title: Xian MA60

text: As of October 2006, XAC has received over 90 MA60 orders. The factory had delivered 23 MA60s by the end of 2006, and expects to deliver an additional 165 by the end of 2016.


title: Xian MA60

text: "The aircraft is popular with air charter companies and small feeder airlines, and is operated by private individuals and companies


title: Xian MA60

text: As of 13 November 2015, there had been 14 accidents involving the MA60. One accident was fatal (MZ8968) resulting in 21 passenger and 4 crew deaths. This caused New Zealand to suspend tourism aid to Tonga, and warned tourists about flying the aircraft which had been donated to the country.


title: Xian MA60

text: The New Zealand Government suspended its programme of development aid to Tonga's tourism industry in July 2013 after an MA60 donated by the Chinese Government was delivered to the airline Real Tonga. In August 2013 the New Zealand Government also issued a statement advising tourists to not travel on Real Tonga's MA60 on the grounds that "this aircraft has been involved in a significant number of accidents in the last few years", and the type "is not certified to fly in New Zealand or other comparable jurisdictions". Real Tonga ceased operating the MA60 in early 2015 after the Tongan Government passed legislation adopting New Zealand's civil aviation regulations. A proposal to re-establish Royal Tongan Airlines to operate the MA60 was reported later in the year.


title: Xian MA60

text: Of the 57 MA60s exported by January 2016, at least 26 were in storage after safety concerns, maintenance problems or performance issues; six others were damaged beyond repair.


title: Xian MA60

text: On 26 March 2019 the Cameroon Civil Aviation Authority (CCAA) suspended the airworthiness certificate of the MA60 following a tail strike accident. The aircraft was allowed to operate again one day later.


title: Xian MA60

text: In August 2020, Nepal Airlines grounded its fleet of 2 MA60s due to their sub-standard performance and high operating costs. The aircraft had been acquired in 2012 and as per a Nepal Airlines board member, "The 2012 decision to buy the aircraft was prompted by greed for commissions. The Nepali experts submitted a fabricated report. The Y12E was compared with the Twin Otter, and the MA60 was compared with the ATR 72. Nepal Airlines is paying the price now".


Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great (306–337) in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian church. Christian historians alleged that Hadrian (2nd century) had constructed a temple to Aphrodite on the site of the crucifixion of Jesus on Golgotha hill in order to suppress Jewish Christian veneration there. Constantine used that to justify the temple's destruction, saying he was simply reclaiming the property.


title: Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire

text: From 313, with the exception of the brief reign of Julian, non-Christians were subject to a variety of hostile and discriminatory imperial laws which were theoretically valid across the whole empire, some threatening the death penalty, but not necessarily directly resulting in action. None seem to have been effectively applied empire-wide. For example, in 341, Constantine's son Constantius II enacted legislation forbidding pagan sacrifices in Roman Italy. In 356, he issued two more laws forbidding sacrifice and the worship of images, making them capital crimes, as well as ordering the closing of all temples, but there is no evidence of judicial killings for illegal sacrifices before Tiberius Constantine (578–582), and many temples remained open into the reign of Justinian I (527–565). Despite official threats, sporadic mob violence, and confiscations of temple treasures, paganism remained widespread into the early fifth century continuing in parts of the empire into the 600s. During the reigns of Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius I anti-pagan policies and their penalties increased but scholars continue to debate how much the laws were enforced.


text: By the end of the period of Antiquity and the institution of the Law Codes of Justinian, there was a shift from the generalized legislation which characterized the Theodosian Code to actions which targeted individual centers of paganism. The gradual transition towards more localized action, corresponds with the period when most conversions of temples to churches were undertaken: the late 5th and 6th centuries. Chuvin says that, through the severe legislation of the early Byzantine Empire, the freedom of conscience that had been the major benchmark set by the Edict of Milan was finally abolished.


text: Non-Christians were a small minority by the time of the last western anti-pagan laws in the early 600s. Scholars fall into two categories on how and why this dramatic change took place: the long established traditional "catastrophists" who view the rapid demise of paganism as occurring in the late fourth and early fifth centuries due to harsh Christian legislation and violence, and contemporary scholars who view the process as a "long decline" that began in the second century, before the emperors were themselves Christian, and which continued into the seventh century. This latter view contends that there was less conflict between pagans and Christians than was previously supposed.


text: Nine years after Diocletian celebrated twenty years of stable rule with sacrifices on a smoking altar in the Roman Forum and the most severe persecution of Christians in the empire's history, the victorious Constantine I entered Rome and, without offering sacrifice, bypassed the altar on the capitol completely. He proceeded to end the exclusion and persecution of Christians, restored confiscated property to the churches, and adopted a policy toward non-Christians of toleration with limits. The Edict of Milan (313) redefined Imperial ideology as one of mutual toleration. Constantine could be seen to embody both Christian and Hellenic religious interests.


text: It is also true that Constantine practiced what would be defined in modern day terms as a mild psychological and economic persecution of pagans: he destroyed a few temples and plundered more, converted others to churches, and neglected the rest; he "confiscated temple funds to help finance his own building projects", and in an effort to establish a stable currency, so he was primarily interested in hoards of gold and silver, but he also confiscated temple land; he refused to support pagan beliefs and practices while also speaking out against them; he periodically forbade pagan sacrifices and closed temples, outlawed the gladiatorial shows, made laws that threatened and menaced pagans while other laws markedly favored Christianity, and he personally endowed Christians with gifts of money, land and government positions.


text: As the emperor, he openly supported Christianity after 324, but there are indications he remained relatively tolerant of pagans. He never engaged in a purge. Opponents' supporters were not slaughtered when Constantine took the capital; their families and court were not killed. There were no pagan martyrs. Laws menaced death, but during Constantine's reign, no one suffered the death penalty for violating anti-pagan laws against sacrifice. "He did not punish pagans for being pagans, or Jews for being Jews, and did not adopt a policy of forced conversion." Pagans remained in important positions at his court.


text: Constantine ruled for 31 years and never outlawed paganism; in the words of an early edict, he decreed that polytheists could "celebrate the rites of an outmoded illusion," so long as they did not force Christians to join them. His earlier edict, the Edict of Milan, was restated in the Edict of the Provincials. Historian Harold A. Drake points out that this edict called for peace and tolerance: "Let no one disturb another, let each man hold fast to that which his soul wishes…" Constantine never reversed this edict.


text: Drake goes on to say the evidence indicates Constantine favored those who favored consensus, chose pragmatists over ideologues of any persuasion, and wanted peace and harmony "but also inclusiveness and flexibility". In his article "Constantine and Consensus", Drake concludes that Constantine's religious "policy" was aimed at including the church in a broader policy of civic unity, even though his "personal views" undoubtedly favored one religion over the other. Leithart says Constantine attributed his military success to God, and during his reign, the empire was relatively peaceful.


text: Lenski says there can be no real doubt Constantine genuinely converted to Christianity. In his personal views, Constantine denounced paganism as idolatry and superstition in that same document to the provincials where he espoused tolerance. Constantine and his contemporary Christians did not treat paganism as a living religion; it was defined as a "superstitio" – an 'outmoded illusion.' Constantine made many derogatory and contemptuous comments relating to the old religion; writing of the "true obstinacy" of the pagans, of their "misguided rites and ceremonial", and of their "temples of lying" contrasted with "the splendours of the home of truth". In a later letter to the King of Persia, Constantine wrote how he shunned the "abominable blood and hateful odors" of pagan sacrifices, and instead worshiped the High God "on bended knee".


text: Church historians writing after his death wrote that Constantine converted to Christianity and was baptised on his deathbed, thereby making him the first Christian emperor. Lenski observes that the myth of Constantine being baptized by Pope Sylvester developed toward the end of the fifth century in a romantic depiction of Sylvester's life which has survived as the "Actus beati Sylvestri papae" (CPL 2235). Lenski says that this story absolved the medieval church of a major embarrassment: Constantine's baptism by an Arian bishop, Eusebius of Nicomedia, which occurred while on campaign to Persia. Constantine swung through the Holy Land with the intent of being baptized in the Jordan river, but he became deathly ill at Nicomedia where he was swiftly baptized. He died shortly thereafter on May 22, 337 at a suburban villa named Achyron.


text: Scott Bradbury, professor of classical languages, writes that Constantine's policies toward pagans are "ambiguous and elusive" and that "no aspect has been more controversial than the claim he banned blood sacrifices". Bradbury says the sources on this are contradictory, quoting Eusebius who says he did, and Libanius, a historian contemporary to Constantine, who says he did not, that it was Constantius II who did so instead. According to historian R. Malcolm Errington, in Book 2 of Eusebius' D"e vita Constantini", chapter 44, Eusebius explicitly states that Constantine wrote a new law "appointing mainly Christian governors and also a law forbidding any remaining pagan officials from sacrificing in their official capacity".


text: Other significant evidence fails to support Eusebius' claim of an end to sacrifice. Constantine, in his "Letter to the Eastern Provincials", never mentions any law against sacrifices. Errington says it is generally seen that the "Letter's" purpose "is to flatter and praise the Christians, to show the personal commitment of the emperor to their cause, while at the same time preventing a crusade against the unbelieving". Archaeologist Luke Lavan writes that blood sacrifice was already declining in popularity by the time of Constantine, just as construction of new temples was also declining, but that this seems to have little to do with anti-paganism. Drake says Constantine personally abhorred sacrifice and removed the obligation to participate in them from the list of duties for imperial officials, but evidence of an actual sweeping ban on sacrifice is slight, while evidence of its continued practice is great.


