The Death of the Gods

The Arian basilica of St. Maurice was built almost entirely of blocks taken from the ruined temple of Apollo. The sacred court, the _atrium_, was surrounded by colonnades. In the middle of this court murmured a fountain, placed there for the ablutions of the faithful. Under one of the side porticoes lay an ancient oaken tomb darkened with age; and in this tomb were the wonder-working bones of St. Mamas, for which Eutropius had obliged Julian and Gallus themselves to build a stone-work shrine. The task of Gallus, who took to it as to a game, went rapidly forward, while the wall of Julian frequently crumbled and proved oddly unsatisfactory; a phenomenon which Eutropius explained by remarking that St. Mamas refused the offering of children possessed by the demon of pride.

The halt, the maimed, the sick, and the blind, expectant of miracle, thronged near the tomb. Julian understood why they stationed themselves here. One of the monks used to hold a pair of balances; the pilgrims -- some of them come from hamlets many leagues away -- weighed with scrupulous care pieces of linen, woollen stuff, or silk; and having laid them on the tomb of St. Mamas, would fall to praying all night. At daylight the stuff was weighed over again, and the weight compared with the weight on the previous day. If the texture proved heavier, it was declared that the prayer had been answered, that the divine mercy, like dew, had soaked into the stuff and rendered it capable of producing all manner of marvellous cures.