four thousand legionaries to march against the
rebels, and to reduce the territory of Mantinium under his spiritual
dominion. The Novatian peasants, animated by despair and religious fury,
boldly encountered the invaders of their country; and though many of
the Paphlagonians were slain, the Roman legions were vanquished by an
irregular multitude, armed only with scythes and axes; and, except a few
who escaped by an ignominious flight, four thousand soldiers were left
dead on the field of battle. The successor of Constantius has expressed,
in a concise but lively manner, some of the theological calamities which
afflicted the empire, and more especially the East, in the reign of
a prince who was the slave of his own passions, and of those of his
eunuchs: "Many were imprisoned, and persecuted, and driven into
exile. Whole troops of those who are styled heretics, were massacred,
particularly at Cyzicus, and at Samosata. In Paphlagonia, Bithynia,
Galatia, and in many other provinces, towns and villages were laid
waste, and utterly destroyed." [156]

[Footnote 154: Socrates, l. ii. c. 27, 38. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 21. The
principal assistants of Macedonius, in the work of persecution, were
the two bishops of Nicomedia and Cyzicus, who were esteemed for their
virtues, and especially for their charity. I cannot forbear reminding
the reader, that the difference between the Homoousion and Homoiousion,
is almost invisible to the nicest theological eye.]

[Footnote 155: We are ignorant of the precise situation of Mantinium. In
speaking of these four bands of legionaries, Socrates, Sozomen, and
the author of the acts of St. Paul, use the indefinite terms of, which
Nicephorus very properly translates thousands. Vales. ad Socrat. l. ii.
c. 38.]

[Footnote 156: Julian. Epist. lii. p. 436, edit. Spanheim.]

While the flames of the Arian controversy consumed the vitals of the
empire, the African provinces were infested by their peculiar enemies,
the savage fanatics, who, under the name of Circumcellions, formed the
strength and scandal of the Donatist party. [157] The severe execution
of the laws of Constantine had excited a spirit of discontent and
resistance, the strenuous efforts of his son Constans, to restore the
unity of the church, exasperated the sentiments of mutual hatred,
which had first occasioned the separation; and the methods of force
and corruption employed by the two Imperial commissioners, Paul and
Macarius, furnished