of learning;
the Sophists had long since made themselves ridiculous; books alone will
not make a man of sense; and in the jokes of Hierocles the blunderer is
always called a man of learning.

AEtius, the Alexandrian physician, has left a large work containing
a full account of the state of Egyptian medicine at this time. He
describes the diseases and their remedies, quoting the recipes of
numerous authors, from the King Nechepsus, Galen, Hippocrates, and
Hioscorides, down to Archbishop Cyril. He is not wholly free from
superstition, as when making use of a green jasper set in a ring; but he
observes that the patients recovered as soon when the stone was plain
as when a dragon was engraved upon it according to the recommendation of
Nechepsus. In Nile water he finds every virtue, and does not forget dark
paint for the ladies' eyebrows, and Cleopatra-wash for the face.

Anastasius, the next emperor, succeeding in 491, followed the wise
policy which Zeno had entered upon in the latter years of his reign,
and he strictly adhered to the terms of the peace-making edict. The
four patriarchs of Alexandria who were chosen during this reign, John,
a second John, Dioscorus, and Timotheus, were all of the Jacobite faith;
and the Egyptians readily believed that the emperor was of the same
opinion. When called upon by the quarrelling theologians, he would
neither reject nor receive the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, and
by this wise conduct he governed Egypt without any religious rebellion
during a long reign.

The election of Dioscorus, however, the third patriarch of this
reign, was not brought about peaceably. He was the cousin of a former
patriarch, Timotheus AElurus, which, if we view the bishopric as a civil
office, might be a reason for the emperor's wishing him to have the
appointment. But it was no good reason with the Alexandrians, who
declared that he had not been chosen according to the canons of the
apostles; and the magistrates of the city were forced to employ the
troops to lead him in safety to his throne. After the first ceremony, he
went, as was usual at an installation, to St. Mark's Church, and
there the clergy robed him in the patriarchal state robes. The grand
procession then moved through the streets to the church of St. John,
where the new bishop went through the communion service. But the city
was much disturbed during the whole day, and in the riot Theodosius, the
son of Calliopus, a man of Augustal