was immediately confiscated to the public treasury, but a large proportion of this the emperor remitted to him, for he was still inclined to spare him.  There it was possible for John to live, disregarding all dangers and enjoying great wealth, both that which he himself had concealed and that which by the decision of the emperor remained with him, and to indulge in luxury at his pleasure, and, if he had reasoned wisely, to consider his present lot a happy one.  For this reason all the Romans were exceedingly vexed with the man, because, forsooth, after proving himself the basest of all demons, contrary to his deserts he was leading a life happier than before.  But God, I think, did not suffer John’s retribution to end thus, but prepared for him a greater punishment.  And it fell out thus.

There was in Cyzicus a certain bishop named Eusebius, a man harsh to all who came in his way, and no less so than John; this man the Cyzicenes denounced to the emperor and summoned to justice.  And since they accomplished nothing inasmuch as Eusebius circumvented them by his great power, certain youths agreed together and killed him in the market-place of Cyzicus.  Now it happened that John had become especially hostile to Eusebius, and hence the suspicion of the plot fell upon him.  Accordingly men were sent from the senate to investigate this act of pollution.  And these men first confined John in a prison, and then this man who had been such a powerful prefect, and had been inscribed among the patricians and had mounted the seat of the consuls, than which nothing seems greater, at least in the Roman state, they made to stand naked like any robber or footpad, and thrashing him with many blows upon his back, compelled him to tell his past life.  And while John had not been clearly convicted as guilty of the murder of Eusebius, it seemed that God’s justice was exacting from him the penalties of the world.  Thereafter they stripped him of all his goods and put him naked on board a ship, being wrapped in a single cloak, and that a very rough one purchased for some few obols; and wherever the ship anchored, those who had him in charge commanded him to ask from those he met bread or obols.  Thus begging everywhere along the way he was conveyed to the city of Antinous in Aegypt.  And this is now the third year during which they have been guarding him there in confinement.  As for John himself, although he has fallen into such troubles, he has not relinquished his hope of royal power, but he made up his mind to denounce certain Alexandrians as owing money to the public treasury.  Thus then John the Cappadocian ten years afterward was overtaken by this punishment for his political career.

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