On the death of Constantine, in 337, his three sons, without entirely dismembering the empire, divided the provinces of the Roman world into three shares. Constantine II., the eldest son, who succeeded to the throne of his father in Constantinople, and Constans, the youngest, who dwelt in Rome, divided Europe between them; while Constantius, the second son, held Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Egypt, of which possessions Antioch on the Orontes was at that time the capital. Thus Alexandria was doomed to a further fall. When governed by Rome it had still been the first of Greek cities; afterwards, when the seat of the empire was fixed at Constantinople, it became the second; but on this division of the Roman world, when the seat of government came still nearer to Egypt, and Antioch rose as the capital of the East, Alexandria fell to be the third among Greek cities. Egypt quietly received its political orders from Antioch. Its opinions also in some cases followed those of the capital, and it is curious to remark that the Alexandrian writers, when dating by the era of the creation, were now willing to consider the world ten years less old than they used, because it was so thought at Antioch. But it was not so with their religious opinions, and as long as Antioch and its emperor undertook to govern the Egyptian church there was little peace in the province. The three emperors did not take the same side in the quarrel which under the name of religion was then unsettling the obedience of the Egyptians, and even in some degree troubling the rest of the empire. Constantius held the Arian opinions of Syria; but Constantine II. and Constans openly gave their countenance to the party of the rebellious Athanasius, who under their favour ventured to return to Alexandria, where, after an absence of two years and four months, he was received in the warmest manner by his admiring flock. But on the death of Constantine II., who was shortly afterwards killed in battle by his brother Constans, Constantius felt himself more master of his own kingdom; he deposed Athanasius, and summoned a council of bishops at Antioch to elect a new patriarch of Alexandria. Christian bishops, though they had latterly owed their ordination to the authority of their equals, had always received their bishoprics by the choice of their presbyters or of their flocks; and though they were glad to receive the support of the emperor, they were not willing to acknowledge him as their head. Hence, when the council at Antioch first elected Eusebius of AEmisa into the bishopric of Alexandria, he chose to refuse the honour which they had only a doubtful right to bestow, rather than to venture into the city in the face of his popular rival. The council then elected Gregory, whose greater courage and ambition led him to accept the office.