With Basil, on the other hand his friendship was for
life. They were well-matched in eloquence, in ascetic zeal, and in
opposition to Arianism, though Basil's imperious ways were a trial to
Gregory's gentler and less active spirit. During the quarrel with
Anthimus of Tyana, Basil thought fit to secure the disputed possession
of Sasima by making it a bishopric. [Sidenote: 372.] It was a miserable
post-station--'No water, no grass, nothing but dust and carts, and
groans and howls, and small officials with their usual instruments of
torture.' Gregory was made bishop of Sasima against his will, and never
fairly entered on his repulsive duties. After a few years' retirement,
he came forward to undertake the mission to Constantinople. [Sidenote:
379.] The great city was a city of triflers. They jested at the actors
and the preachers without respect of persons, and followed with equal
eagerness the races and the theological disputes. Anomoeans abounded
in their noisy streets, and the graver Novatians and Macedonians were
infected with the spirit of wrangling. Gregory's austere character and
simple life were in themselves a severe rebuke to the lovers of pleasure
round him. He began his work in a private house, and only built a church
when the numbers of his flock increased. He called it his
Anastasia,--the church of the resurrection of the faith. The mob was
hostile--one night they broke into his church--but the fruit of his
labours was a growing congregation of Nicenes in the capital.

[Sidenote: Theodosius Emperor in the East (379).]

Gratian's next step was to share his burden with a colleague. If the
care of the whole Empire had been too much for Diocletian or
Valentinian, Gratian's were not the Atlantean shoulders which could bear
its undivided weight. In the far West, at Cauca near Segovia, there
lived a son of Theodosius, the recoverer of Britain and Africa, whose
execution had so foully stained the opening of Gratian's reign. That
memory of blood was still fresh, yet in that hour of overwhelming danger
Gratian called young Theodosius to be his honoured colleague and
deliverer. Early in 379 he gave him the conduct of the Gothic war. With
it went the Empire of the East.

[Sidenote: End of the Gothic war.]

Theodosius was neither Greek nor Asiatic, but a stranger from the
Spanish West, endued with a full measure of Spanish courage and
intolerance. As a general he was the most brilliant Rome had seen since
Julian's de