[366] See Minucius, Octavius, 10.
[367] Paspates, Βυζαντιναὶ Μελεταί, p. 381, etc. There were, perhaps, over one hundred churches and monasteries in Constantinople at this time, but the Notitia, a century earlier, reckons only fourteen churches; see Ducange’s list.
[368] Western scholars since the Renaissance have fallen into the habit of applying the diminutive Graeculi to the Byzantines, thereby distinguishing them from the Graeci, their pre-eminent ancestors, who established the fame of the Dorians and Ionians. The Romans, after their conquest of the country, began to apply it to all Greeks. Cicero, De Orat., i, 22, etc.
[369] Suidas, sb. nom.; Tertullian, Apologia, 39; Athenaeus, xiii, 25. There was, however, a minor school of philosophy at Megara.
[370] Aristotle, Politica, iv, 4. As late as the sixteenth century the housewives residing next the water habitually took the fish by simple devices, which are described by Gyllius; De Top. CP. Praef.
[371] See the statements by Theopompus, Phylarchus, etc., in Müller, Fragm. Hist. Graec., i, pp. 287, 336; ii, p. 154; iv, p. 377. Having obtained an ascendancy over the frugal and industrious Chalcedonians they are said to have corrupted them by their vices; cf. Müller’s Dorians, ii, pp. 177, 418, etc.
[372] Sextus Empir., Adversus Rhetor., 39. A demagogue, being asked what laws were in force, replied, “Anything I like”—a frivolous or a pregnant answer?
[373] Aristotle in the doubtful Economica (ii, 4) describes some of their makeshifts to maintain the exchequer. According to Cicero (De Prov. Consular.) the city was full of art treasures, an evidence, perhaps, of wasteful extravagance.
[374] See p. [17]. His daily grant of 80,000 measures of wheat, together with the other allowances, to those who were served at the Steps, would seem to indicate as many families, but there is no doubt that the distribution was at first indiscriminate, and many were supplied who could afford to keep up considerable establishments. Constantius reduced the amount by one half; Socrates, ii, 13; Sozomen, iii, 7. Heraclius abolished the free doles altogether; Chron. Paschal., an. 618.
[375] “Matronae nostrae, ne adulteris quidem plus sui in cubiculo, quam in publico ostendant”; see Seneca, De Beneficiis, vii, 9; cf. Horace, Sat., I, ii, 102: