country_of_citizenship george of cappadocia
The Battle of Adrianople ( 9 August 378 ), sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis , was fought between an Eastern Roman army led by the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens and Gothic rebels ( largely Thervings as well as Greutungs , non - Gothic Alans , and various local rebels ) led by Fritigern . The battle took place about north of Adrianople ( modern Edirne in European ___MASK85___ , near the border with ___MASK2___ and Bulgaria ) in the Roman province of Thracia . It ended with an overwhelming victory for the ___MASK20___ and the death of Emperor Valens . Valens ( 328  9 August 378 ), fully " Flavius Julius Valens Augustus ", was Eastern Roman Emperor from 364 to 378 . He was given the eastern half of the empire by his brother Valentinian I after the latter ' s accession to the throne . Valens , sometimes known as the Last True Roman , was defeated and killed in the Battle of Adrianople , which marked the beginning of the collapse of the decaying Western ___MASK1___ . Ammianus Marcellinus ( born c . 325  330 died c . 391  400 ) was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from Antiquity ( preceding Procopius ). His work , known as the Res Gestae , chronicled in Latin the history of Rome from the accession of the emperor Nerva in 96 to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 , although only the sections covering the period 353  378 survive . Georgius , commonly called of Cappadocia ( Athan . Ep . ad Episc . 7 ) ; Arian intruding bishop of Alexandria ( 356 -- 361 ) . He was born , according to Ammianus Marcellinus , at Epiphania in Cilicia ( xxii . 11 , 3 ) , and , if so , must have been Cappadocian only by descent . Gregory Nazianzen describes him as not purely free - born ( Orat . xxi . 16 ) , and as `` unlearned , '' but he undoubtedly collected a library which Julian , no bad judge , describes as `` very large and ample , '' richly stored with philosophical , rhetorical , and historical authors , and with various works of `` Galilean '' or Christian theology ( Epp . 9 , 36 ) . In February 356 , after Athanasius had retired from Alexandria in consequence of the attack on his church , which all but ended in his seizure , he heard that George was to be intruded into his throne , as Gregory had been sixteen years previously . George arrived in Alexandria , escorted by soldiers , during Lent 356 ( de Fug . 6 ) . His installation was a signal for new inflictions on Alexandrian church - people . `` After Easter week , '' says Athanasius ( ib . ) , `` virgins were imprisoned , bishops led away in chains '' ( some 26 are named in Hist . Arian . 72 ) ; `` attacks made on houses '' ; and on the first Sunday evening after Pentecost a number of people who had met for prayer in a secluded place were cruelly maltreated by the commander , Sebastian , a `` pitiless Manichaean , '' for refusing to communicate with George . The intruding bishop was a man of resolution and action ( Soz . iii . 7 ) . Gregory of Nazianzus , who disparages his abilities , admits that he was like a `` hand '' to the Arians , while he employed an eloquent prelate -- probably Acacius -- as a `` tongue . '' He belonged to the Acacian section of the party , and was consequently obnoxious to the semi - Arians , who `` deposed him '' in the council of Seleucia . He allowed the notorious adventurer Aetius , founder of the Anomoeans or ultra - Arians , to officiate as deacon at Alexandria , after having been ordained , as Athanasius tells us ( de Synod . 38 ) , by Leontius of Antioch , although he afterwards `` compelled '' the Arian bishops of Egypt to sign the decree of the Acacian synod of Constantinople of 360 against Aetius ( Philost . iii . 2 ) . He induced Theodore , bishop of Oxyrynchus , to submit to degradation from the ministry and to be reordained by him as an Arian bishop ( Lib . Marcell . et Faustini , Sirmond . i . 135 ) . He managed to keep the confidence of Constantius , who congratulated the Alexandrians on having abandoned such `` grovelling teachers '' as Athanasius and entrusted their `` heavenward aspirations '' to the guidance of `` the most venerable George '' ( Athan . Apol . to Const . 30 , 31 ) . But George was far from recommending his form of Christianity either to the orthodox or to the pagans of Alexandria . `` He was severe , '' says Sozomen , `` to the adherents of Athanasius '' , not only forbidding the exercise of their worship , but `` inflicting imprisonment and scourges on men and women after the fashion of a tyrant '' ; while , towards all alike , `` he wielded his authority with more violence than belonged to the episcopal rank and character . '' He was `` hated by the magistrates for his supercilious demeanour , by the people for his tyranny '' ( Soz . iv . 10 , 30 ) . He stood well with Constantius , who was guided theologically by the Acacians ; and it was easy for the `` pope '' of Alexandria to embitter his sovereign ( as Julian says he did , Ep . 10 ) against the Alexandrian community , to name several of its members as disobedient subjects , and to suggest that its grand public buildings ought by rights to pay tax to the treasury ( Ammian . etc . ) . He showed himself a keen man of business , `` buying up the nitre - works , the marshes of papyrus and reed , and the salt lakes '' ( Epiph . Haer . lxxvi . ) . He manifested his anti - pagan zeal by arbitrary acts and insulting speeches , procured the banishment of Zeno , a prominent pagan physician ( Julian , Ep . 45 ) , prevented the pagans from offering sacrifices and celebrating their national feasts ( Soz . iv . 30 ) , brought Artemius , `` duke '' of Egypt , much given to the destruction of idols ( Theod . iii . 18 ) , with an armed force into the superb temple of Serapis at Alexandria , which was forthwith stripped of images , votive offerings , and ornaments ( Julian , l . c . ; Soz . l . c . ) . On 29 August 358 , the people broke into the church of St . Dionysius , where George was then residing , and the soldiers rescued him from their hands with difficulty and after hard fighting . On 2 October he was obliged to leave the city ; and the `` Athanasians '' occupied the churches from 11 October to 24 December , when they were again ejected by Sebastian . Probably George returned soon after he had quitted the Seleucian council , i . e . in November 359 . The news of Julian ' s accession arrived at Alexandria 30 November 361 . George was in the height of his pride and power : he had persecuted and mocked the pagans ( Socr . iii . 2 ; Maff . Frag . ; Ammian . ) , who now , being officially informed that there was an emperor who worshipped the gods , felt that the gods could at last be avenged . The shout arose , `` Away with George ! '' and `` in a moment , '' says the Fragmentist , they threw him into prison , with Diodorus and Dracontius , the master of the mint , who had overthrown a pagan altar which he found standing there ( Ammian . ) . The captives were kept in irons until the morning of 24 December . Then the pagan mob again assembled , dragged them forth with `` horrible shouts '' of triumph , and kicked them to death . They flung the mangled body of George on a camel , which they led through every part of the city , dragging the two other corpses along with ropes , and eventually burned the remains on the shore , casting the ashes into the sea . The Arians regarded George as a martyr ; and Edward Gibbon took an evident pleasure in representing `` the renowned St . George of England '' as the Alexandrian usurper `` transformed '' into a heroic soldier - saint ; but Bishop Milner ( Hist . Inquiry into the Existence and Character of St . George , 1792 ) and others have shown that this assumption of identity is manifestly false , the St . George who is patron saint of England being of an earlier date , though of that saint ' s life , country , or date we have no certain information , such traditions as we possess being given in the next art .