"Is the matter so far advanced ?" "I mean the army of the future," cried Olympius enthusiastically.

"It does not count a man as yet, but is already distributed into several legions.

The vigor of mind and body--our learned youth on one hand and strong-armed peasantry on the other--form the nucleus of our force.
Maximus could collect, in the utmost haste, the army which deprived Gratian of his throne and life, and was within a Hair-breadth of overthrowing Theodosius; and what was he but an ambitious rebel, and what tempted his followers but their hopes of a share in the booty?
But we--we enlist them in the name of the loftiest ideas and warmest desires of the human heart, and, as the prize of victory, we show them the ancient faith with freedom of thought--the ancient loveliness of life.
The beings whom the Christians can win over--a patch-work medley of loathsome Barbarians--let them wear out their lives as they choose! We are Greeks--the thinking brain, the subtle and sentient soul of the world.

The polity, the empire, that we shall found on the overthrow of Theodosius and of Rome shall be Hellenic, purely Hellenic.

The old national spirit, which made the Greeks omnipotent against the millions of Darius and Xerxes, shall live again, and we will keep the Barbarians at a distance as a Patrician forbids his inferiors to count themselves as belonging to his illustrious house.