text: All records of anti-pagan legislation by Constantine are found in the "Life of Constantine", written by Eusebius as a kind of eulogy after Constantine's death. It is not a history so much as a panegyric praising Constantine. The laws as they are stated in the Life of Constantine often do not correspond, "closely, or at all", to the text of the Codes themselves. Eusebius gives these laws a "strongly Christian interpretation by selective quotation or other means". This has led many to question the veracity of the record.


text: Maijastina Kahlos, scholar of Roman literature, says religion before Christianity was a decidedly public practice. Therefore, private divination, astrology, and 'Chaldean practices' (formulae, incantations, and imprecations designed to repulse demons and protect the invoker) all became associated with magic in the early imperial period (AD 1–30), and carried the threat of banishment and execution even under the pagan emperors. Lavan explains these same private and secret religious rituals were not just associated with magic but also with treason and secret plots against the emperor. Kahlos says Christian emperors inherited this fear of private divination.


text: The church had long spoken against anything connected to magic and its uses. Polymnia Athanassiadi says that, by the mid fourth century, prophecy at the Oracles of Delphi and Didyma had been definitively stamped out. However, Athanassiadi says the church's real targets in Antiquity were home-made oracles for the practice of theurgy: the interpretation of dreams with the intent of influencing human affairs. The church had no prohibitions against the interpretation of dreams, yet, according to Athanassiadi, both Church and State viewed this practice as "the most pernicious aspect of the pagan spirit".


text: Constantine's decree against private divination did not classify divination in general as magic, therefore, even though all the emperors, Christian and pagan, forbade all secret rituals, Constantine still allowed the haruspices to practice their rituals in public.


text: On Sunday 8 November 324, Constantine consecrated Byzantium as his new residence, Constantinoupolis – "city of Constantine" – with the local pagan priests, astrologers, and augurs, though he still went back to Rome to celebrate his Vicennalia: his twenty-year jubilee. Two years after the consecration of Constantinople, Constantine left Rome behind, and on Monday 4 November 328, new rituals were performed to dedicate the city as the new "capital" of the Roman empire. Among the attendants were the Neoplatonist philosopher Sopater and pontifex maximus Praetextus.


text: A year and a half later, on Monday 11 May 330, at the festival of Saint Mocius, the dedication was celebrated and commemorated with special coins with "Sol Invictus" on them. In commemoration, Constantine had a statue of the goddess of fortune Tyche built, as well as a column made of porphyry, at the top of which was a golden statue of Apollo with the face of Constantine looking toward the sun.


text: Libanius the historian (Constantine's contemporary) writes in a passage from his "In Defense of the Temples" that Constantine 'looted the Temples' around the eastern empire in order to get their treasures to build Constantinople. says that Constantinople was "literally crammed with [pagan] statuary gathered, in Jerome's words, by 'the virtual denuding' of every city in the East". Historian Ramsay MacMullen explains this by saying Constantine "wanted to obliterate non-Christians, but lacking the means, he had to be content with robbing their temples". Constantine did not obliterate what he took, though. He reused it. Litehart says "Constantinople was newly founded, but it deliberately evoked the Roman past religiously as well as politically".


text: Constantinople continued to offer room to pagan religions: there were shrines for the Dioscuri and Tyche. According to historian , there is good reason to believe the ancestral temples of Helios, Artemis and Aphrodite remained functioning in Constantinople. The Acropolis, with its ancient pagan temples, was left as it was. Wiemer says this reflects a persistent pagan tradition that Constantine did not persecute pagans.


text: Using the same vocabulary of restoration he had used for the Aelia Capitolina, Constantine acquired sites of Christian significance in the Holy Land for the purpose of constructing churches, destroying the temples in those places. For example, Constantine destroyed the Temple of Aphrodite in Lebanon. However, archaeology indicates this type of destruction did not happen as often as the literature claims. For example, at the sacred oak and spring at Mamre, a site venerated and occupied by both Jews and pagans alike, the literature says Constantine ordered the burning of the idols, the destruction of the altar, and erection of a church. The archaeology of the site, however, demonstrates that Constantine’s church along with its attendant buildings, only occupied a peripheral sector of the precinct, leaving the rest unhindered.


text: Church restrictions opposing the pillaging of pagan temples by Christians were in place even while the Christians were being persecuted by the pagans. Spanish bishops in AD 305 decreed that anyone who broke idols and was killed while doing so was not formally to be counted as a martyr. Formerly pagan sites and icons were seen by Christians as having been “polluted” and in need of "desacralization" or "deconsecration" before they could be used. (The practice of "cleansing" a sacred site of its previous spiritual influences was not limited to Christians). According to the historical writings of Prudentius, the deconsecration of a temple merely required the removal of the cult statue and altar, and it could be reused. However, this was often extended to the removal or even destruction of other statues and icons, votive stelae, and all other internal imagery and decoration. Such objects were not always destroyed, some were "desacralized" or "cleansed" by having crosses chiseled onto them and perhaps a rite performed over them. Some were simply relocated and displayed as works of art. For example, the Parthenon frieze was preserved after the Christian conversion of the temple, although in modified form.


text: According to historian Gilbert Dagron, there were fewer temples constructed empire-wide, for mostly financial reasons, after the building craze of the 2nd century ended. However, Constantine’s reign did not comprise the end of temple construction. In addition to destroying temples, he both permitted and commissioned temple construction. The dedication of new temples is attested in the historical and archaeological records until the end of the 4th century.


text: Under Constantine, (and for the first decade or so of the reigns of his sons), most of the temples remained open for the official pagan ceremonies and for the more socially acceptable activities of libation and offering of incense. Despite the polemic of Eusebius claiming Constantine razed all the temples, Constantine’s principal contribution to the downfall of the temples lay quite simply in his neglect of them.


text: According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Constantius issued bans on sacrifice which were in keeping with his personal maxim: ""Cesset superstitio; sacrificiorum aboleatur insania"" (Let superstition cease; let the folly of sacrifices be abolished). He removed the Altar of Victory from the Senate meeting house. This altar had been installed by Augustus in 29 BC, and since its installation, each Senator had traditionally made a sacrifice upon the altar before entering the Senate house. When Constantius removed the altar he also allowed the statue of Victory to remain, therefore Thompson concludes that the removal of the altar was to avoid having to personally sacrifice when he was visiting Rome. In Thompson's view, this makes the altar's removal an act to accommodate his personal religion without offending the pagan senators by refusing to observe their rites. Soon after the departure of Constantius, the altar was restored.


text: Constantius also shut down temples, ended tax relief and subsidies for pagans, and imposed the death penalty on those who consulted soothsayers. Orientalist Alexander Vasiliev says that Constantius carried out a persistent anti-pagan policy, and that sacrifices were prohibited in all localities and cities of the empire on penalty of death and confiscation of property.


text: Edward Gibbon's editor J. B. Bury dismisses Constantius’ law against sacrifice as one which could only be observed "here and there", asserting that it could never, realistically, have been enforced within a society that still contained the strong pagan element of Late Antiquity, particularly within the imperial machinery itself. Christians were a minority and paganism was still popular among the population, as well as the elites at the time. The emperor's policies were therefore passively resisted by many governors, magistrates, and even bishops, rendering the anti-pagan laws largely impotent when it came to their application.


text: According to Salzman, Constantius' actions toward paganism were relatively moderate, and this is reflected by the fact that it was not until over 20 years after Constantius' death, during the reign of Gratian, that any pagan senators protested their religion's treatment. The emperor Constantius never attempted to disband the various Roman priestly colleges or the Vestal Virgins and never acted against the various pagan schools. He remained pontifex maximus until his death.


text: The temples outside the city remained protected by law. At times, Constantius acted to protect paganism itself. According to author and editor Diana Bowder, the historian Ammianus Marcellinus records in his history "Res Gestae", that pagan sacrifices and worship continued taking place openly in Alexandria and Rome. The Roman Calendar of the year 354 cites many pagan festivals as though they were still being openly observed.


text: In 357, Constantius II linked divination and magic in a piece of legislation forbidding anyone from consulting a diviner, astrologer, or a soothsayer; then he listed augurs and seers, Chaldeans, magicians and 'all the rest' who were to be made to be silent because the people called them malefactors. In the fourth century, Augustine labeled old Roman religion and its divinatory practices as magic and therefore illegal. Thereafter, legislation tended to automatically combine the two.


text: There is a law in the Theodosian Code that dates to the time of Constantius for the preservation of the temples situated outside of city walls. Constantius also enacted a law that exacted a fine from those who were guilty of vandalizing sites holy to pagans and placed the care of these monuments and tombs under the pagan priests. Successive emperors in the 4th century made legislative attempts to curb violence against pagan shrines, and in a general law issued in 458 by the Eastern emperor Leo and the western emperor Majorian, (457 to 461), the temples and other public works gained protection with strict penalties attached.


text: Mob violence was an occasional problem in the independent cities of the empire. Taxes, food and politics were common reasons for rioting. Religion was also a factor though it is difficult to separate from politics since they were intertwined in all aspects of life. In 361, the murder of the Arian bishop George of Cappadocia was committed by a mob of pagans, although there is evidence he had cruelly provoked them; the conflict over the Serapeum involved both a Christian and a pagan mob; the Jews and the Christians each gathered to fight in 415, although the sources indicate it was the upper levels of the Jewish community who decided to massacre the Christians after Cyril made serious threats to their leadership. A Christian mob threw objects at Orestes and, finally, Hypatia was killed by a Christian mob though politics and personal jealousy were probably the primary causes. Mobs were composed of lower-class urban dwellers, upper class educated pagans, Jews and Christians, and in Alexandria, monks from the monastery of Nitria.


