Let those be held as enjoying immunity who, advancing by the various grades and in due order, have performed their various obligations and have attained by their labor and approved actions to the priesthood of a province or to the honor of a chief magistracy, gaining this position not by favor and votes obtained by begging for them, but with the favorable report of the citizens and commendation of the public as a whole, and let them enjoy the repose which they shall have deserved by their long labor, and let them not be subject to those acts of bodily severity in punishment which it is not seemly that _honorati_ should undergo. (_c_) Theodoret. _Hist. Ec._, IV, 21; V, 20. (MSG, 82:1181.) The following statement of Theodoret might seem to have been inspired by the general hatred which was felt for the violent persecutor and pronounced Arian, Valens. Nevertheless the statement is supported by references to the conditions under Valens made by Libanius in his _Oratio pro Templis_, addressed to the Emperor Theodosius. IV, 21. At Antioch Valens spent considerable time, and gave complete license to all who under cover of the Christian name, pagans, Jews, and the rest preached doctrines contrary to those of the Gospel. The slaves of this error even went so far as to perform pagan rites, and thus the deceitful fire which after Julian had been quenched by Jovian, was now rekindled by permission of Valens. The rites of the Jews, of Dionysus and Demeter were no longer performed in a corner as they would have been in a pious reign, but by revellers running wild in the forum. Valens was a foe to none but to them that held the apostolic doctrine. V, 20. Against the champions of the apostolic decrees alone he persisted in waging war. Accordingly, during the whole period of his reign the altar fire was lit, libations and sacrifices were offered to idols, public feasts were celebrated in the forum, and votaries initiated in the orgies of Dionysus ran about in goatskins, mangling dogs in Bacchic frenzy. (_d_) Symmachus, _Memorial to Valentinian II_; Ambrose, _Epistula_ 17. (MSL, 16:1007.) A petition for the restoration of the altar of Victory in the Senate House at Rome. Symmachus, prefect of the city, had previously appealed to Gratian to restore the altar which had been removed. The following petition, of which the more impressive parts are given, was made in 384, two years after the first petition. The opening paragraph refers to the former petition. The memorial is found among the Epistles of Ambrose, who replies to it.