The Emperor grew pale and turned away. None of the riders round him uttered a word, all being aware that the omen was an evil one. In the town of Tarsus in Cilicia, Constantius had shivering fits and felt weakness, but he paid them no attention nor consulted leeches, believing that riding in the hot sun over the steep mountains would produce reaction and relief.
He rode towards the little town of Mopsucrenam at the foot of Mount Tarsus, the last halting-place before crossing the Cilician border.
On the way he suffered several times from violent giddiness, which obliged him to dismount and lie down in a litter. Subsequently the eunuch Eusebius tells how, when lying in the palanquin, the Emperor took from his bosom and tenderly kissed a precious stone on which was engraven the profile of the late Empress Eusebia Aurelia.
At one of the cross-roads he asked whither one of the ways led, and when he was told to the abandoned palace of the kings of Cappadocia, at Macellum, his brow clouded. Mopsucrenam was reached at night-fall. Constantius was weary and full of gloom. Hardly had he entered the house which had been prepared when one of the courtiers, against the command of Eusebius, thoughtlessly announced to the Emperor that two couriers from the southern provinces were awaiting him.
Constantius ordered them to be admitted, in spite of the supplications of Eusebius, his favourite chamberlain, who advised him to postpone business till the morrow. The Emperor declared that he felt better, and suffered from nothing but a slight pain at the nape of his neck.
The first courier, trembling and livid, was ushered in.
"Tell me all, immediately!" exclaimed Constantius, dismayed at the man's expression.
The courier then narrated the audacious movements of Julian, who, before the assembled army, had torn up the Imperial rescript. Gaul, Pannonia, Aquitania, had submitted to Julian, and the traitorous army was advancing to encounter Constantius, with all the legions to be gathered from those provinces.
The Emperor stood up, his face disfigured by fury, and, seizing the messenger by the throat, shook him.
"You lie, caitiff! You lie! You lie!... There is still a God in heaven to shield the kings of the earth ...and He will not permit, do you understand!... Fools!... He will not permit...."