the
reader could proceed, as follows:

"It has come to the ears of your Caesar, to the deep grieving of his
Christian soul, that the ancient idolatry, which so long smote mankind
with blindness and kept them wandering far from the gates of Paradise,
still, through the power of the devil, has some temples and altars in
your great and noble city. But because it is grievous to the Christian
and clement heart of the Emperor to avenge the persecutions and death
which so many holy martyrs have endured at the hands of the
bloodthirsty and cruel heathen on their posterity, or on the miscreant
and--misbelieving enemies of our holy faith--and because the Lord
hath said 'vengeance is mine'--Theodosius Caesar only decrees that the
temples of the heathen idols in this great and noble city of Alexandria
shall be closed, their images destroyed and their altars overthrown.
Whosoever shall defile himself with blood, or slay an innocent beast for
sacrifice, or enter a heathen temple, or perform any religious ceremony
therein, or worship any image of a god made by hands-nay, or pray in any
temple in the country or in the city, shall be at once required to pay a
fine of fifteen pounds of gold; and whosoever shall know of such a crime
being committed without giving information of it, shall be fined to the
same amount."--[Codex Theodosianus XVI, 10, 10.]

The last words were spoken to the winds, for a shout of triumph,
louder and wilder than had ever before been heard even on this favorite
meeting-place of the populace, rent the very skies. Nor did it cease,
nor yield to any trumpet-blast, but rolled on in spreading waves down
every street and alley; it reached the ships in the port, and rang
through the halls of the rich and the hovels of the poor; it even
found a dull echo in the light-house at the point of Pharos, where the
watchman was trimming the lamp for the night; and in an incredibly
short time all Alexandria knew that Caesar had dealt a death-blow to the
worship of the heathen gods.

The great and fateful rumor was heard, too, in the Museum and the
Serapeum; once more the youth who had grown up in the high schools of
the city, studying the wisdom of the heathen, gathered together; men
who had refined and purified their intellect at the spring of Greek
philosophy and fired their spirit with enthusiasm for all that was good
and lovely in the teaching of ancient Greece--these obeyed the summons
of their master, Olympius, or flew to