text: Julian, who had been a co-emperor since 355, ruled solely for 18 months from 361 to 363. He was a nephew of Constantine and received Christian training. After childhood, Julian was educated by Hellenists and became attracted to the teachings of neoplatonists and the old religions. He blamed Constantius for the assassination of Julian's father, brother and other family members, which he personally witnessed being killed by the palace guards. As a result, he developed an antipathy to Christianity which only deepened when Constantius executed Julian's only remaining brother in 354. Julian's religious beliefs were syncretic and he was initiated into at least three mystery religions, but his religious open-mindedness did not extend to Christianity.


text: Julian lifted the ban on sacrifices, restored and reopened temples, and dismantled the privileged status of the Christians, giving generous tax remissions to the cities he favored and disfavor to those who remained Christian. He allowed religious freedom and spoke against overt compulsion, but there was little other option open to him. By the time Julian came to rule, the empire had been ruled by Christian emperors for two generations and the people had adapted.


text: He was not averse to a more subtle form of compulsion however, and in 362, Julian promulgated a law that in effect forbid Christians from being teachers. "Right learning" was essential to Julian's pagan reform, and it belonged to those who showed 'piety toward the old gods'. In a letter written by Julian that still exists, he says: "Let them keep to Matthew and Luke". Christians saw this as a real threat, that effectively barred them from a professional career many of them already held. Gregory of Nazianus responded that the Hellenic learning they shared was not the equivalent of any pagan cult.


text: On his trip through Asia Minor to Antioch to assemble an army and resume war against Persia, he found the cities falling short of pagan revival. His reforms were met by Christian resistance and civic inertia. Provincial priests were replaced with Julian's sympathetic associates, but after passing through Galatia and seeing the strength of the church and its charitable institutions, he wrote to the high priest of the province that all the new priests were to "follow a thoroughgoing programme of personal moral example and public institutions to outdo the Christians at their own game... for it is disgraceful that none of the Jews is a beggar and the impious Galilaeans provide support for our people as well as theirs".


text: Julian reached Antioch on July 18 which coincided with a pagan festival that had already become secular. Julian's preference for blood sacrifice found little support, and the citizens of Antioch accused Julian of "turning the world upside down" by reinstituting it, calling him "slaughterer". Altars used for sacrifice had been routinely smashed by Christians who were deeply offended by the blood of slaughtered victims as they were reminded of their own past sufferings associated with such altars. "When Julian restored altars in Antioch, the Christian populace promptly threw them down again".


text: Blood sacrifice was a central rite of virtually all religious groups in the pre-Christian Mediterranean, and its gradual disappearance is one of the most significant religious developments of late antiquity. Sacrifice did not decline according to any uniform pattern, but...In many of the larger towns and cities of the Eastern empire, public blood sacrifices were no longer normative by the time Julian came to power and embarked on his pagan revival. Public sacrifices and communal feasting had declined as the result of a decline in the prestige of pagan priesthoods and a shift in patterns of [private donations] in civic life. That shift would have occurred on a lesser scale even without the conversion of Constantine... It is easy, nonetheless, to imagine a situation in which sacrifice could decline without disappearing. Why not retain, for example, a single animal victim in order to preserve the integrity of the ancient rite? The fact that public sacrifices appear to have disappeared completely in many towns and cities must be attributed to the atmosphere created by imperial and episcopal hostility. Julian became frustrated that no one seemed to match his zeal for pagan revival. His reform soon moved from toleration to imperial punishment. Historians such as David Wood assert there was a revival of some persecution against Christians. On the other hand, H. A. Drake says that "In the eighteen brief months that he ruled between 361 and 363, Julian did not persecute [Christians], as a hostile tradition contends. But he did make clear that the partnership between Rome and Christian bishops... was now at an end, replaced by a government that defined its interests and those of Christianity as antithetical. Scholars agree that Julian tried to undermine the church by ordering the construction of churches for Christian “heretical” sects and by destroying orthodox churches.


text: After Antioch, Julian would not be deterred from his goal of war with Persia, and he died on that campaign. The facts of his death have become obscured by the "war of words between Christians and pagans" which followed. It was "principally over the source of the fatal spear... The thought that Julian might have died by the hand of one of his own side... was a godsend to a Christian tradition eager to have the apostate emperor accorded his just deserts. Yet such a rumor was not solely the product of religious polemic. It had its roots in the broader trail of disaffection Julian left in his wake".


text: Jovian reigned only eight months, from June 363 to February 364, but in that period, he negotiated peace with the Sassanids and reestablished Christianity as the State religion.


text: Bayliss says the position adopted by the Nicene Christian emperor Valentinian I (321–375) and the Arian Christian emperor Valens (364–378), granting all cults toleration from the start of their reign, was in tune with a society of mixed beliefs. Pagan writers, for example "Ammianus Marcellinus," describe the reign of Valentinian as one “distinguished for religious tolerance... He took a neutral position between opposing faiths, and never troubled anyone by ordering him to adopt this or that mode of worship ... [he] left the various cults undisturbed as he found them”. This apparently sympathetic stance is corroborated by the absence of any anti-pagan legislation in the Theodosian Law Codes from this era. Classics scholar Christopher P. Jones says Valentinian permitted divination so long as it was not done at night, which he saw as the next step to practicing magic.


text: Valens, who ruled the east, also tolerated paganism, even keeping some of Julian's associates in their trusted positions. He confirmed the rights and privileges of the pagan priests and confirmed the right of pagans to be the exclusive caretakers of their temples.


text: In 382, Gratian was the first to formally, in law, divert into the crown's coffers those public financial subsidies that had previously supported Rome's cults; he appropriated the income of pagan priests and the Vestal Virgins, forbid their right to inherit land, confiscated the possessions of the priestly colleges, and was the first to refuse the title of "pontifex maximus". He also ordered the Altar of Victory to be removed again. The colleges of pagan priests lost privileges and immunities.


text: Gratian wrote Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, for spiritual advice and received back multiple letters and books. It has long been convention to see the volume of these writings as evidence Gratian was dominated by Ambrose, who was therefore the true source of Gratian's anti-pagan actions. McLynn finds this unlikely and unnecessary as an explanation: Gratian was, himself, devout, and "The many differences between Gratian's religious policies and his father's, and the shifts that occurred during his own reign, are to be explained by changed political circumstances [after the Battle of Adrianople], rather than capitulation to Ambrose". Modern scholars have noted that Sozomen is the only ancient source that shows Ambrose and Gratian together in any personal interaction. Sozomen relates that, in the last year of Gratian's reign, Ambrose crashed Gratian's private hunting party in order to appeal on behalf of a pagan senator sentenced to die. After years of acquaintance, this indicates Ambrose could not take for granted that Gratian would see him, so instead, Ambrose had to resort to such maneuverings to make his appeal.


text: Gratian's brother, Valentinian II, and his mother disliked Ambrose, but Valentinian II also refused to grant requests from pagans to restore the Altar of Victory and the income of the temple priests and Vestal Virgins. Valentinian II refused to overturn the policies of his predecessor.


text: After Gratian, the emperors Arcadius, Honorius and Theodosius continued to appropriate for the crown the tax revenue collected by the temple custodians. Urban ritual procession and ceremony was gradually stripped of support and funding. Rather than being removed outright though, many festivals were secularized and incorporated into a developing Christian calendar, often with little alteration. Some had already severely declined in popularity by the end of 3rd century.


text: John Moorhead says that Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan is sometimes referred to as having influenced the anti-paganism policies of the emperor Theodosius I to the degree of finally achieving the desired dominance of church over state. Alan Cameron observes that this dominating influence is "often spoken of as though documented fact". Indeed, he says, "the assumption is so widespread it would be superfluous to cite authorities".


text: Modern scholarship has revised this view. Cameron says Ambrose was only one among many advisors, and there is no evidence Theodosius I favored him. On occasion Theodosius I purposefully excluded Ambrose, and at times, got angry with Ambrose and sent him away from court. Neil B. McLynn observes that the documents that reveal the relationship between Ambrose and Theodosius seem less about personal friendship and more like negotiations between the institutions the two men represent: the Roman State and the Italian Church.


text: According to McLynn, the events following the Thessalonian massacre cannot be used to "prove" Ambrose' exceptional or undue influence. The encounter at the church door does not demonstrate Ambrose' dominance over Theodosius because, according to Peter Brown, it never happened. According to McLynn, "the encounter at the church door has long been known as a pious fiction". Harold A. Drake quotes Daniel Washburn as writing that the image of the mitered prelate braced in the door of the cathedral to block Theodosius from entering, is a product of the imagination of Theodoret who was a historian of the fifth century. Theodoret wrote of the events of 390 "using his own ideology to fill the gaps in the historical record".


text: Theodosius seems to have adopted a cautious policy overall toward traditional non-Christian cults. He reiterated his Christian predecessors' bans on animal sacrifice, divination, and apostasy, but allowed other pagan practices to be performed publicly and temples to remain open. Theodosius also turned pagan holidays into workdays, but the festivals associated with them continued. A number of laws against paganism were issued towards the end of his reign, in 391 and 392, but historians have tended to downplay their practical effects and even the emperor's direct role in them. Modern scholars think there is little if any evidence Theodosius pursued an active and sustained policy against the traditional cults.


text: There is, however, evidence that Theodosius took care to prevent the empire's still substantial pagan population from feeling ill-disposed toward his rule. Following the death in 388 of his praetorian prefect, Cynegius, who had vandalized a number of pagan shrines in the eastern provinces, Theodosius replaced him with a moderate pagan who subsequently moved to protect the temples. During his first official tour of Italy (389–391), the emperor won over the influential pagan lobby in the Roman Senate by appointing its foremost members to important administrative posts. Theodosius also nominated the last pair of pagan consuls in Roman history (Tatianus and Symmachus) in 391.


text: Between 382 and 384, there was yet another dispute over the Altar of Victory. According to the "Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity", Symmachus requested the restoration of the altar that Gratian had removed and the restoration of state support for the Vestals. Ambrose campaigned against any financial support for paganism and anything like the Altar that required participation in pagan practices. Ambrose prevailed. Theodosius refused the appeal. Pagans remained outspoken in their demands for respect, concessions and support from the state.


