publicly
executed as one who had aspired to the empire by force of arms. Romanus,
too, and Vincentius, the tribunes of the first and second battalion of
the Scutarii, being convicted of aiming at things beyond their due, were
banished.

3. And after a short time, when the death of Artemius was known, the
citizens of Alexandria who had feared his return, lest, as he
threatened, he should come back among them with power, and avenge
himself on many of them for the offences which he had received, now
turned all their anger against George, the bishop, by whom they had, so
to say, been often attacked with poisonous bites.

4. George having been born in a fuller's shop, as was reported, in
Epiphania, a town of Cilicia, and having caused the ruin of many
individuals, was, contrary both to his own interest and to that of the
commonwealth, ordained bishop of Alexandria, a city which from its own
impulses, and without any special cause, is continually agitated by
seditious tumults, as the oracles also show.

5. Men of this irritable disposition were readily incensed by George,
who accused numbers to the willing ears of Constantius, as being opposed
to his authority; and, forgetting his profession, which ought to give no
counsel but what is just and merciful, he adopted all the wicked acts of
informers.

6. And among other things he was reported to have maliciously informed
Constantius that in that city all the edifices which had been built by
Alexander, its founder, at vast public expense, ought properly to be a
source of emolument to the treasury.

7. To these wicked suggestions he added this also, which soon afterwards
led to his destruction. As he was returning from court, and passing by
the superb temple of the Genius, escorted by a large train, as was his
custom, he turned his eyes towards the temple, and said, "How long shall
this sepulchre stand?" And the multitude, hearing this, was
thunderstruck, and fearing that he would seek to destroy this also,
laboured to the utmost of their power to effect his ruin by secret
plots.

8. When suddenly there came the joyful news that Artemius was dead; on
which all the populace, triumphing with unexpected joy, gnashed their
teeth, and with horrid outcries set upon George, trampling upon him and
kicking him, and tearing him to pieces with every kind of mutilation.

9. With him also, Dracontius, the master of the mint, and a count named
Diodorus, were put to death, and dragged