Julianus, who was during a part of this reign the prefect of Egypt, was also a poet, and he has left us a number of short epigrams that form part of the volume of Greek Anthology which was published at Constantinople soon after this time.  Christodorus of Thebes was another poet who joined with Julianus in praising the Emperor Anastasius.  He also removed to Constantinople, the seat of patronage; and the fifth book of the Greek Anthology contains his epigrams on the winners in the horse-race in that city and on the statues which stood around the public gymnasium.

[Illustration:  291.jpg ILLUSTRATIONS FROM COPY OF DIOSCORIDE]

The poet’s song, like the traveller’s tale, often related the wonders of the river Nile.  The overflowing waters first manured the fields, and then watered the crops, and lastly carried the grain to market; and one writer in the Anthology, to describe the country life in Egypt, tells the story of a sailor, who, to avoid the dangers of the ocean, turned husbandman, and was then shipwrecked in his own meadows.

The book-writers at this time sometimes illuminated their more valuable parchments with gold and silver letters and sometimes employed painters to ornament them with small paintings.  The beautiful copy of the work of Dioscorides on Plants in the library at Vienna was made in this reign for the Princess Juliana of Constantinople.  In one painting the figure of science or invention is holding up a plant, while on one side of her is the painter drawing it on his canvas, and on the other side is the author describing it in his book.  Other paintings are of the plants and animals mentioned in the book.  A copy of the Book of Genesis, also in the library at Vienna, is of the same class and date.  A large part of it is written in gold and silver; and it has eighty-eight small paintings of various historical subjects.  In these the story is well told, though the drawing and perspective are bad and the figures crowded.  But these Alexandrian paintings are better than those made in Rome or Constantinople at this time.

With the spread of Christianity theatrical representations had been gradually going out of use.  The Greek tragedies, as we see in the works of AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, those models of pure taste in poetry, are founded on the pagan mythology; and in many of them the gods are made to walk and talk upon the stage.  Hence they of necessity fell under the ban of the clergy.  As the Christians became more powerful the several cities of the empire had one by one discontinued these popular spectacles, and horse-races usually took their place.  But the Alexandrians were the last people to give up a favourite amusement; and by the end of this reign Alexandria was the only city in the empire where tragic and comic actors and Eastern dancers were to be seen in the theatre.