text: Classicist Ingomar Hamlet says that, contrary to popular myth, Theodosius did not ban the Olympic games. indicates there are several reasons to conclude the Olympic games continued after Theodosius and came to an end under Theodosius II instead. Two scholia on Lucian connect the end of the games with a fire that burned down the temple of the Olympian Zeus during his reign.


text: Anti-pagan legislation reflects what Brown calls "the most potent social and religious drama" of the fourth-century Roman empire. From Constantine forward, the Christian intelligentsia wrote of Christianity as fully triumphant over paganism. It didn't matter that they were still a minority in the empire, this triumph had occurred in Heaven; it was evidenced by Constantine; but even after Constantine, they wrote that Christianity would defeat, and be seen to defeat, all of its enemies - not convert them. As Peter Brown says, "Conversion was not the principal aim of a social order that declared the God-given dominance of Christianity".


text: The laws were not intended to convert; "the laws were intended to terrorize... Their language was uniformly vehement, and... frequently horrifying". Their intent was to reorder society along religious lines and enable Christianity to put a stop to animal sacrifice. Blood sacrifice was the element of pagan culture most abhorrent to Christians. If they could not stop the private practice of sacrifice, they could "hope to determine what would be normative and socially acceptable in public spaces". Altars used for sacrifice were routinely smashed by Christians who were deeply offended by the blood of slaughtered victims as they were reminded of their own past sufferings associated with such altars.


text: Blood sacrifice was a central rite of virtually all religious groups in the pre-Christian Mediterranean, and its gradual disappearance is one of the most significant religious developments of late antiquity. ... Public sacrifices and communal feasting had declined as the result of a decline in the prestige of pagan priesthoods and a shift in patterns of [private donations] in civic life. That shift would have occurred on a lesser scale even without the conversion of Constantine... It is easy, nonetheless, to imagine a situation in which sacrifice could decline without disappearing. Why not retain, for example, a single animal victim in order to preserve the integrity of the ancient rite? The fact that public sacrifices appear to have disappeared completely in many towns and cities must be attributed to the atmosphere created by imperial and episcopal hostility.


text: One of the first things that is important about this, in Malcolm Errington's view, is how much this legislation was applied and used, which would show how dependable the laws are as a reflection of what actually happened to pagans in history. Brown says that, given the large numbers of non-Christians in every region at this time, local authorities were "notoriously lax in imposing them. Christian bishops frequently obstructed their application. The harsh imperial edicts had to face the vast following of paganism among the population, and the passive resistance of governors and magistrates, thereby limiting their impact. But not eliminating impact altogether, as recent studies on the nature of "the presence" of the state, how it made itself felt, "the subtle nature of power" and the elimination of public sacrifice show.


text: Secondly, the laws reveal the emergence of a language of intolerance. The legal language runs parallel to the writings of the apologists, such as Augustine of Hippo and Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and heresiologists such as Epiphanius of Salamis. Christian writers and imperial legislators both drew on a rhetoric of conquest. These writings were commonly hostile and often contemptuous toward a paganism Christianity saw as already defeated.


text: Lastly, on the one hand the laws, and these Christian sources with their violent rhetoric, have had great influence on modern perceptions of this period by creating an impression of continuous violent conflict that has been assumed on an empire-wide scale. Archaeological evidence, on the other hand, indicates that, outside of violent rhetoric, there were only isolated incidents of actual violence between Christians and pagans. Non-Christian, (non-heretical), groups such as pagans and Jews enjoyed a tolerance based on contempt through most of Late Antiquity.


text: According to Brown, Theodosius was a devout Christian anxious to close the temples in the East. His commissioner, the prefect Maternus Cynegius (384-88) commissioned temple destruction on a wide scale, even employing the military under his command and "black-robed monks" for this purpose. Garth Fowden says Cynegius did not limit himself to Theodosius' official policy, but Theodosius did not stop him. Christopher Haas also says Cynegius oversaw temple closings, the prohibition of sacrifices, and the destruction of temples in Osrhoene, Carrhae, and Beroea.


text: The pagan historian Libanius wrote "this black robed tribe" were acting outside the law, but Brown says Theodosius did not enforce those laws. Theodosius voiced his support for the preservation of temple buildings, but passively legitimized the monk's violence by listening to them instead of correcting them, thereby failing to prevent the damaging of many holy sites, images and objects of piety by Christian zealots. However, in 388 at Callinicum, (modern Raqqa in Syria), the bishop along with monks from the area burned a Jewish synagogue to the ground, and Theodosius responded, "The monks commit many atrocities" and ordered them to pay to rebuild it.


text: These examples were seen as the 'tip of the iceberg' by earlier scholars who saw these events as part of a tide of violent Christian iconoclasm that continued throughout the 390s and into the 400s.


text: However, archaeological evidence for the violent destruction of temples in the fourth and early fifth centuries around the entire Mediterranean is limited to a handful of sites. Most recorded incidents of temple destruction are known from church and hagiographical accounts which are eager to portray their subjects' piety and power. They offer vividly dramatized accounts of pious bishops doing battle with temple demons. The temples of Zeus at Apameia and of Marnas at Gaza City are said to have been brought down by the local bishops around this period, but the only source for this information is the biography of Porphyry of Gaza which is considered a forgery.


text: Temple destruction is attested to in 43 cases in the written sources, but only 4 of them have been confirmed by archaeological evidence. Trombley and MacMullen say part of why such discrepancies (between the literary sources and the archaeological evidence) exist is because it is common for details in the literary sources to be ambiguous and unclear. For example, Malalas claimed Constantine destroyed all the temples, then he said Theodisius did, then he said Constantine converted them all to churches.


text: According to archaeologists Lavan and Mulryan: If one accepts all potential claims (several of which are very shaky) only 2.4% of all known temples in Gaul have evidence of being destroyed by violence (17 out of [approximately] 711) ... In Africa, only the city of Cyrene has produced good evidence (the burning of several temples) whilst work in Asia Minor has produced just one weak candidate (undated), and in Greece the only strong example may relate to a barbarian rather than a Christian raid. Finally, Egypt has produced no archaeologically-confirmed temple destructions at all dating from this period, with the exception of the Serapeum, a situation paralleled in Spain. In Italy, we have only a single burning; Britain has produced the most evidence, with 2 Romano–Celtic temples out of 40 ...being burnt in the 4th c., whilst another was deliberately destroyed, with its mosaics smashed.


text: Earthquakes caused much of the destruction that occurred to temples in this era, and people determined not to rebuild as society changed. Recycling and pragmatism contributed to demolition as well, with one building being taken down and another constructed according to the needs of the community with no anti-paganism being involved. Civil conflict and external invasions also destroyed temples and shrines. Lavan says: "We must rule out most of the images of destruction created by the [written sources]. Archaeology shows the vast majority of temples were not treated this way".


text: Some scholars have long asserted that not all temples were destroyed but were instead converted to churches throughout the empire. According to modern archaeology, 120 pagan temples were converted to churches in the whole empire, out of the thousands of temples that existed, and only about 40 of them are dated before the end of the fifth century. R. P. C. Hanson says the direct conversion of temples into churches did not begin until the mid fifth century in any but a few isolated incidents. In Rome the first recorded temple conversion was the Pantheon in 609. None of the churches attributed to Martin of Tours can be proven to have existed in the fourth century.


text: Anti-pagan laws were established and continued on after Theodosius I until the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. Arcadius, Honorius, Theodosius II, Marcian and Leo I reiterated the bans on pagan rites and sacrifices, and increased the penalties. The necessity to do so indicates that the old religion still had many followers. In the later part of the 4th century there were clearly a significant number of pagan sympathizers and crypto-pagans still in positions of power in all levels of the administrative system including positions close to the emperor; even by the 6th century, pagans can still be found in prominent positions of office both locally and in the imperial bureaucracy. From Theodosius on, public sacrifice definitely ended in Constantinople and Antioch, and in those places that were, as Lavan says, "under the emperor's nose". However, away from the imperial court, those efforts were not effective or enduring until the fifth and sixth centuries.


text: By the early fifth century under Honorius and Theodosius II, there were multiple injunctions against magic and divination. One example was the law of 409 "de maleficis et mathematicis" against astrologers ordering them to return to Catholicism, and for the books of mathematics that they used for their computations to be "consumed in flames before the eyes of the bishops". A fifth century writer Apponius wrote a condemnation of methods "demons used to ensnare human hearts" including augury, astrology, magical spells, malign magic, "mathesis", and all predictions gained from the flights of birds or the scrutiny of entrails.


text: The prefecture of Illyricum appears to have been an attractive post for pagans and sympathisers in the 5th century, and Aphrodisias is known to have housed a substantial population of pagans in late antiquity, including a famous school of philosophy. In Rome, Christianization was hampered significantly by the elites, many of whom remained stalwartly pagan. The institutional cults continued in Rome and its hinterland, funded from private sources, in a considerably reduced form, but still existent, as long as empire lasted. "We know from discoveries at Aphrodisias that pagans and philosophers were still very much in evidence in the 5th century, and living in some luxury. The discovery of overt pagan statuary and marble altars in a house in the heart of the city of Athens gives a very different impression from that presented by the law codes and literature, of pagans worshipping in secrecy and constant fear of the governor and bishop".


