rioters, who had been committed to prison for throwing stones inside the arena, should be liberated. The Emperor refused, a tumult arose, and the Imperial guards were ordered to arrest the apparent instigators of the disorder. Stones were immediately flung at Anastasius himself, who only escaped injury or death by his precipitate flight from the Kathisma. The mob then set fire to the wooden benches of the Hippodrome, and a conflagration ensued, which consumed part of the Imperial Palace in one direction, and ravaged a large tract of the city as far as the Forum of Constantine on the other.[1] Again in 512, when the Emperor, yielding to his heretical tendencies to confound the persons of the Trinity, proclaimed that in future the Trisagion[2] should be chanted with the addition "Who wast crucified for us," the populace rose in a fury, set fire to the houses of many persons who were obnoxious to them, decapitated a monk suspected of suggesting the heresy, and, marching through the streets with his head upon a pole, demanded that "another Emperor should be given to the Romans." Anastasius, affrighted, rushed into the Hippodrome without his crown, and protested his willingness to abdicate the purple. The spectacle, however, of their Emperor in such an abject state appeased the excited throng, and, on the withdrawal of the offensive phrase, peace was restored to the community.[3]
- ↑ Jn. Malala, xvi, p. 394; Chron. Pasch., an. 498.
- ↑ Sc., "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, pity us!" said to have been the song of the angels as heard by a boy who was drawn up to heaven and let down again in the reign of the younger Theodosius; Menologion Graec., i, p. 67, etc.
- ↑ Evagrius, iii, 32; Jn. Malala, xvi, p. 407; Theoph., an. 6005, etc. The date is uncertain; as recounted by some of the chronographists only 518 would suit the incident. As soon as the government felt again on a stable footing numerous executions were decreed.
