o the nuns also. Macedonius sought to gain
them by holding a council in 497 or 498, which condemned the Eutycheans and
expressed assent to the Council of Chalcedon.

Macedonius was by no means inclined to give up the lately won privileges of
his see as to the ordination of the Exarch of Cappadocian Caesarea, but he
would willingly have restored peace with Rome, and have accepted the
invitation from Rome to celebrate with special splendour the feast day of
St. Peter and St. Paul. The emperor would not let him send a synodical
letter to Rome.

Macedonius could not be induced by threat or promise of the emperor to give
up to him the paper in which at his coronation by Euphemius he had promised
to maintain the Council of Chalcedon. The emperor, after concluding peace
with the Persians, more and more favoured the Eutycheans, and seemed
resolved either to bend or to break Macedonius. The people were so
embittered against Anastasius that he did not venture to appear without his
life-guards even at a religious solemnity, and this became from that time
a rule which marks the sinking moral influence of the emperors. The
suspicion of the people against Anastasius was increased because his mother
was a Manichean, his uncle, Clearchus, devoted to the Arians, and he kept
in his palace Manichean pictures by a Syropersian artist. The Monophysite
party had at the time two very skilful leaders, the monk Severus from
Pisidia and the Persian Xenaias. Xenaias had been made bishop of Hierapolis
by Peter the Fuller, was in fierce conflict with Flavian, patriarch of
Antioch, and raised almost all Syria against him. He carried the flame of
discord even to Constantinople. There a certain fanatic, Ascholius, tried
to murder Macedonius, who pardoned him and bestowed on him a monthly
pension. Presently large troops of monks came under Severus to
Constantinople, bent upon ruining Macedonius. The state of parties became
still more threatening. Macedonius showed still greater energy; he declared
that he would only hold communion with the patriarch of Alexandria and the
party of Severus if they would recognise the Council of Chalcedon as mother
and teacher. But Anastasius, bribed by the Alexandrian patriarch John II.
with two thousand pounds of gold, required that he should anathematise this
council. To this Macedonius answered that this could not be done except in
an ecumenical council presided over by the bishop of Rome. The emperor in
his wrath viol