though prema- turely, declared it to be, and was subjected to the severest penalties.' Yet Theodosius by no means pressed the execution of these laws in places where the heathen party retained considerable strength ; he did not exclude heathens from public office, and allowed them at least full liberty of thought and speech. His countryman, the Christian poet Prudentius, states with appro- bation, that in the distribution of the secular offices, he looked not at religion, but at merit and talent, and raised the heathen Symmachus to the dignity cf consul.^ The emperor likewise appointed the heathen rhetorician, Themistius, prefect of Con- stantinople, and even intrusted him with the education of his son Arcadius. He acknowledged personal friendship toward Libanius, who addressed to him his celebrated plea for the temples in 3S-1 or 390 ; though it is doubtful whether he ac- tually delivered it in the imperial presence. In short this emperor stood in such favor with the heathens, that after his death he was em'olled by the senate, according to ancient cus- tom, among the gods.^ Theodosius issued no law for the destruction of temples. ' Cod. Theo3. xvi. 10, 12. '^ Prudent, in Symmachum (written A.D. 403), 1. i. v. 617 sqq. : " Denique pro meritis terrestribus aequa rependens Munera sacricolis summos impertit honores Dux bonus, et certare sinit cum laude suorum, Nee pago implicitos [i. e. paganos, heathen] per debita culmina mundi Ire viros prohibet : quoniam coelestia nunquam Terrenis solitum per iter gradientibus obstant. Ipse magistratum tibi consulis, ipse tribunal Contulit." ' Claudian, who at this period roused pagan poetry from its long sleep and de- rived his inspiration from the glory of Theodosius and his family, represents his death as an ascension to the gods. De tertio consulatu Honorii, v. 162 sqq. § 6. THEODOSIUS THE GEEAT AND HIS SUCCE8S0KS. 65 He only continued Gratian's policy of confiscating the temple property and withdrawing entirely the public contribution to the support of idolatry. But in many places, especially in the East, the fanaticism of the monks and the Cliristian populace broke out in a rage for destruction, which Libanius bitterly laments. He calls these iconoclastic monks "men in black clothes, as voracious as elephants, and insatiably thirsty, but concealing their sensuality under an artificial paleness." The be- lief of the Christians, that the heathen gods were living beings, demons,' and dwelt in the temples, was the leading influence here, and overshadowed all artistic and archseological consider- ations. In Alexandria, a chief seat of the Neo-Platonic mysti- cism, there arose, at the instigation of the violent and unspiritual bishop Theophilus,^ a bloody conflict between heathens and Christians, in which the colossal statue and the magnificent temple of Serapis, next to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome the proudest monument of heathen architecture,^ was destroyed, without verifying the current expectation that upon its destruction the heavens would fall (391). The power of superstition once broken by this decisive blow, the other tem- ples in