the empire in the throes of dissolution, for an explanation of the abominations that now accompanied the theological quarrels of monks and clergy. The squat, savage Huns from the East—the yellow peril of the empire, and the rough, vigorous Teutons from the North—its real salvation, were now pouring over the rich fields of southern and western Europe. At the same time the helplessness of the legionaries, due to their numerical impoverishment in the dwindling population of the provinces, that was waiting for the fresh blood of a new healthy stock, had left the cities a prey to the worst elements of society. In some respects Alexandria and Antioch, and occasionally even Constantinople, were now like Paris at the time of the Revolution. Men came to the front who in more settled times would never have been heard of; inhuman deeds were done which revealed the conscious corruption of an old civilisation as more cruel, more foul, more bestial than the unabashed habitude of primitive barbarism.
The Emperor Marcian had forcibly upheld the decisions of the council of Chalcedon by forbidding the Eutychians to hold meetings, to ordain clergy, or to build churches or monasteries. But to silence an obnoxious party is not to convert it. The death of the emperor, in January 457, was the signal for an outbreak of violence by the followers of Dioscurus against his successor Proterius and the orthodox Alexandrians. Timothy, nicknamed Ælurus—"the Cat"—one of the presbyters of Dioscurus, who had been deposed and banished to Lybia, now returned secretly to Alexandria, and crept about at night, cat-like, visiting the cells of ignorant monks. On being asked who he was, he would answer, "I am an angel sent to warn you to break off communion with Proterius, and to choose Timothy as bishop."[1] Unfortunately Proterius had behaved like a tyrant, and had only held his position by the aid of a guard of 2,000 soldiers, so that Timothy had no difficulty in gathering a following from the indignant populace as well as from the monks. Towards the end of Lent, with the support of these
