Not far from the great prelate of the capital of the East would be the representative of what was now a small Greek town, but in five years from that time would supersede altogether the glories of Nicomedia. Metrophanes, bishop of Byzantium, was detained by old age and sickness, but Alexander, his presbyter, himself seventy years of age, was there with a little secretary of the name of Paul, not more than twelve years old, one of the readers and collectors of the Byzantine Church. Alexander had already corresponded with his namesake on the Arian controversy, and was apparently attached firmly to the orthodox side. Besides their more regular champions the orthodox party of Greece and Asia Minor had a few very eccentric allies. One was Acesius, the Novatian, "the Puritan," summoned by Constantine from Byzantium with Alexander, from the deep respect entertained by the Emperor for his ascetic character. He was attended by a boy, Auxanon, who lived to a great age afterward as a presbyter in the same sect. This child was then living with a hermit, Eutychianus, on the heights of the neighboring mountain of the Bithynian Olympus, and he descended from these solitudes to attend upon Acesius. From him we have obtained some of the most curious details of the council. Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra, was among the bishops, the fiercest opponent of Arius, and, when the active deacon of Alexandria was not present, seems to have borne the brunt of the arguments. Yet, if we may judge from his subsequent history, Athanasius could never have been quite at ease in leaving the cause in his hands. He was one of those awkward theologians who never could attack Arianism without falling into Sabellianism; and in later life he was twice deposed from his see for heresy, once excommunicated by Athanasius himself; and in the present form of the Nicene Creed one clause--that which asserts that "the kingdom of Christ shall have no end"--is said to have been expressly aimed at his exaggerated language. And now come two, who in the common pictures of the council always appear together, of whom the one probably left the deepest impression on his contemporaries; and the other, if he were present at all, on the subsequent traditions of the council. From the island of Cyprus there arrived the simple shepherd Spyridion, a shepherd both before and after his elevation to the episcopate. Strange stories were told by his fellow-islanders to the historian Socrates of the thieves who were miraculously caught in attempting to steal his sheep, and of Spyridion's good-humored reply when he found them in the morning, and gave them a ram, that they might not have sat up all night for nothing.