on, Caesarea, Heliopolis, &c., the Pagans abused, without prudence
or remorse, the moment of their prosperity. That the unhappy objects
of their cruelty were released from torture only by death; and as their
mangled bodies were dragged through the streets, they were pierced
(such was the universal rage) by the spits of cooks, and the distaffs of
enraged women; and that the entrails of Christian priests and virgins,
after they had been tasted by those bloody fanatics, were mixed with
barley, and contemptuously thrown to the unclean animals of the city.
[118] Such scenes of religious madness exhibit the most contemptible and
odious picture of human nature; but the massacre of Alexandria attracts
still more attention, from the certainty of the fact, the rank of the
victims, and the splendor of the capital of Egypt.

[Footnote 117: Julian. Misopogon, p. 361.]

[Footnote 118: See Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iii. p. 87.) Sozomen (l. v.
c. 9) may be considered as an original, though not impartial, witness.
He was a native of Gaza, and had conversed with the confessor Zeno, who,
as bishop of Maiuma, lived to the age of a hundred, (l. vii. c. 28.)
Philostorgius (l. vii. c. 4, with Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 284) adds
some tragic circumstances, of Christians who were literally sacrificed
at the altars of the gods, &c.]

George, [119] from his parents or his education, surnamed the
Cappadocian, was born at Epiphania in Cilicia, in a fuller's shop. From
this obscure and servile origin he raised himself by the talents of a
parasite; and the patrons, whom he assiduously flattered, procured for
their worthless dependent a lucrative commission, or contract, to supply
the army with bacon. His employment was mean; he rendered it infamous.
He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but
his malversations were so notorious, that George was compelled to escape
from the pursuits of justice. After this disgrace, in which he appears
to have saved his fortune at the expense of his honor, he embraced, with
real or affected zeal, the profession of Arianism. From the love, or
the ostentation, of learning, he collected a valuable library of
history rhetoric, philosophy, and theology, [120] and the choice of
the prevailing faction promoted George of Cappadocia to the throne of
Athanasius. The entrance of the new archbishop was that of a Barbarian
conqueror; and each moment of his reign was polluted by cruelty and
avarice. The