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Is he more dangerous than even that mysterious Maximus?

Maximus? Do not speak of that mountebank. Who knows anything certain of Maximus?

He avers that he has slept three years in a cave beyond Jordan.

Hekebolius holds him an impostor, and doubtless he is not far wrong

No, no, Agathon—Libanius is the most dangerous. Our sinful earth has writhed, as it were, under this scourge. Portents foretold his coming. A pestilential sickness slew men by thousands in the city. And then, when it was over, in the month of November, fire rained from heaven night by night Nay, do not doubt it, Agathon! I have myself seen the stars break from their spheres, plunge down towards earth, and burn out on the way.

Since then he has lectured here, the philosopher, the orator. All proclaim him the king of eloquence; and well they may. I tell you he is terrible. Youths and men flock around him; he binds their souls in bonds, so that they must follow him; denial flows seductively from his lips, like songs of the Trojans and the Greeks

[In terror.] Oh, you too have sought him Julian!