es us
the picture of such a one in a celebrated allegory presenting the career
of the noble and high-minded Aurelian, head of a patriot party, and of
his unscrupulous adversary, who wished to displace him. The subject of
the allegory is the contest between the two sons of Taurus, Osivis and
Typhos. Osivis represents Aurelian, the type of everything good and
laudable; Aurelian's antagonist is figured in Typhos, a perverse, gross,
and ignorant person, who favored the German party. He was a profligate
Roman, who had been guilty of malversation in office and hoped by his
new alliance to return to power. He had an active, though not very
discreet, ally in his wife, whom Synesius depicts in pregnant phrases.
Owing to her vanity she was her own tire-woman, a reproach which
suggests her excessive attention to the details of her toilet. She liked
to show herself in grand array in the market place, fancying that the
eyes of all were upon her. Owing to her desire to have her drawing rooms
filled and to be the object of notoriety, she did not close her doors
even against professional courtesans; and we may infer on that account
that select Byzantine society was not desirous of her acquaintance.
Synesius contrasts with her the wife of Aurelian, who never left the
house, and gives us a reminiscence of Thucydides in his sententious
expression that it was the greatest virtue of a woman for neither her
body nor her name ever to cross the threshold. Aurelian succeeds in
winning political honors in spite of the hostility of Typhos and his
wife, much to the disgust of the latter, who saw her intrigues for
social laurels defeated.

The ladies of the court and those who wished to be such were in large
measure devoted to the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the
pride of life. Chrysostom's austere spirit was naturally offended at the
life of such a court and of fashionable and aspiring matrons, and in his
pastoral visits to these great ladies he undoubtedly rebuked them for
their worldliness. Furthermore, in his pulpit he preached valiantly
against luxury and worldliness, and would often add point to his remarks
by turning his eyes toward the part of the gallery where sat Eudoxia and
the ladies of her court. Great umbrage was aroused against him because
of his outspoken condemnation of their vices, petty and otherwise, and
he was hated as the wicked Herodias hated John the Baptist. His greatest
offence was reached in a sermon in w