text: In 476, the last western emperor of Roman descent, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by Odoacer, who became the first "barbarian" king of Italy. Pagans used the occasion to attempt to revive the old rites. In 484, the Magister militum per Orientem, Illus, revolted against Eastern Emperor Zeno and raised his own candidate, Leontius, to the throne. Illus and Leontius were compelled, however, to flee to a remote Isaurian fortress, where Zeno besieged them for four years. Zeno finally captured them in 488 and promptly had them executed. Following the revolt, Zeno had several prominent individuals who had supported the revolt executed and their strongholds destroyed. Emperor Anastasius I, who came to the throne in 491, was the first emperor required to sign a written declaration of orthodoxy before his coronation.


text: Under Pope Gregory I, the caverns, grottoes, crags and glens that had once been used for the worship of the pagan gods were now appropriated by Christianity: "Let altars be built and relics be placed there" wrote Pope Gregory I, "so that [the pagans] have to change from the worship of the daemones to that of the true God".


text: The Byzantine emperor Justinian I, also known as Justinian the Great (527-565), enacted legislation with repeated calls for the cessation of sacrifice well into the 6th century. Judith Herrin writes that Emperor Justinian was a major influence in getting Christian ideals and legal regulations integrated with Roman law. Justinian revised the Theodosian codes, introduced many Christian elements, and "turned the full force of imperial legislation against deviants of all kinds, particularly religious". Herrin says, "This effectively put the word of God on the same level as Roman law, combining an exclusive monotheism with a persecuting authority".


text: According to Anthony Kaldellis, Justinian is remembered as "the last Roman emperor of ecumenical importance ... the arbiter of the Roman legal tradition." Yet it is as the emperor who sought, once again, to extend Roman authority around the Mediterranean, that he is often seen as a tyrant and despot. Justinian's government became increasingly autocratic. He persecuted pagans, religious minorities and purged the bureaucracy of those who disagreed with him. As Byzantine imperial culture became more orthodox, it led to the creation of the Monophysite church which set Constantinople against both Rome and the Eastern provinces. "Few emperors had started so many wars or tried to enforce cultural and religious uniformity with such zeal... In the words of one historian, 'Justinian was conscious of living in the age of Justinian'.


text: Herrin adds that, under Justinian, this new full "supremacy of Christian belief involved considerable destruction". The decree of 528 had already barred pagans from state office when, decades later, Justinian ordered a "persecution of surviving Hellenes, accompanied by the burning of pagan books, pictures and statues" which took place at the "Kynêgion". Most pagan literature was on papyrus, and so it perished before being able to be copied onto something more durable. Herrin says it is difficult to assess the degree to which Christians are responsible for the losses of ancient documents in many cases, but in the mid-sixth century, active persecution in Constantinople destroyed many ancient texts.


text: In the early 21st century, every aspect of Antiquity is undergoing revision as "a hotly debated period". What was thought to be well-known concerning the relation between society and Christianity "has been rendered disturbingly unfamiliar" through new archaeological discoveries. Even periodization is debated, but late antiquity is generally thought of as beginning after the end of the Roman empire's Crisis of the Third Century (AD 235–284) and extending to about AD 600 in the West, and AD 800–1000 in the East.'


text: Roman religion's characteristic openness has led many, such as Ramsay MacMullen to say that in its process of expansion, the Roman Empire was "completely tolerant, in heaven as on earth". Peter Garnsey strongly disagrees with those who describe the attitude concerning the "plethora of cults" in the Roman empire before Constantine as "tolerant" or "inclusive". In his view, it is a misuse of terminology. Toleration is a modern concept not found in its contemporary form before the Reformation and Enlightenment periods. Garnsey explains that foreign gods were not tolerated in the modern sense, but were made subject, together with their communities, when they were conquered. The Romans "cannot be said to have extended to them the same combination of disapproval and acceptance which is actual toleration" in our contemporary understanding of the term.


text: Roman historian Eric Orlin says that Roman religion's willingness to adopt foreign gods and practices into its pantheon is probably its defining trait. Yet he goes on to say this did not apply equally to all gods: "Many divinities were brought to Rome and installed as part of the Roman state religion, but a great many more were not". MacMullen says Rome determined whether a new religion received 'tolerance' (absorption) or 'intolerance' (exclusion) based on whether they met the Roman standard of honoring one's god "according to ancestral custom" thereby demonstrating compatibility with Roman identity.


text: Andreas Bendlin says the thesis of polytheistic tolerance and monotheistic intolerance in Antiquity has long been proven to be incorrect. According to Rodney Stark, since Christians most likely formed only sixteen to seventeen percent of the empire's population at the time of Constantine's conversion, they did not have the numerical advantage to form a sufficient power–base to begin a systematic persecution of pagans. However, Brown reminds us "We should not underestimate the fierce mood of the Christians of the fourth century", and that repression, persecution and martyrdom do not generally breed tolerance of those same persecutors. Brown says Roman authorities had shown no hesitation in "taking out" the Christian church which they saw as a threat to the peace of the empire, and that Constantine and his successors did the same for the same reasons. Rome had been removing anything it saw as a challenge to Roman identity since Bacchic associations were dissolved in 186 BCE; this became the pattern for the Roman state's response to anything it saw as a religious threat, and that attitude and belief didn't change once the emperors were Christian.


text: According to "The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity" (OHLA), scholars of the late Roman Empire fall into two categories on this topic; they are referred to as holding either the "catastrophic" view or the "long and slow" view of the demise of polytheism.


text: The classic inception of the catastrophic view comes from the work of Edward Gibbon, "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". Written in the 18th century, historian Lynn White says that Gibbon gave four reasons for the downfall of the Roman Empire: "immoderate greatness", wealth and luxury, barbarians, and Christianization, but it was Christianization that Gibbon saw as primary. White says that, by Gibbon's own self-description, Gibbon was a "philosophical historian" who believed that the primary virtues of civilization were war and monarchy. He saw Christian teaching as pacifistic and Christians as unwilling to support the virtue of war and join the military; he said Christians were hiding their cowardice and laziness under the cloak of religion. It was this unwillingness to support war that Gibbon claimed was the primary cause of Rome's decline and fall, saying: "the last remains of the military spirit were buried in the cloister". Gibbon disliked religious enthusiasm and zeal and singled out the monks and martyrs for particular denigration as representative of these "vices". According to historian Patricia Craddock, Gibbon's History is a masterpiece that fails only where his biases effect his method allowing the "desertion of the role of historian for that of prosecuting attorney".


text: Even so, historian Harold A. Drake writes that, "It is difficult to overestimate the influence of Gibbon's interpretation on subsequent scholarship". Gibbon's views developed into the traditional "catastrophic" view that has been the established hegemony for 200 years.


text: The modern alternative is the "long view", first stated by Peter Brown, whom "The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity" calls the "pioneer" who inspired the study of Late Antiquity as a field in itself, and whose work remains seminal. Brown used anthropological models, rather than political or economic ones, to study the cultural history of the period. He said polytheism experienced a "long slow" demise that lasted from the 200s into the 600s:


text: The Christian church believed that victory over the "false gods" had begun with Jesus; they marked the conversion of Constantine as the end — the final fulfillment — of this heavenly victory, even though Christians were only about 15–18% of the empire's population at the time of Constantine's conversion. This narrative imposed a firm closure within the Christian literature on what, according to Pierre Chuvin, had in reality been a "wavering century."


text: According to MacMullan, the Christian record declares pagans were not only defeated, but fully converted, by the end of the fourth century, but he says that this claim was "far from true". Christians, in their triumphant exaggeration, and sheer bulk of material, have misrepresented religious history, as other evidence shows that paganism continued. MacMullen says this is why "We may fairly accuse the historical record of having failed us, not just in the familiar way, being simply insufficient, but also through being distorted".


text: The historical sources are filled with episodes of conflict, however, events in late antiquity were often dramatized for ideological reasons. Jan N. Bremmer says that "religious violence in Late Antiquity is mostly restricted to violent rhetoric: 'in Antiquity, not all religious violence was that religious, and not all religious violence was that violent'". Brown contends that the fall of Rome is a highly charged issue that leads many to "tendentious and ill supported polemics". Antique Christian accounts proclaim uniform victory while some current historiography begins with the "infinite superiority" of the Roman Empire based on an "idealized image" of it, then proceeds to vivid accounts of its unpleasant, ignorant, and violent enemies (the barbarians and the Christians), which is all intended to frame a "grandiose theory of catastrophe from which there would be no return for half a millennia". The problem with this, according to Brown, is that "much of this 'Grand Narrative' is wrong; it is a two dimensional history".


text: The Theodosian Law Code has long been one of the principal sources for the study of Late Antiquity. It is an incomplete collection of laws dating from the reign of Constantine to the date of their promulgation as a collection in 438. The language is uniformly vehement and the penalties are harsh and frequently horrifying. The code contains at least sixty-six laws targeted at heretics. Most are found in Book XVI, ‘De Fide Catholica’, "On the Catholic Faith". The laws fall into three general categories: laws to encourage conversion; laws to define and punish the activities of pagans, apostates, heretics and Jews; and laws concerned with the problems of implementing the laws, that is, laws aimed at the conversion of the aristocracy and the administrative system itself. Most importantly, it details the cult activities that the emperor and the Catholic Church considered unsuitable.


text: Theodosius's later decrees have been described as a "dramatic view of radical Christian ambition", as a means of conversion through the "carrot and the stick", and as a 'declaration of war' on traditional religious practices. Penalties included death and confiscation of property, especially for private familial rites within the home. However, local authorities in the fourth century were still mostly pagan and were lax in imposing anti-pagan laws, and even Christian bishops frequently obstructed their application, resulting in the laws having had limited effect.


text: Contemporary scholars question using the Code, which was a legal document and not an historical work, for understanding history. According to archaeologist Luke Lavan, reading law as history distorts understanding of what actually occurred during the fourth century. There are many signs that a healthy paganism continued into the fifth century, and in some places, into the sixth and beyond. Christian hostility toward pagans and their monuments is seen by most modern scholars as far from the general phenomenon that the law and literature implies.


