RELIGIOUS DISPUTES.--While the West was beginning to recover from the shock of the barbarian invasions, society in the Eastern Empire was growing more enervated and corrupt. For a considerable period the Byzantine government was managed by the influence of women. Thus _Theodosius II_., the successor of Arcadius (408-450), was governed during his whole reign by his sister _Pulcheria_. In the East, there was an intense interest felt in the abstruse questions of metaphysical theology. The Greek mind was speculative; and eager and often acrimonious debate on such questions as were raised by _Nestorius_ respecting the two natures of the Saviour, was heard even in the shops and markets. The court meddled actively in these heated controversies, and was swayed to one party or the other by the theologians whom, for the time, it took into its favor. The emperors assumed the high prerogative of personally deciding in doctrinal disputes, and of dictating opinions to the clergy, who gradually lost their independence, and became abjectly subservient to the imperial will. THE HIPPODROME.--The rage for doctrinal dispute in the sixth century was only exceeded by the passions kindled in connection with the circus, or hippodrome, at Constantinople. In old Rome the competitors in the chariot-races were organized, the drivers wore their respective badges,--red, white, blue, or green,--and emperors of the baser sort, like _Caligula_ and _Caracalla_, visited the stables, and were enrolled on the lists of the rival factions. But in Constantinople the factions of the _blue_ and the _green_, not content with the contest of the race-course, were violent political parties in which courtiers and the emperor himself took sides. The animosity of the _blues_ and the _greens_ broke out in frequent bloody conflicts in the streets. Their respective adherents spread into the provinces. On one occasion, under _Justinian_, they raised a sedition called _Nika_ (from the watchword used by the combatants), which well-nigh subverted the throne. In this period the _body-guard_ of the emperor played a part resembling that of the old praetorians at Rome.