412 THE DECLINE AND FALL Syrian bishop deplores the misfortunes of Caelestian, who, from the state of a noble and opulent senator of Carthage, was reduced, with his wife and family, and servants, to be^ his bread in a foreijijn country ; but lie apjilauds the resignation of the Chris- tian exile, and the philosojihic temper which, under the pressure of such calamities, could enjoy more real happiness than was the ordinary lot of wealth and prosperity. The story of Maria, the daughter of the magnificent Eudaemon, is singular and interest- ing. In the sack of Carthage, she was purchased from the Vandals by some merchants of Syria, who afterwards sold her as a slave in their native country. A female attendant, transported in the same ship, and sold in the same family, still continued to respect a mistress whom fortune had reduced to the common level of servitude ; and the daughter of Eudaemon received from her grateful affection the domestic services which she had once required from her obedience. This remarkable behaviour de- vulged the real condition of Maria, who, in the absence of the bishop of Cyn-hus, was redeemed from slavery by the generosity of some soldiers of the garrison. The liberality of Theodoret provided for her decent maintenance ; and she passed ten months among the deaconesses of the church ; till she was unexpectedly infomied that her father, who had escaped from the ruin of Carthage, exercised an honourable office in one of the western provinces. Her filial impatience was seconded by the pious bishop : Theodoret, in a letter still extant, recommends Maria to the bishop of x'Ega?, a maritime city of Cilicia, which was frequented, during the annual fair, by the vessels of the ^^'est, most earnestly requesting that his colleague would use the maiden with a tenderness suitable to her birth, and that he would intrust her to the care of such faithful merchants as would esteem it a sufficient gain if they restored a daughter, lost beyond all human hope, to the amis of her afflicted parent. Fable of the Among the insipid legend of ecclesiastical history, I am """""'"P"" tempted to distinguish the memorable fable of the Seven Sleepers ; *^ whose imaginary' date corresponds with the reign of the younger Theodosius and the conquest of Africa by ^'The choice of fabulous circumstances is of small importance; yet I have confined myself to the narrative which was translated from the Syriac by the care of Gregory of Tours (de Gloria Martyrum, 1. i. c. 95, in Max. Bibliotheca Patrum, torn. xi. p. 856), to the Greek acts of their martyrdom (apud Photium, p. 1400, 1401), and to the Annals of the Patriarch Eutychius (torn. i. p. 391, 531, 532, 535. Vers. Pocock).
