Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/235

 with perfumes, and displaying a gold ring of remarkable size. The advent of these self-ordained instructors of the public into a provincial town was often the occasion of much local enthusiasm, and a throng of citizens advanced to meet them for some distance, in order to conduct them to their lodgings. All professors, whether in the pay of the state or otherwise, enjoyed a complete immunity from the civil duties and imposts enforced on ordinary individuals, thus presenting the singular contrast of being licensed to live in a condition of ideal freedom under a political system which restricted personal liberty at every turn. Such material advantages inevitably became liable to abuse through imposture, and the country was permeated by charlatans in the guise of philosophers, who coveted distinction and emolument at the easy price of a merely personal assertion of competence. In the fourth century this evil was scarcely checked by Imperial enactments which required that pro-*