CHAPTER III

WHILE VALENS PERSECUTES THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS IN THE EAST, A TYRANT ARISES AT CONSTANTINOPLE NAMED PROCOPIUS: AND AT THE SAME TIME AN EARTHQUAKE AND INUNDATION TAKE PLACE

WHILE Valens was thus occupied in Syria, there arose a tyrant at Constantinople named Procopius; who having collected a large body of troops in a very short time, meditated an expedition against the emperor. This intelligence, by creating solicitudes of another kind, checked for a while the persecution he had commenced against all who dared to differ from him in opinion. And while the commotions of a civil war were painfully anticipated, an earthquake occurred which did much damage to many cities. The sea also changed its accustomed boundaries, and overflowed to such an extent in some places, that vessels might sail where roads had previously existed; and it retired so much from other places, that the ground became dry. These events happened in the first consulate of the two emperors.