Constantine helped forward the conversion of the Empire with true statesmanlike caution, desirous above all things to avoid political disturbance. He abolished outright, we are told, certain of the more offensive and degraded pagan rites, to which it was possible to take grave exception on the score of decency and morality. For example, some Phœnician temples at Heliopolis and Aphaca, where the worship of Venus was attended with shameless prostitution, were ordered to be pulled down. The same fate befell a temple of Æsculapius at Ægææ, and a college of effeminate priests in Egypt, associated with the worship of the Nile, was disbanded and its members, according to Eusebius, were all put to death. But these are the only specific examples of repression instanced by Eusebius,[144] and they assuredly do not suggest any general proscription of paganism. Eusebius is notoriously untrustworthy. He distinctly says that Constantine determined to purify his new capital of all idolatry, so that there should not be found within its walls either statue or altar of any false god. Yet we know that the philosopher Sopater was present at the ceremony of dedication and that he enjoyed for a time the high favour of the Emperor, though he was subsequently put to death on the accusation of the præfect Ablavius, who charged him with delaying the arrival of the Egyptian corn ships by his magical arts. We know too that there were temples of Cybele and Fortuna in the city, and Zosimus expressly declares that the Emperor constructed a temple and precincts for the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux. At Rome the temple of Concord was rebuilt towards the close of his reign, and inscriptions shew that the consuls of the year still dedicated without hindrance altars to their favourite deities. The famous altar of Victory, around which a furious controversy was to rage in the reign of Valentinian, at the close of the fourth century, still stood in the Roman Curia, and in the two great centres of Eastern Christianity, Antioch and Alexandria, the worship of Apollo and Serapis continued without intermission in their world-renowned temples. ----- Footnote 144: _De Vita Const._, iii., 48, iv., 25. ----- [Illustration: COPPER DENARIUS OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. SHOWING THE LABARUM. ] [Illustration: DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTIUS II. WITH THE LABARUM. ] [Illustration: DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF DIOCLETIAN.] [Illustration: SOLIDUS OF MAXIMIAN.]