THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITYlegislation should also be seen in relation to the traditions of previous impe-
rial legislation and the generally repressive attitude of the state in this period
towards all minority groups, including, for instance, Jews and Samaritans, and
it is diffi cult to know what the charges really meant. The number of attested
trials is rather few, and while the situation of those who thought of opposing
the government may perhaps be gauged from the fact that Procopius says
at the beginning of his violently critical Secret History that he could only have
published his work during Justinian’s lifetime on pain of death, one must also
make allowances for the literary trope of secrecy. In the high-profi le trials
which took place in the 580s no less a person than the patriarch Gregory of
Antioch was summoned to Constantinople and charged with paganism. His
close friend, Anatolius, the provincial governor, was suspected of involve-
ment with pagan cult in Edessa, and the affair developed to include suicide,
murder and an icon concealing an image of Apollo. The trials eventually took
place in Constantinople to the accompaniment of popular rioting against the
leniency of the Emperor Tiberius and the patriarch Eutychius, after which
Anatolius, the former governor, was thrown to the beasts in the Hippodrome,
then impaled and fi nally his body was torn apart by wolves.^62 The reign of
Justinian had also seen a hardening of Byzantine attitudes towards Jews and
Samaritans, especially after major Samaritan revolts in 529 and 555; in the
latter the proconsul of Palestine was killed. Predictably, during the affair in
the late sixth century, the hunt was extended to include Jews, Samaritans and
Montanists.
How genuine these charges were is hard to establish. Paganism certainly
offered a convenient handle for a political or personal attack, but the sources
generally suggest that in the east until a late date many people of all ranks did
retain beliefs and practices of pagan origin alongside their Christianity. By no
means every temple had been converted into a church when John of Ephe-
sus, the future church historian, was sent in 542 on his evangelizing mission
to western Asia Minor. It seems that in the west, with its different history,
paganism was less persistent except in the countryside; this underlines its con-
nection in the east with the as yet unbroken tradition of classical education
and culture. But even in the countryside, the fact that western bishops such
as Caesarius of Arles in the early sixth century placed a very high priority on
evangelization, suggests that the battle was by no means won.^63 Towards the
end of our period, mission in the northern provinces also came from out-
side, especially with the rise of the Celtic church and travels of missionary
monks.^64
In attempting to trace the extent of the continuation of paganism in our
period, the concern of preachers and government alike for the eradication of
pagan practice is a striking feature, from John Chrysostom in Constantinople
at the turn of the fourth and fi fth centuries to the acts of the late seventh-
century Council in Trullo. On one level it was important for Christian writers
both symbolically and tactically to assert their superiority over paganism, but
this can also be taken together with evidence drawn from a wide variety of