And smite the mocking Christians down!"

Everything that opposed their progress was overthrown. Two maniples
of foot-soldiers who held the high-road across the Bruchium attempted
to turn them, but the advance of the inflamed young warriors was
irresistible and they reached the street of the Caesareum and the square
in front of the Prefect's residence. Here they paused to sing the last
lines of their battlesong:

"Fate seeks the coward out at home,
He dies unwept, unknown to fame,
While by the hero's honored tomb
Our grandsons' grandsons sliall proclaim:
'In the great conflict's fiercest hour
He stood unmoved, our shield and tower.'"

It was here, at the wide opening into the square, that the collision took
place: on one side the handsome youths, crowned with garlands, with their
noble Greek type of heads, thoughtful brows, perfumed curls, and anointed
limbs exercised in the gymnasium--on the other the sinister fanatics in
sheep-skin, ascetic visionaries grown grey in fasting, scourging, and
self-denial.

The monks now prepared to meet the onset of the young enthusiasts who
were fighting for freedom of thought and enquiry, for Art and Beauty.
Each side was defending what it felt to be the highest Good, each was
equally in earnest as to its convictions, both fought for something
dearer and more precious than this earthly span of existence. But the
philosophers' party had swords; the monks' sole weapon was the scourge,
and they were accustomed to ply that, not on each other but on their own