text: Archaeologists Luke Lavan and Michael Mulryan point out that the traditional catastrophic view is largely based on literary sources, most of which are Christian, and are therefore considered too partial. Christian historians wrote vividly dramatized accounts of pious bishops doing battle with temple demons, and much of the framework for understanding this age is based on the “tabloid-like” accounts of the destruction of the Serapeum of Alexandria, the murder of Hypatia, and the publication of the Theodosian law code. Lavan and Mulryan indicate that archaeological evidence of religious conflict exists, but not to the degree or the intensity to which it was previously thought, putting the traditional catastrophic view of "Christian triumphalism" in doubt. Rita Lizzi Testa, Professor of Roman history, Michele Renee Salzman, and Marianne Sághy quote Alan Cameron as saying that the idea that religious conflict is the cause of the swift demise of paganism is pure historiographical construction.


text: According to Salzman: "Although the debate on the death of paganism continues, scholars ...by and large, concur that the once dominant notion of overt pagan-Christian religious conflict cannot fully explain the texts and artifacts or the social, religious, and political realities of Late Antique Rome". Lavan says in "The Archaeology of Late Antique 'Paganism':"


text: Bayliss states that the Christian sources have greatly influenced perceptions of this period, to the extent that the impression of the conflict which they create has led scholars to assume that the conflict existed on an empire-wide level. However, archaeological evidence indicates that the decline of paganism was peaceful in many places throughout the empire, for example Athens, was relatively non-confrontational. While some historians have focused on the cataclysmic events such as the destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria, in reality, there are only a handful of documented examples of temples being entirely destroyed through such acts of aggression. According to Bayliss, this fact means that the archaeological evidence might show that Christian responsibility for the destruction of temples has been exaggerated. As Peter Brown points out with regard to Libanius’ anger: “we know of many such acts of iconoclasm and arson because well-placed persons still felt free to present these incidents as flagrant departures from a more orderly norm". Scholars such as Cameron, Brown, Markus, Trombley and MacMullen have lent considerable weight to the notion that the boundaries between pagan and Christian communities in the 4th century were not as stark as some prior historians claimed because open conflict was actually something of a rarity.


text: Brown and others such as Noel Lenski and Glen Bowersock say that "For all their propaganda, Constantine and his successors did not bring about the end of paganism". It continued. Previously undervalued similarities in language, society, religion, and the arts, as well as current archaeological research, indicate that paganism slowly declined for a full two centuries and more in some places, thereby offering an argument for the ongoing vibrancy of Roman culture in late antiquity, and its continued unity and uniqueness long after the reign of Constantine.


title: Baroda State

text: Baroda State was a state in present-day Gujarat, ruled by the Gaekwad dynasty of the Maratha Confederacy from its formation in 1721 until its accession to the newly formed Dominion of India in 1949. With the city of Baroda (Vadodara) as its capital, during the British Raj its relations with the British were managed by the Baroda Residency. The revenue of the state in 1901 was Rs. 13,661,000. Baroda formally acceded to the Dominion of India, on 1 May 1949, prior to which an interim government was formed in the state.


title: Baroda State

text: Baroda derives its native name "Vadodara" from the Sanskrit word "vatodara", meaning 'in the heart of the Banyan ("Vata") tree. It also has another name, "Virakshetra" or "Virawati" (land of warriors), mentioned alongside "Vadodara" by the 17th century Gujarati poet Premanand Bhatt, native to the city. Its name has been mentioned as "Brodera" by early English travellers and merchants, from which its later name Baroda was derived. Geographically it comprised several disjointed tracts of land, measuring over 1000 square miles, spread across the present Gujarat state; these were subdivided into four "prant" (states), namely Kadi, Baroda, Navsari and Amreli, which included coastal portions of the state, in the Okhamadal region near Dwarka and Kodinar near Diu.


title: Baroda State

text: The Marathas first attacked Gujarat in 1705. By 1712, a Maratha leader Khande Rao Dabhade grew powerful in the region and when he returned to Satara in 1716, he was made the "senapati" (commander in chief). Thereafter during the "Battle of Balapur" in 1721, one of his officers, Damaji Gaekwad was awarded the title "Shamsher Bahadur" or Distinguished Swordsman. Damaji died in 1721 and was succeeded by his nephew Pilajirao.


title: Baroda State

text: Thus the Baroda State was founded in 1721, when the Maratha general Pilaji Gaekwad conquered Songadh from the Mughals. Prior to this Pilajirao was appointed as general to collect revenues from Gujarat by the Peshwa, the Prime Minister of the Maratha Empire, who had taken over the region north and south of Surat from the Mughals to established the "Sarkar of Surat". Songadh remained the headquarters of the "House of Gaekwad" until 1866. After the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803–1805), the East India Company wrested control of much of Gujarat from the Marathas. However the Gaekwads of Baroda (Vadodara), made a separate peace with the British, entering into a subsidiary alliance which acknowledged British suzerainty and control of the state's external affairs in return for retaining internal autonomy.


title: Baroda State

text: Following the death of Sir Khanderao Gaekwad (1828–1870), the popular Maharaja of Baroda, in 1870, it was expected that his brother, Malharrao (1831–1882), would succeed him. However, Malharrao had already proven himself to be of the vilest character and had been imprisoned earlier for conspiring to assassinate Khanderao. As Khanderao's widow, Maharani Jamnabai (1853–1898) was already pregnant with a posthumous child, the succession was delayed until the gender of the child could be proven. The child proved to be a daughter, and so upon her birth on 5 July 1871, Malharrao ascended the throne.


title: Baroda State

text: Malharrao spent money liberally, nearly emptying the Barodan state coffers (he commissioned a pair of solid gold cannon and a carpet of pearls, among other expenses) and soon reports reached the Resident of Malharrao's gross tyranny and cruelty. Malharrao further attempted to cover up his deeds by poisoning the Resident, Colonel R. Phayre C.B. with a compound of arsenic. By order of the Secretary of State for India, Lord Salisbury, Malharrao was deposed on 10 April 1875 and exiled to Madras, where he died in obscurity in 1882. With the throne of Baroda now vacant, Maharani Jamnabai called on the heads of the extended branches of the dynasty to come to Baroda and present themselves and their sons in order to decide upon a successor.


title: Baroda State

text: Kashirao and his three sons, Anandrao (1857–1917), Gopalrao (1863–1938) and Sampatrao (1865–1934) walked to Baroda from Kavlana-a distance of some 600 kilometres - to present themselves to Jamnabai.


title: Baroda State

text: Eventually Gopalrao was selected by the British Government as successor and was accordingly adopted by Maharani Jamnabai, on 27 May 1875. He was also given a new name, Sayajirao. On 16 June 1875, he ascended the throne as Sayajirao Gaekwad III, but being a minor, reigned under a Council of Regency until he came of age and was invested with full ruling powers on 28 December 1881. founding numerous institutions,


title: Baroda State

text: Various important state institutions were founded in the early 20th century, including the Bank of Baroda on 20 July 1908. In 1908, Sayajirao also founded the Baroda Legislative Assembly (also known as the Baroda Dhara Sabha).


title: Baroda State

text: By the beginning of the 20th century, the relations of the British with the four largest princely states—Hyderabad, Mysore, Jammu and Kashmir, and Baroda were managed by a British Resident under the direct authority the Governor-General of India. In 1911, Baroda State spanned , and the population was 2,032,798 persons as per the 1911 census of India. The state was very wealthy. "The Pittsburgh Press" reported in 1927 that the diamond necklace, which contained the Star of the South diamond, was a part of a royal collection worth $10,000,000 at the time, housed in the Nazarbaug Palace (built 1721) in Baroda city; another important part of the collection was a cloth embroidered with precious stones and seed pearls, made to cover the tomb of Mohammed.


title: Baroda State

text: Dr. B.R.Ambedkar writes about his experience with untouchability in Baroda in the second chapter of his autobiographical book, Waiting for a Visa.


title: Baroda State

text: In 1937, the princely states of the Baroda Residency were merged with those of the agencies adjacent to the northern part of the Bombay Presidency — Rewa Kantha Agency, Surat Agency, Nasik Agency, Kaira Agency and Thana Agency — in order to form the Baroda and Gujarat States Agency. A few years before independence the process of the 'Attachment Scheme' began in order to integrate the smallest princely states, estates and "thanas". Baroda State was one of the main beneficiaries of this measure by being able to add about 15,000 km and half a million inhabitants to the state. The merged states were Pethapur on 1 February 1940, the Katosan Thana, with Deloli, Kalsapura, Maguna, Memadpura, Rampura, Ranipura, Tejpura, Varsora, the Palaj Taluka and both Ijpura States between June and July 1940. These were followed on 10 July 1943 by the states of Ambliara, Ghorasar, Ilol, Katosan, Khadal, Patdi, Punadra, Ranasan, Wasoda and Wao Also many small "Talukas" of the region were merged. On 24 July 1943 Sachodar State and a few small places that had no own jurisdiction were annexed. By December of the same year the small states of Bajana, Bhilka, Malpur, Mansa and Vadia followed suit.


title: Baroda State

text: Finally on 5 November 1944 the Baroda and Gujarat States Agency was merged with the Western India States Agency (WISA) to form the larger Baroda, Western India and Gujarat States Agency.


title: Baroda State

text: After the independence of India, which initially did not include Baroda or many other princely states, an interim government under Prime Minister Dr. Jivraj Narayan Mehta, son-in-law of Manubhai Mehta, then Dewan of Baroda state, was inaugurated in the State, on 4 September 1948, by the then Maharaja at a special "Durbar" in the Laxmi Vilas Palace, Baroda. Finally on 1 May 1949, Baroda State, the third largest state at the time of British India, formally acceded to the Dominion of India, Initially, Baroda merged with the Bombay state, and then, on 1 May 1960, when the two new states of Gujarat and Maharashtra were formed, it became part of Gujarat, with Dr. Jivraj Narayan Mehta becoming the first Chief Minister of Gujarat.


