stianity as the religion of his empire by Theodosius I (379 A.D.)
inaugurated a prolonged persecution of pagan religion and philosophy (see
p. 530).

Is it inadmissible to consider at least the possibility that, disappointed
and driven from their land, some of those who clung to the ancient ideal,
and were acquainted with the perfected scheme of state organization
instituted by Constantine during the lifetime of Themistius, carried it at
a later period, to the "hidden land" of the West and established it there,
where it was preserved intact until the time of the Spanish Conquest? Is
it by accident only that one of the names of the capital of ancient
Mexico, as preserved in the writings of Cortes and Bernal Diaz is
Temistitan, literally "land of Temis," the Nahuatl language not furnishing
any meaning to the latter word? Can it be that, just as the word Teotl,
resembling Theos, is found on Mexican soil, employed with the same meaning
as in Greek, the name Temistitan means "the land of established law, order
and justice" dedicated to the Greek Themis, just as New Rome was dedicated
to Sofia=Wisdom? Or did some sort of connection exist between the name of
the Mexican capital, the system on which it was established and the
philosopher Themistius?

Is it by chance merely that the state calendar of Temistitan was based on
4x13=52 divisions, and that Themistius of Byzantium, a member of that
school of philosophy which had evolved numberless plans and numerical
schemes for ideal states, should have held one of the 4x13=52 prefectures
during Constantine's reign? In order to make the most rapid advance
towards a solution of the great problem of the origin of American
civilizations, I venture to suggest that Orientalists and Americanists
should combine and freshly study it from opposite points of view. One side
might be taken by those who incline to admit the possibility that a few
Phoenician traders discovered the American continent in ancient times and
that, subsequently, those to whom they imparted their discovery and their
successors, the daring Greek navigators, conveyed thither, at intervals,
bands of refugees or enthusiasts who braved danger and death, in the hope
of reaching the blessed land where, free from persecution, they could
found ideal democracies or divine polities.

Besides studying and adding to the numberless similarities which have been
cited by so many different authorities and to which I have added a modest