and Libanius. ii. 164.

committed abominations without number. They thought it an act of piety to spurn reverence for the Divine. For anyone who liked to put a black coat upon his back, and a sour look upon his face, could lord it like a tyrant. . . . So they settled these monks about Canopus, and degraded men to worship slaves and reprobates instead of the Gods of a reasonable service. For they gathered up the heads of those who had been put to death as malefactors for their many crimes, and pointed to them as their Gods, and rolled themselves in the dirt beside their tombs. At least they called them martyrs, and ministers or ambassadors in their prayers to Heaven, though they were but sorry slaves and whippingstocks, who carried on their bodies the scars of blows which they had richly merited.'

Libanius also, in another country, vents his indignation in no measured terms. "This blackcoated gentry, who are more ravenous than elephants, and drink so often as to weary out the patience of the congregations who have to chaunt meantime at every draught, though they disguise their habits by the artificial pallor of their faces-these in defiance of existing laws hurry to attack the temples, some with staves and stones and steel, others even with fisticuffs and kicks. They fall an easy prey, the roofs are stripped, the walls hurled down, the statues

dragged away, the altars overthrown. The priests must hold their peace or die. When one is ruined they hurry to a second or a third, and pile fresh trophies in defiance of the law. Such acts of daring occur even in the cities, but far more in the country. ... So they sweep like winter-torrents through the land, making havoc of it for the temples' sake.' He goes on to describe the consternation of the country folks, robbed of the objects of their reverence, and of all their hopes of divine favour and protection. If the poor wretches thus despoiled betake themselves with their complaints to the pastor in the city,—for pastor they call some worthless guide,—he only praises the ill-doers, and drives away the sufferers with the taunt that they are lucky in not having been treated even worse. Yet they are the working bees who suffer, while the others are the drones.'

...

These blows were fatal, not to the temples only, but also to the schools of Athens, which were linked

The

schools of

Athens

suffered

downfall of

as also

greater

so closely to the associations of religion. Two other from the influences also largely tended to complete their Paganism, downfall. One was the ascendancy which legal from the studies now were gaining, and the consequent attraction of the Universities of Rome and Berytus, in which they mainly flourished. Libanius often vents his spleen at such unbecoming rivalry. In old days,' he says, 'the experts in the law stood in court

K

popularity of legal and Latin

studies.

Lib. i. 186. humbly looking to the orator, and waiting till he

said "read the clauses for me; now even the scriveners fill the highest posts.' Still more potent was the change of fashion by which the Roman tongue and Roman letters were brought once more into special favour. Even the influence of the court at Constantinople was used in that direction, and Latin was still the language of the ruling powers. Lib. i. 143. The same writer tells us of his fears that his favourite studies would be soon suppressed by law; and though this indeed was not the case, yet they had been effectually degraded by the prizes and encouragements awarded to their rival. Soon the Greek Church, which he thought his most formidable foe, would have to gather what was falling from the Sophists' hands, and preserve the heritage of the old Hellenic culture.

The old city still attracted literary pilgrims, as Synesius

tells us ;

Ep. 54.

6

The complaints become more numerous as time goes on; the schools of rhetoric are fast declining, and the schoolmen's trade is nearly gone. For a few years, in the case of Athens, the magni nominis umbra' powerfully affects the imagination of the learned, and towards the close even of the fourth century Synesius satirically notes the airs assumed by those who had made a pilgrimage to the old city. They are only mortals after all, and like ourselves; they do not understand Plato or Aristotle better than

6

but he

speaks with

contempt of

the studies carried on

there.

we do, yet they think of themselves as demigods among a set of mules, so proud are they of having looked on the Academy and Lyceum, and the Porch where Zenon reasoned.' He came, indeed, himself to Ep. 136. Athens, but only to be more convinced that such a pilgrimage was idle folly. There is nothing here of note,' he wrote, 'except the local names which are renowned. As the skin of the beast that has been killed and eaten is the sign of its past life, so now that philosophy is dead and gone there is nothing left for me but to roam about and gaze with curious eyes on the Academy, the Lyceum, and the painted Porch, which gave its name to the system of Chrysippus, but which is no more painted, now that the Governor has carried off the pictures, in which the Thasian Polygnotus stored his art. In our own days Egypt fosters the germs of life, which she has gathered from Hypatia. Athens was once the home of sages; now-a-days its only credit comes from the keepers of its beehives. So is it with the learned pair of Plutarch's school, who win their youthful hearers, not by the reputation of their lectures, but by the attractions of the wine-jars of Hymettus.'

Yet to the fancy of the pious Pagans the powers To pious of Heaven still watched with favouring care over the

old city which had worshipped them so fondly and so long. In the earthquake which shook all Greece, in

eyes heaven

still seemed

to watch

over the city;

as when

Alaric attacked her. Eunap.

Maximi.

the reign of Valens, Athens alone escaped by special grace, if Zosimus be trusted. A still more marked deliverance is recorded by the same historian, when Alaric led his northmen to the south, and swept over the undefended country. He made his way through the narrow passage of Thermopyla, betrayed to him by the governor Gerontius, or, as Eunapius will have it, by the monks, and appeared before the walls of Athens, which were likely to fall an easy prey. But Providence then stayed his hand by marvellous portents. He saw Athena, the tutelary goddess, walking in armour on the walls, as if ready to beat off assailants. He saw Achilles in heroic posture, as Homer showed him to the Trojans when he fought against them so furiously to avenge the slaughter of Zosimus v. Patroclus.' So Alaric forbore to press the siege, and offered favourable terms; and, thanks to the protec

6.

tion of the gods, Athens escaped almost unscathed. Her schools However that might be, we hear no more of schools

of rhetoric

disap

peared,

of rhetoric and Sophists at the ancient University; the studious youth repaired to it no longer, though a few philosophers, driven perhaps from Alexandria and only a by religious riots, sought for awhile a haven of few Neoplatonic philo- refuge in the quiet scenes that once were thronged

sophers remained

there;

with strangers.

They were members of that school of Plutarch which Synesius spoke of mockingly, though, Christian