Julian met at the feet of Proaeresius.  They all did credit to his eloquence, but there the likeness ends.  Gregory disliked Julian’s strange, excited manner, and persuaded himself in later years that he had even then foreseen the evil of the apostate’s reign.  With Basil, on the other hand his friendship was for life.  They were well-matched in eloquence, in ascetic zeal, and in opposition to Arianism, though Basil’s imperious ways were a trial to Gregory’s gentler and less active spirit.  During the quarrel with Anthimus of Tyana, Basil thought fit to secure the disputed possession of Sasima by making it a bishopric. [Sidenote:  372.] It was a miserable post-station—­’No water, no grass, nothing but dust and carts, and groans and howls, and small officials with their usual instruments of torture.’  Gregory was made bishop of Sasima against his will, and never fairly entered on his repulsive duties.  After a few years’ retirement, he came forward to undertake the mission to Constantinople. [Sidenote:  379.] The great city was a city of triflers.  They jested at the actors and the preachers without respect of persons, and followed with equal eagerness the races and the theological disputes.  Anomoeans abounded in their noisy streets, and the graver Novatians and Macedonians were infected with the spirit of wrangling.  Gregory’s austere character and simple life were in themselves a severe rebuke to the lovers of pleasure round him.  He began his work in a private house, and only built a church when the numbers of his flock increased.  He called it his Anastasia,—­the church of the resurrection of the faith.  The mob was hostile—­one night they broke into his church—­but the fruit of his labours was a growing congregation of Nicenes in the capital.

[Sidenote:  Theodosius Emperor in the East (379).]

Gratian’s next step was to share his burden with a colleague.  If the care of the whole Empire had been too much for Diocletian or Valentinian, Gratian’s were not the Atlantean shoulders which could bear its undivided weight.  In the far West, at Cauca near Segovia, there lived a son of Theodosius, the recoverer of Britain and Africa, whose execution had so foully stained the opening of Gratian’s reign.  That memory of blood was still fresh, yet in that hour of overwhelming danger Gratian called young Theodosius to be his honoured colleague and deliverer.  Early in 379 he gave him the conduct of the Gothic war.  With it went the Empire of the East.

[Sidenote:  End of the Gothic war.]

Theodosius was neither Greek nor Asiatic, but a stranger from the Spanish West, endued with a full measure of Spanish courage and intolerance.  As a general he was the most brilliant Rome had seen since Julian’s death.  Men compared him to Trajan, and in a happier age he might have rivalled Trajan’s fame.  But now the Empire was ready to perish.  The beaten army was hopelessly demoralized, and Theodosius had to form a new army of barbarian legionaries before