Chap, xxxvi] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 35 personages of the empire, till he wisely preferred the more respectable character of a bishop and a saint. 84 The Greeks ambitiously commend the piety and catholic The faith of the emperor whom they gave to the West ; nor do they the Luper- forget to observe that, when he left Constantinople, he converted his palace into the pious foundation of a public bath, a church, and an hospital for old men. 8 " Yet some suspicious appearances are found to sully the theological fame of Anthemius. From the conversation of Philotheus, a Macedonian sectary, he had imbibed the spirit of religious toleration ; and the heretics of Eome would have assembled with impunity, if the bold and vehement censure which pope Hilary pronounced in the church of St. Peter had not obliged him to abjure the unpopular in- dulgence. 86 Even the Pagans, a feeble and obscure remnant, conceived some vain hopes from the indifference or partiality of Anthemius ; and his singular friendship for the philosopher Severus, whom he promoted to the consulship, was ascribed to a secret project of reviving the ancient worship of the gods. 87 These idols were crumbled into dust, and the mythology which had once been the creed of nations was so universally disbelieved that it might be employed without scandal, or at least without suspicion, by Christian poets. 88 Yet the vestiges of superstition were not absolutely obliterated, and the festival of the Luper- calia, whose origin had preceded the foundation of Eome, was still celebrated under the reign of Anthemius. The savage and 84 Sidonius (1. i. epist. 9, 23, 24) very fairly states his motive, his labour, and his reward. " Hio ipse Panegyricus, si [leg. etsi] non judicium, certe eventum, boni operis aceepit." He was made bishop of Clermont, a.d. 471 [or 472], Tillemont, Mem. Eccl^s. torn. xvi. p. 750. 85 The palace of Anthemius stood on the banks of the Propontis. In the ninth century, Alexius, the son-in-law of the emperor Theophilus, obtained permission to purchase the ground ; and ended his days in a monastery which he founded on that delightful spot. Ducange, Constantinopolis Christiana, pp. 117, 152. 86 Papa Hilarus . . . apud beatum Petrum Apostolum, palam ne id fieret, clara voce constrinxit, in tantum ut non ea facienda cum interpositione juramenti idem promitteret Imperator. Gelasius, Epistol. ad Andronicum, apud Baron, a.d. 467, No. 2. The cardinal observes, with some complacenoy, that it was much easier to plant heretics at Constantinople than at Eome. 87 Damascius, in the life of the philosopher Isidore, apud Photium, p. 1049 [340]. Damascius, who lived under Justinian, composed another work, consisting of 570 preternatural stories of souls, dromons, apparitions, the dotage of Platonic Paganism. 88 In the poetical works of Sidonius, which he afterwards condemned (1. ix. epist. 16, p. 285), the fabulous deities are the principal actors. If Jerom was scourged by the angels for only reading Virgil, the bishop of Clermont, for such a vile imitation, deserved an additional whipping from the Muses.
