What, then, was the real nature of the injury which this half-century of Christian supremacy in the person of the sovereign had inflicted on Paganism? First of all, the Imperial legislation, while it protected and even fostered the central institutions of Paganism, zealously assailed some outlying works. On two points especially it was uncompromising. It rigorously proscribed divination, and sternly repressed certain special rites accompanied by licentious orgies. In neither respect, however, did it go beyond what during the Republic and under the early emperors had again and again been held necessary to secure the safety of the city and the morals of the people. But however justifiable, according to heathen precedents, this legislation of the early Christian emperors had proved a fatal blow to heathendom, for it was just here that the ardour of popular religion had consecrated itself. The patient energy, the suggestive mysticism, even the immoral orgies of the Oriental religions, had been found to have an irresistible attraction, and the ancient rites of Greece and Rome, which seemed cold and passionless by their side, were deserted for these new favourites. They were, it was true, only the buttresses of the old polytheism. The original structure of Roman and Hellenic worship was untouched; but when the main building was crumbling with age the removal of these ancient supports which had shored it up was fatal, and it fell by its own weight. But, secondly, the erection of a new capital was a not less deadly blow to Paganism. Rome was the central fortress of heathendom: to withdraw from it the Imperial Government was to deprive it of its ammunition. After the building of Constantinople, Rome still remained the formal official capital of the empire; but, practically, its influence was gone. It no longer guided deliberation; it simply recorded results. And not only was Paganism materially weakened by this transference, but at the same time Christianity was delivered from its fetters. Constantinople was a Christian city from the beginning. Paganism had here no prescriptive claim and no time-honoured prestige. So long as the Imperial Government remained at Rome, it found itself inextricably entangled in Paganism. Constantine had felt its merciless strength, and the foundation of a new capital was his escape from it.