emperor was welcomed as "the sweetest tempered of sovereigus," and greeted with the complimentary acclamation, "Reign as you have lived."[1] Unfortunately an immaculate character even when joined to an amiable disposition will not secure success in a ruler who lacks discernment and vigour. The emperor's spirit of toleration was intolerable to a society which clamours for violent polemics. Gradually he was driven to lean more and more to the Monophysite side. Wild stories were told of how monks and priests, archimandrites and patriarchs, behaved like dancing dervishes round the old man, some shouting "Anathema to the council of Chalcedon!" others, "Anathema to Eutyches—to Zeno—to Acacius!"
Constantinople now became a centre of frequent disturbances. The symbol of the Monophysites was Peter's addition to the Trisagion, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty," consisting of the phrase, "Who was crucified for us." When this full sentence was sung in the great Basilica the Catholic party shouted the Trisagion in its original shorter form. Soon the opponents came to blows and the quarrel spread to the streets. The orthodox party carried about the head of a Monophysite monk on a pole, crying, "See the head of an enemy of the Trinity"; they flung down the statues of Anastasius, burnt the houses of the two prefects, and received the emperor's emissaries with a shower of stones. The next day they rushed into the circus to see the aged man—now eighty-one years old—seated on his throne without either purple robe or diadem. Not having strength of voice to make himself heard in that wild, seething mob of excited people, he proclaimed his readiness to abdicate. Touched by the pathetic sight of their feeble, humiliated emperor, the people accepted some vague assurance that he would respect the faith of Chalcedon. But Anastasius was now in the hands of the Monophysites, and even after this pitiable scene he was driven to demand an anathema on the council of Chalcedon from the bishops. Since they refused, all over the East,
- ↑ See Gibbon, chap. xxxv.; Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. vi. 472–652.
