Mantinium, Constantine’s Coffin, and Julian Made Caesar

About the same time Eleusius completely demolished the church of the Novatians in Cyzicus. The people of other parts of Paphlagonia, and especially of Mantinium, suffered similar persecution. Macedonius learned that most of these people were followers of Novatian, and that the power of the church alone was not strong enough to drive them out, so he persuaded the emperor to send four cohorts against them. For he imagined that men unused to arms would be seized with terror at the first sight of soldiers and come over to his views. But it turned out otherwise. The people of Mantinium armed themselves with sickles and axes and whatever other weapons came to hand, and marched against the soldiers. A fierce battle followed, and many of the Paphlagonians fell, but nearly all the soldiers were killed. Many of Macedonius’s friends blamed him for causing so great a disaster, and the emperor was displeased and looked on him with less favor than before. [a]

The hostility grew still stronger because of another incident. Macedonius planned to move the coffin of the emperor Constantine, since the building in which it lay was falling into ruin. The people were divided over this. Some agreed with the plan; others opposed it, thinking it impious and much like digging up a grave. Those who held the Nicene doctrines took the second view and insisted that no indignity be done to the body of Constantine, since that emperor had held the same doctrines as they did. Besides, I can easily imagine, they were eager to oppose the plans of Macedonius. However, without further delay Macedonius had the coffin carried to the church in which the tomb of Acacius the martyr stands. The people, split into two factions, one approving the deed and the other condemning it, rushed on each other in that very church, and there was such slaughter that the house of prayer and the space beside it were filled with blood and the bodies of the slain. The emperor, who was then in the West, was deeply angered when he heard of it. He blamed Macedonius as the cause of the indignity done to his father and of the slaughter of the people.

The emperor had decided to visit the East, and went on his way. He gave his cousin Julian the title of Caesar and sent him to western Gaul. [f]