446 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, nicated the subordinate tyrants, who were not invested ^^' with the majesty of the purple. St. Athanasius ex- communicated one of the ministers of Egypt ; and the interdict which he pronounced, of fire and water, was solemnly transmitted to the churches of Cappadocia ^. Under the reign of the younger Theodosius, the polite and eloquent Synesius, one of the descendants of Her- cules ^, filled the episcopal seat of Ptolemais, near the ruins of ancient Cyrene**; and the philosophic bishop supported with dignity the character which he had assumed with reluctance ^ He vanquished the monster of Libya, the president Andronicus, who abused the authority of a venal office, invented new modes of rapine and torture, and aggravated the guilt of oppres- sion by that of sacrilege '*. After a fruitless attempt to reclaim the haughty magistrate by mild and rehgious
- Basil, Epistol. xlvii. in Baionius, (Annal. Eccles. A. D, 370, N". 91.)
who declares, that he purposely relates it to convince governors that they were not exempt from a sentence of excommunication. In his opinion, even a royal head is not safe from the thunders of the Vatican ; and the cardinal shows himself much more consistent than the lawyers and theologians of the Gallican church. •' The long series of his ancestors, as high as Eurysthenes, the first Doric king of Sparta, and the fifth in lineal descent from Hercules, was inscribed in the public registers of Cyrene, a Lacedaemonian colony. Synes. Epist. Ivii. p. 197. edit. Petav. Such a pure and illustrious pedigree of seven- teen hundred years, without adding the royal ancestors of Hercules, cannot be equalled in the history of mankind. Synesius (de Regno, p. 2.) pathetically deplores the fallen and ruined state of Cyrene : 7r6i£ 'EWrj^ng, TraXaiov ovofia Kctl ffifivov, Kai iv (^Si) ixvp'ia Twv TTciXai aocpwv vvv TrkvrjQ Kai KaTijfr)^, Kai fttya tptiTrioi'. Ptolemais, a new city, eighty-two miles to the westward of Cyrene, assumed the metropolitan honours of the Pentapolis, or Upper Libya, which were afterward transferred to Sozusa. See Wesseling, Itinerar. p. 67, 68. 73'2. ; Cellarius, Geograph. tom. ii. part ii. p. 72. 74. Carolus a Sancto Paulo, Geograph. Sacra, p. 273; d'Anville, Geographic Ancienne, tom. iii. p. 43, 44 ; Memoires de I'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xxxvii. p. 363 — 391. ■^ Synesius had previously represented his own disqualifications. Epist. c. v. p. 246—250. He loved profane studies and profane sports; he was incapable of supporting a life of celibacy ; he disbelieved the resurrection: and he refused to preach/aft/es to the people, unless he might be permitted to philosophize at home. I'heophilus, primate of Egypt, who knew his merit, accepted this extraordinary compromise. See the life of Synesius in 'J'iilemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 499—554. ■^ See the invective of Synesius, Epist. Ivii. p. 191 — 201. The promo- tion of Andronicus was illegal ; since he was a native of Berenice, in the same province. The instruments of torture are curiously specified, the TTUffrijpiov, or press, the SciKri^tjOpa, the TTo^oarpdfii], the pii'oXrt/Sif, the ujTciypa, and the ^^ftXoorpo^ioi', that variously pressed or distended the fingers, the feet, the nose, the ears, and the lips of the victims.
