of Cato you disapproving and I approving it. Now I follow his example. Look there is enough for us both." He hastily put the phial to his mouth, and part of the liquid had passed his lips before Olympius understood the situation and seized his arm.
But after pillaging temples, and seeing numbers of nations and slaughters, many ultimately ceased to believe in anything but destiny and death; and every evening these would fall asleep with the placidity of wild beasts. Spendius had spit upon the images of Jupiter Olympius; nevertheless he dreaded to speak aloud in the dark, nor did he fail every day to put on his right boot first.
If Olympius were to triumph in the struggle she might go to her lover and say: "Do you remain a Christian, and leave me the creed of my childhood, or else open my heart to yours." But, as matters now stood, her first duty was to quell her passion and retrain faithful to the end, even though the cause were lost.
She was the pride of his life, and as he heard his own convictions echoed in her childish prattle, and later in her conversation and exquisite singing, he was grateful to his mother and to his friend Olympius who had implanted and cherished these feelings in his daughter.
Karnis so the steward informed her had withdrawn to the temple of Serapis with his son, intending to assist in its defence; and Herse had accompanied them, for Olympius had said that women would be found useful in the beleaguered sanctuary, in preparing food for the combatants and in nursing the wounded. Dada stood looking at their floating home, utterly disappointed and discouraged.
When he landed at Peloponnesus, he went into the temple of Jupiter Olympius, and disrobed his statue of a golden mantle of great weight, an ornament which the tyrant Gelo had given out of the spoils of the Carthaginians, and at the same time, in a jesting manner, he said "that a golden mantle was too heavy in summer and too cold in winter;" and then, throwing a woollen cloak over the statue, added, "This will serve for all seasons."
Olympius had entrusted the command of the little garrison of armed men to Memnon, a veteran legate of great experience, who had lost his left arm in the war against the Goths.
"You would stake them on the future Greek Empire," said Olympius eagerly. "And we have adherents without number who feel as you do, my trusty friend. We shall succeed as the great Julian would have succeeded but for the assassins who laid him low at so early an age; for Rome..." "Rome is still powerful."
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