CHAPTER XXXIX

PETER, HAVING RETURNED FROM ROME, SUPERSEDES LUCIUS IN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCHES OF EGYPT. EXPEDITION OF VALENS AGAINST THE SCYTHIANS

THOSE in every city who maintained the Nicene doctrine, now began to take courage, and more particularly the inhabitants of Alexandria. Peter had returned thither with a letter from Damascus, confirmatory of the tenets of Nicæa, and of his own ordination, and he was installed in the government of the churches in the place of Lucius, who retired to Constantinople. The Emperor Valens was so distracted by other affairs, that he had no leisure to attend to these transactions. He had no sooner arrived at Constantinople than he incurred the suspicion and hatred of the people. The barbarians were pillaging Thrace, and were even advancing to the very gates of Constantinople, and yet the emperor made no effort to repress their incursions. Hence he became an object of popular indignation, and was even regarded as the cause of the inroads of the enemy. At length, when he was present at the sports of the Hippodrome, the people openly and loudly accused him of neglecting the affairs of the state, and demanded arms that they might fight in their own defence. Valens, offended at these reproaches, immediately undertook an expedition against the barbarians; but he threatened to punish the insolence of the people on his return, and also to take vengeance on them for having formerly supported the tyrant Procopius.