Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/153

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 131 of Constantinople was devoid of any rational principles of free- dom ; but they held, as a lawful cause of rebellion, the colour of a livery in the races, or the colour of a mystery in the schools. The Trisagion, with and without this obnoxious addition, was chanted in the cathedral by two adverse choirs, and, when their lungs were exhausted, they had recourse to the more solid argu- ments of sticks and stones ; the aggressors were punished by the emperor, and defended by the patriarch ; and the crown and mitre were staked on the event of this momentous quarrel. The streets were instantly crowded with innumerable swarms of men, women, and children ; the legions of monks, in regular array, marched and shouted, and fought at their head. " Chris- tians ! this is the day of martyrdom ; let us not desert our spiritual father ; anathema to the Manicha;an tyrant i he is unworthy to reign." Such was the Catholic cry ; and the galleys of Anastasius lay upon their oars before the palace, till the patriarch had pardoned his penitent and hushed the waves of the troubled multitude. The triumph of Macedonius was[A.D. 512] checked by a speedy exile ; but the zeal of his flock was again exasperated by the same question, " Whether one of the Trinity had been crucified.^" On this momentous occasion the blue and green factions of Constantinople suspended their discord, and the civil and military powers were annihilated in their presence. The keys of the city and the standards of the guards were deposited in the forum of Constantine, the pi'incipal station and camp of the faithful. Day and night they were in- cessantly busied either in singing hymns to the honour of their God or in pillaging and murdering the servants of their prince. The head of his favourite monk, the friend, as they styled him, of the enemy of the Holy Trinity, was borne aloft on a spear ; and the firebrands, which had been darted against heretical structures, diffused the undistinguishing flames over the most orthodox buildings. The statues of the emperor were broken, and his person was concealed in a suburb, till, at the end of three days, he dared to implore the mercy of his subjects. Without his diadem and in the posture of a suppliant, Anastasius appeared on the throne of the circus. The Catholics, before his face, rehearsed their genuine Trisagion ; they exulted in the offer which he proclaimed by the voice of a herald of abdicating the purple ; they listened to the admonition that, since all could in the time of Baronius, his critic Pagi is more copious, as well as more correct. [On the church parties of the time see H. Gelzer, Josua Stylites und die damaligen kirchlichen Parteien des Ostens, in Byz. Zeitschrift, i. p. 34 sqq., 1892.]