ng to his promise, he gave orders that no vessel should
bring an Egyptian from Chalcedon to the capital; and the Egyptians,
after wasting their time and money, returned home in despair. But though
their complaints were laughed at, they were not overlooked, and the
author of their grievances was punished; Artemius, the prefect of Egypt,
was summoned to Chalcedon, and not being able to disprove the crimes
laid to his charge by the Alexandrians, he paid his life as the forfeit
for his mis-government during the last reign.

While Artemius was on his trial the pagans of Alexandria remained quiet,
and in daily fear of his return to power, for after their treatment
at Chalcedon they by no means felt sure of what would be the emperor's
policy in matters of religion; but they no sooner heard of the death of
Artemius than they took it as a sign that they had full leave to revenge
themselves on the Christians. The mob rose first against the Bishop
George, who had lately been careless or wanton enough publicly to
declare his regret that any of their temples should be allowed to stand;
and they seized him in the streets and trampled him to death. They next
slew Dracontius, the prefect of the Alexandrian mint, whom they accused
of overturning a pagan altar within that building. Their anger was then
turned against Diodorus, who was employed in building a church on a
waste spot of ground that had once been sacred to the worship of Mithra,
but had since been given by the Emperor Constantius to the Christians.
In clearing the ground, the workmen had turned up a number of human
bones that had been buried there in former ages, and these had been
brought forward by the Christians in reproach against the pagans as so
many proofs of human sacrifices. In his Christian zeal, Diodorus also
had wounded at the same time their pride and superstition by cutting off
the single lock from the heads of the young Egyptians. This lock had
in the time of Ramses been the mark of youthful royalty; under the
Ptolemies the mark of high rank; but was now common to all. Diodorus
treated it as an offence against his religion. For this he was attacked
and killed, with George and Dracontius. The mob carried the bodies of
the three murdered men upon camels to the side of the lake, and there
burned them, and threw the ashes into the water, for fear, as they said,
that a church should be built over their remains, as had been sometimes
done, even at that early date, ove