r the
throne.

Julianus, who was during a part of this reign the prefect of Egypt, was
also a poet, and he has left us a number of short epigrams that
form part of the volume of Greek Anthology which was published at
Constantinople soon after this time. Christodorus of Thebes was another
poet who joined with Julianus in praising the Emperor Anastasius. He
also removed to Constantinople, the seat of patronage; and the fifth
book of the Greek Anthology contains his epigrams on the winners in the
horse-race in that city and on the statues which stood around the public
gymnasium.

[Illustration: 291.jpg ILLUSTRATIONS FROM COPY OF DIOSCORIDE]

The poet's song, like the traveller's tale, often related the wonders
of the river Nile. The overflowing waters first manured the fields, and
then watered the crops, and lastly carried the grain to market; and one
writer in the Anthology, to describe the country life in Egypt, tells
the story of a sailor, who, to avoid the dangers of the ocean, turned
husbandman, and was then shipwrecked in his own meadows.

The book-writers at this time sometimes illuminated their more valuable
parchments with gold and silver letters and sometimes employed painters
to ornament them with small paintings. The beautiful copy of the work
of Dioscorides on Plants in the library at Vienna was made in this reign
for the Princess Juliana of Constantinople. In one painting the figure
of science or invention is holding up a plant, while on one side of her
is the painter drawing it on his canvas, and on the other side is the
author describing it in his book. Other paintings are of the plants and
animals mentioned in the book. A copy of the Book of Genesis, also in
the library at Vienna, is of the same class and date. A large part of it
is written in gold and silver; and it has eighty-eight small paintings
of various historical subjects. In these the story is well told, though
the drawing and perspective are bad and the figures crowded. But
these Alexandrian paintings are better than those made in Rome or
Constantinople at this time.

With the spread of Christianity theatrical representations had been
gradually going out of use. The Greek tragedies, as we see in the works
of AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, those models of pure taste in
poetry, are founded on the pagan mythology; and in many of them the gods
are made to walk and talk upon the stage. Hence they of necessity fell
under the ban of the cler