title: Baroda State

text: The Koli rebellion was led by two brothers Nathaji Patel and Yamaji Patel, chiefs of Chandap Taluq. During the great Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Kolis of Chandap under Nathaji and Yamaji planning for revolt and Gaekwad of Baroda received that news. So Gaekwad stationed his cavalry at Chandap to control the rebels. But cavalry of Gaekwad was killed and thrown out by Kolis of Chandap. After that Kolis went into Taranga hills and continued their rebellion for few months. In the end of October 1857, the combined forces of British, Idar State and Baroda attacked Kolis and burnt the Chandap village.


title: Baroda State

text: In north-west Gujarat, around the southern tip of the Aravali, a number of Koli Talukdars revolted against the triumvirate of the British, Gaekwad and Raja of Idar. Together, these three forces burnt down two Koli villages towards the end of 1857. The Koli chieftains collected an army of 2000 Koli- and Bhil soldiers and attacked Gaekwadi villages near present day Gandhinagar. Adopting guerrilla tactics, they continued their resistance till the end of 1858. While Koli chiefs fought around the river Sabarmati. The Kolis paid a huge price for their resistance to British and Baroda. They were not only defeated in battle and punished for having dared to resist but, in the aftermath, kolis were marginalized by the rest of society as outlaws. Being arms-bearing community, they too were disarmed in early 1858 and also forced to practise agriculture.


title: Baroda State

text: The state owned the Gaekwar's Baroda State Railway (GBSR), which started in 1862 as the first narrow-gauge in India. It consisted of of narrow gauge track from Dabhoi to Miyagam. The railway network extended to Goyagate, Chandod, Bodeli and Samalaya Jn with Dabhoi as its focal point. After independence in 1949 this railway merged with the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway. The lines are under conversion to broad gauge currently.


title: Baroda State

text: In late 18th century, the Baroda state established a Naval set up at Billimora, a port about 40 miles south of Surat, known as "Bunder Billimora Suba Armor". Here a fleet of 50 vessels was stationed, which included mostly sails, cargo vessels for trading and military vessels to secure the sea from Portuguese, Dutch and French.


title: Baroda State

text: When political alignments changed, after the Second Anglo-Maratha war, a joint expedition of British and Barodan state troops under Colonel Walker, then resident of Baroda, approached Kathiawad in 1808, and eventually obtained bonds from the chiefs of Okha-mandal and from the maritime states of Kathiawad renouncing piracy. Then in 1813, the Barodan government acquired the "parganah" of Kodinar (in present Junagadh district), where at port of Velan a small fleet of four frigates with 12-pounder guns on each for the protection of the trade between Bombay and Sindh was established. These four armed vessels were named "Anandprasad", "Sarsuba", "Anamat Vart" and "Anne Maria", which was purchased from the Shah of Iran, and was known as 'Shah Kai Khusru' until then.


title: Baroda State

text: The Gaekwad dynasty follows the standard of male primogeniture in matters of succession. The present line of succession is as follows:


title: Baroda State

text: In 2007, Gujarat State Department of Archives started digitising 600,000 files, including Baroda state registers, prints, maps, "abhinandan patra" or "maan patra" (felicitation letters) offered to the erstwhile King by different provincial states and organisation, "aagna patrika" (gazette), "huzur" orders, and volumes of letters exchanged and agreements of the princely state with other provincial states and the British Raj, currently housed at the 'Southern Circle Record Office' at Vadodara, where a permanent exhibition had also been set up.


title: Kamov Ka-25

text: The Kamov Ka-25 (NATO reporting name "Hormone") is a naval helicopter, developed for the Soviet Navy in the USSR from 1958.


title: Kamov Ka-25

text: In the late 1950s there was an urgent demand for anti-submarine helicopters for deployment on new ships equipped with helicopter platforms entering service with the Soviet Navy. Kamov's compact design was chosen for production in 1958. To speed the development of the new anti-submarine helicopter Kamov designed and built a prototype to prove the cabin and dynamic components layout; designated Ka-20, this demonstrator was not equipped with mission equipment, corrosion protection or shipboard operational equipment. The Ka-20 was displayed at the 1961 Tushino Aviation Day display.


title: Kamov Ka-25

text: Definitive prototypes of the Ka-25 incorporated mission equipment and corrosion protection for the structure. The rotor system introduced aluminium alloy blades pressurised with nitrogen for crack detection, lubricated hinges, hydraulic powered controls, alcohol de-icing and automatic blade folding. Power was supplied by two free-turbine engines sat atop the cabin, with electrically de-iced inlets, plain lateral exhausts with no infrared countermeasures, driving the main gearbox directly and a cooling fan for the gearbox and hydraulic oil coolers aft of the main gearbox. Construction was of stressed skin duralumin throughout with flush-riveting, as well as some bonding and honeycomb sandwich panels. The 1.5m × 1,25m × 3.94m cabin had a sliding door to port flight deck forward of the cabin and fuel tanks underfloor filled using a pressure refueling nozzle on the port side. A short boom at the rear of the cabin had a central fin and twin toed-in fins at the ends of the tailplane mainly for use during auto-rotation. The undercarriage consisted of two noncastoring mainwheels with sprag brakes attached to the fuselage by parallel 'V' struts with a single angled shock absorber to dissipate landing loads, and two castoring nosewheels on straight shock absorbing legs attached directly to the fuselage either side of the cockpit which folded rearwards to reduce interference with the RADAR, all wheels were fitted with emergency rapid inflation flotation collars. Flying controls all act on the co-axial rotors with pitch, roll and collective similar to a conventional single rotor helicopter. Yaw was through differential collective which has a secondary effect of torque, an automatic mixer box ensured that total lift on the rotors remained constant during yaw maneuvers, to improve handling during deck landings. Optional extras included fold up seats for 12 passengers, rescue hoist, external auxiliary fuel tanks or containers for cameras, flares, smoke floats or beacons.


title: Pequod (Moby-Dick)

text: Pequod is a fictional 19th-century Nantucket whaling ship that appears in the 1851 novel "Moby-Dick" by American author Herman Melville. "Pequod" and her crew, commanded by Captain Ahab, are central to the story, which, after the initial chapters, takes place almost entirely aboard the ship during a three-year whaling expedition in the Atlantic, Indian and South Pacific oceans. Most of the characters in the novel are part of "Pequod"s crew.


title: Pequod (Moby-Dick)

text: Ishmael, the novel's narrator, encounters the ship after he arrives in Nantucket and learns of three ships that are about to leave on three-year cruises. Tasked by his new friend, the Polynesian harpooner Queequeg (or more precisely, Queequeg's idol-god, Yojo), to make the selection for them both, Ishmael, a self-described "green hand at whaling," goes to the Straight Wharf and chooses the "Pequod".


title: Pequod (Moby-Dick)

text: Ishmael says that "Pequod" was named for the Algonquian-speaking Pequot tribe of Native Americans. Melville knew of the tribe's history, that it was decimated and scattered in the early 1600s by the Pequot War and by the epidemic that preceded it. The Mashantucket Pequot Tribe (Western Pequot tribe) and the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation still inhabit their reservation in Connecticut.


title: Pequod (Moby-Dick)

text: Melville referred to the Pequot in other works, as well. Oshima Yukiko points to other symbolic references to the tribe in the novel and says that, in the final scene, Moby Dick's destruction of the "Pequod" reflects the destruction of the Pequot people. The name also evokes Biblical meanings.


title: Pequod (Moby-Dick)

text: "Pequod" has endured the years and the elements, but not without sustaining damage. The ship has a quarterdeck and a forecastle and is three-masted like most Nantucket whalers of the time, but all three masts are replacements, taken on when the originals were lost in a typhoon off Japan.


title: Pequod (Moby-Dick)

text: "Pequod" is not unlike Ahab in this respect, since many of the rest of these missing elements have been replaced by the bones of the whales she hunts. She is not a new vessel, and with age would usually come some veneration and respect, which Ishmael tries to convey by using several historical references in his description of her. But in "Pequod"s case this has been negated by the thick veneer of barbarity that has been overlaid onto the ship in the form of fantastic scrimshaw embellishment. Far from enjoying mere utilitarian replacements out of available whalebone, she has been ornately decorated, even to the whale teeth set into the railing that now resemble an open jaw. Like a fingerbone necklace on a cannibal, these adornments are clear evidence of "Pequod"s success as a hunter and killer of whales.


title: Pequod (Moby-Dick)

text: The principal owners of the vessel are two well-to-do Quaker retired whaling captains, therefore "the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the whole management of the ship's affairs to these two."


title: Pequod (Moby-Dick)

text: Peleg served as first mate under Ahab on "Pequod" before obtaining his own command, and is responsible for all her whalebone embellishments.


title: Pequod (Moby-Dick)

text: Scholars have seen the Pequod and its crew as symbolic but have disagreed on the specifics. The ship's racial diversity of the crew is taken to reflect the ideal of the American racial community. Its thirty member crew equals the number of American states at the time, and, in the words of Andrew Delbanco, the Pequod "becomes a replica of the American ship of state." Some agree in seeing the ship as an "assemblage," that is a group that stands for a larger group, while others have challenged the "well-known" interpretation.


title: Christopher Egan

text: Christopher Andrew Egan (born 29 June 1984) is an Australian actor. He played Nick Smith in the Australian soap opera "Home and Away" from 2000 to 2003, and David Shepherd on the NBC television drama "Kings". He also portrayed Alex Lannon in the Apocalyptic TV series, "Dominion".


