The court.]

The court also leaned to Arianism. The genuine Arians, to do them
justice, were not more pliant to imperial dictation than the Nicenes,
but the genuine Arians were only one section of a motley coalition.
Their conservative patrons and allies were laid open to court influence
by their dread of Sabellianism; for conservatism is the natural home of
the impatient timidity which looks round at every difficulty for a
saviour of society, and would fain turn the whole work of government
into a crusade against a series of scarecrows. Thus when Constantius
turned against them, their chiefs were found wanting in the self-respect
which kept both Nicene and Arian leaders from condescending to a battle
of intrigue with such masters of the art as flourished in the palace.
But for thirty years the intriguers found it their interest to profess
conservatism. The court was as full of selfish cabals as that of the old
French monarchy. Behind the glittering ceremonial on which the treasures
of the world were squandered fought armies of place-hunters great and
small, cooks and barbers, women and eunuchs, courtiers and spies,
adventurers of every sort, for ever wresting the majesty of law to
private favour, for ever aiming new oppressions at the men on whom the
exactions of the Empire already fell with crushing weight. The noblest
bishops, the ablest generals, were their fairest prey; and we have no
surer witness to the greatness of Athanasius or Julian than the
pertinacious hatred of this odious horde. Intriguers of this kind found
it better to unsettle the Nicene decisions, on behalf of conservatism
forsooth, than to maintain them in the name of truth. There were many
ways of upsetting them, and each might lead to gain; only one of
defending them, and that was not attractive.

[Sidenote: (4.) Asia.]

Nor were Constantius and Valens without political reasons for their
support of Arianism. We can see by the light of later history that the
real centre of the Empire was the solid mass of Asia from the Bosphorus
to Mount Taurus, and that Constantinople was its outwork on the side of
Europe. In Rome on one side, Egypt and Syria on the other, we can
already trace the tendencies which led to their separation from the
orthodox Eastern Church and Empire. Now in the fourth century Asia was a
stronghold of conservatism. There was a good deal of Arianism in
Cappadocia, but we hear little of it in Asia. The group of Lucianists at
Nicaea l