Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/414

378 will never again set eyes on that ungrateful city! When I have conquered I will return by way of Tarsus.

[He goes up to the soothsayers.

Numa,—what omens for our campaign do you find this morning?

The omens warn you not to pass the frontier of your empire this year.

H'm! How read you this omen, Maximus?

I read it thus: the omen counsels you to subdue all the regions you traverse; thus you will never pass the frontier of your empire.

So is it. We must look closely into such supernatural signs; for there is wont to be a double meaning in them. It even seems at times as if mysterious powers took a delight in leading men astray, especially in great undertakings. Were there not some who held it an evil omen that the colonnade in Hierapolis fell in and buried half a hundred soldiers, just as we marched through the city? But I say that that is a presage of a twofold good. In the first place it foreshows the downfall of Persia, and in the second place the doom of the unhappy Galileans. For what soldiers were they who were killed? Why, Galilean convict-soldiers, who went most unwillingly to the war; and therefore fate decreed them that sudden and inglorious end.