Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/345

 deserted city began to be re-peopled by the returning inhabitants. The work of restoration at once commenced; and it is recorded that many persons were then rescued by being dug out of the ruins, under which they had been buried; among them numbers of women, who in the meantime had passed safely through the pangs of childbirth. As soon as the news of the downfall of Antioch was carried to Constantinople, the capital was thrown into a state of consternation, and all public festivities for the season of Whitsuntide, which was at hand, were renounced. The Emperor, discarding all regal pomp, debased himself in sackcloth and ashes, and led a suppliant procession of the Senate, wearing mourning garments, to the church of St. John at the Hebdomon. Commissioners were immediately dispatched with ample funds for reparation, and the ruined city again became visible on the face of the earth with a rapidity which, in the words of a writer of the period, gave the impression that it had re-*appeared suddenly out of the infernal regions. But the earthquakes continued and ultimately, as a safeguard against further visitations of the kind, Antioch was demised to the special care of the Deity by being renamed Theopolis, or the City of God.