sal, monopoly, which he acquired, of nitre, salt,
paper, funerals, &c.: and the spiritual father of a great people
condescended to practise the vile and pernicious arts of an informer.
The Alexandrians could never forget, nor forgive, the tax, which he
suggested, on all the houses of the city; under an obsolete claim, that
the royal founder had conveyed to his successors, the Ptolemies and the
Caesars, the perpetual property of the soil. The Pagans, who had been
flattered with the hopes of freedom and toleration, excited his devout
avarice; and the rich temples of Alexandria were either pillaged or
insulted by the haughty prince, who exclaimed, in a loud and threatening
tone, "How long will these sepulchres be permitted to stand?" Under
the reign of Constantius, he was expelled by the fury, or rather by the
justice, of the people; and it was not without a violent struggle, that
the civil and military powers of the state could restore his authority,
and gratify his revenge. The messenger who proclaimed at Alexandria the
accession of Julian, announced the downfall of the archbishop. George,
with two of his obsequious ministers, Count Diodorus, and Dracontius,
master of the mint were ignominiously dragged in chains to the public
prison. At the end of twenty-four days, the prison was forced open by
the rage of a superstitious multitude, impatient of the tedious forms
of judicial proceedings. The enemies of gods and men expired under their
cruel insults; the lifeless bodies of the archbishop and his associates
were carried in triumph through the streets on the back of a camel;
* and the inactivity of the Athanasian party was esteemed a shining
example of evangelical patience. The remains of these guilty wretches
were thrown into the sea; and the popular leaders of the tumult declared
their resolution to disappoint the devotion of the Christians, and to
intercept the future honors of these martyrs, who had been punished,
like their predecessors, by the enemies of their religion. The fears of
the Pagans were just, and their precautions ineffectual. The meritorious
death of the archbishop obliterated the memory of his life. The rival of
Athanasius was dear and sacred to the Arians, and the seeming conversion
of those sectaries introduced his worship into the bosom of the Catholic
church. The odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and
place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and
the infam