title: Christopher Egan

text: Egan was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He has appeared in several commercials and did some modelling, but his ability and ambition for acting came out when he performed in the Glen Street productions of "Les Misérables" and "West Side Story". He also appeared in the TV soap "Home and Away".


title: Christopher Egan

text: He has also been trained in gymnastics at the KICK Performance Group in Sydney. As well as competing in several eisteddfods at an early age, Egan has been able to use his gymnastics skills extensively in the thriller film "Crush".


title: Christopher Egan

text: He moved to Los Angeles in 2003. In 2006, he appeared in the film adaptation of Christopher Paolini's novel "Eragon". In 2007, he played a small role in "", the third movie in the "Resident Evil" series. In the summer of 2009, he shot the movie "Letters to Juliet" in Italy, with Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave and Gael García Bernal.


title: Christopher Egan

text: Egan starred in "Dominion", the Sci Fi supernatural action drama based on characters from the 2010 feature film "Legion" that starred Paul Bettany. Egan played Alex Lannon, a rebellious young soldier who discovers he is the unlikely savior of humanity.


title: Chris Kreider

text: Christopher James Kreider (born April 30, 1991) is an American professional ice hockey winger and alternate captain for the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL). Raised in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston, Kreider previously played college ice hockey at Boston College. He was drafted in the first round, 19th overall, by the Rangers in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft and is the longest-tenured player in the organization. Due to his size and ability to set screens on goaltenders, he is known as "The Human Eclipse." He holds the NHL record for most Stanley Cup playoff goals before playing his first NHL regular season game, with five. In 2022, he became the fourth New York Ranger to score 50 goals in a single season.


title: Chris Kreider

text: Kreider played for Masconomet Regional High School, and later Phillips Academy, a preparatory school in Andover, Massachusetts. Kreider scored a goal in the 2010 NCAA title game in which Boston College defeated the University of Wisconsin to win the national title; he was also named to the 2010 Hockey East All-Rookie Team.


title: Chris Kreider

text: Kreider was named Most Valuable Player of the 2011 Beanpot Tournament, as Boston College won the tournament for the second-straight time. He was also selected to the senior United States national team to compete in the 2011 IIHF World Championship in Slovakia.


title: Chris Kreider

text: In the 2011–12 season Kreider won a second NCAA title with Boston College, where he led the team in scoring with 23 goals and 45 points in 44 games. His 23 goals were second overall in the Hockey East conference and tied for eighth in the NCAA; his 45 points were fifth in Hockey East and tied for 19th in the NCAA. Kreider was also tied for the Hockey East lead in game-winning goals (5), short handed goals (3) and short-handed points (5). He also finished in the top ten in Hockey East with seven power play goals and 17 power play points.


title: Chris Kreider

text: On April 10, 2012, Kreider signed a three-year, entry-level contract with the Rangers. He joined New York the following day for practice, and was declared eligible to participate in the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs. He made his NHL debut a few days later in a Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Quarter-finals on April 16, 2012. He scored his first career NHL goal in Game 6 of that series on April 23 with an assist from former World Junior Championship teammate Derek Stepan, which proved to be the game-winner.


title: Chris Kreider

text: Kreider's second NHL goal was also a playoff game-winning goal, this time coming against the Washington Capitals on in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semi-finals on April 28, making him the first player in NHL history whose first two goals were playoff game-winners. He ended the 2012 playoffs with five goals, an NHL record for most playoff goals before playing his first regular season game. The prior record of four such goals was held by Eddie Mazur, and the prior record of three goals in a single post-season prior to playing a regular season game was held by George McPhee and Ray Cote.


title: Chris Kreider

text: Kreider scored his first career hat-trick on November 30, 2013, against the Vancouver Canucks in a 5–2 Rangers victory.


title: Chris Kreider

text: On May 17, 2014, in game one of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Montreal Canadiens, Kreider crashed the net of Canadiens goaltender Carey Price resulting in Price sustaining a sprained knee. Price would miss the remainder the round of the playoffs. The Rangers would go on to claim a 4–2 series victory.


title: Chris Kreider

text: On October 28, 2014, in a game against the Minnesota Wild, Kreider received a major penalty and a game misconduct for dangerously checking Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin from behind into the boards. Despite an injury to Brodin, Kreider was not suspended for the hit.


title: Chris Kreider

text: On July 22, 2016, Kreider signed a four-year, $18.5 million contract extension with the Rangers, avoiding arbitration. Kreider would then have a solid 2016-17 season, setting new career highs in both goals (28) and points (53).


title: Chris Kreider

text: During a game against the Washington Capitals on December 27, 2017, Kreider left the game for an undisclosed reason. It was later revealed that Kreider had a blood clot in his right arm, and would be out indefinitely. On January 8, 2018, it was announced that Kreider would undergo rib resection surgery, and would be out of the lineup for about 5–7 weeks. Kreider played his first game back on February 24, 2018 against the Minnesota Wild after missing 24 games.


title: Chris Kreider

text: On February 24, 2020, Kreider signed a seven-year, $45.5 million contract extension with the Rangers.


title: Chris Kreider

text: On February 1, 2021, Kreider scored his 161st NHL career goal during a game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, passing fellow Ranger Cecil Dillon on the all-time franchise list. He became the second American-born player on the Rangers' all-time goal-scoring list behind Brian Leetch.


title: Chris Kreider

text: In January 2022, Kreider was chosen to the 2022 NHL All-Star Game, which will be held at T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada. It turned out to be a career year for Kreider. On April 5, during a game against the New Jersey Devils, Kreider recorded his 25th power play goal, the most in a single season in Rangers history, breaking the team's record previously held by Jaromír Jágr (24), Vic Hadfield (23), Marcel Dionne and Mike Gartner both with 22 goals. Also, in the same game, he scored his 10th game-winning goal, a new franchise record, beating the Devils 3–1. On April 11, during a game against the Carolina Hurricanes, Kreider scored his 50th goal for the season. He became the fourth player in Rangers franchise history to score 50-plus goals in a single season, joining Jaromír Jágr (54), Adam Graves (52), and Vic Hadfield (50). On April 26th, Kreider was named the recipient of the Steven MacDonald Extra Effort Award. On April 27th, Kreider was named the recipient of the inaugural Mr. Ranger Award presented in memory of Rod Gilbert.


title: Chris Kreider

text: During Game 6 of the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Pittsburgh Penguins on May 13, Kreider scored his 8th career game-winning playoff goal, setting a new franchise record. After scoring a goal in Game 7, Kreider tied Mark Messier with the second most playoff goals in Rangers history with 29, moving one past Ron Duguay, Adam Graves, and Brian Leetch. In Round 2 of the playoffs during Game 7 against the Carolina Hurricanes, Kreider scored his 15th goal in his 26th career playoff game. He has 15 goals when facing elimination in the playoffs, the most in Rangers franchise history.


title: Chris Kreider

text: Kreider scored six goals for the gold medal-winning United States World Junior Championship team in 2010. He was chosen to represent the United States once again at the 2011 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships, and led the team with four goals in six games as Team USA won the bronze medal. Two of his goals were scored in the bronze medal game, and he was named the USA's best player for that game. Kreider's ten goals in World Junior Championship play tied him with John LeClair and Mike Modano for third all-time among American players, behind just Jeremy Roenick's 13 and Brian Gionta's 11.


title: Chris Kreider

text: In 2018, Kreider, along with teammate Neal Pionk, were the only Rangers players selected to represent the United States at the 2018 IIHF World Championship. He posted 10 points through 10 games, helping the United States claim the Bronze Medal in Denmark.


title: Chris Kreider

text: On April 19, 2019, Kreider was selected to represent Team USA at the 2019 IIHF World Championship, held in Bratislava and Kosice, Slovakia.


title: Madame Butterfly (short story)

text: "Madame Butterfly" is a short story by American lawyer and writer John Luther Long. It is based on the recollections of Long's sister, Jennie Correll, who had been to Japan with her husband, a Methodist missionary, and was influenced by Pierre Loti's 1887 novel "Madame Chrysanthème". It was published in "Century Magazine" in 1898, together with some of Long's other short fiction.


title: Madame Butterfly (short story)

text: An American naval officer, Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, arrives in Japan to take up his duties on a ship docked in Nagasaki. On the suggestion of his friend Sayre, he takes a Japanese wife and house for the duration of his stay there. His young bride, Cho-Cho-San, is a geisha whose family was strongly in favour of the marriage until Pinkerton forbade them from visiting. When they learned that they would not be allowed to visit they disowned Cho-Cho-San. Pinkerton's ship eventually sets sail from Japan. In his absence and unbeknown to him, she gives birth to their child, a son whom she names Trouble. As time goes by, Cho-Cho-San is still convinced that Pinkerton will return to her some day, but her maid, Suzuki, becomes increasingly skeptical. Then Goro, a marriage broker, arrives and proposes that she divorce Pinkerton, telling her that even if he does come back, he will leave her and take the child with him. He proposes a Japanese husband to look after her—Yamadori, a prince who had lived a long time in America. Although she has no intention of going through with Goro's plan, she tells him to arrange a meeting with Yamadori.


title: Madame Butterfly (short story)

text: At the meeting Yamadori tells Cho-Cho-San that Pinkerton only thought of the marriage as temporary and suggests that he would eventually divorce her and the baby could well end up in an orphanage. Instead, his marriage proposal offered her the possibility of reconciling with her family and keeping her baby. Angry and upset at what she hears, she has Suzuki turn Yamadori and the marriage broker out of the house. She then visits the American consul in Nagasaki, Mr. Sharpless, in an attempt to allay her fears and ask his help in getting Pinkerton to return. As her story unfolds, Sharpless feels increasing contempt for Pinkerton. She asks him to write to Pinkerton and tell him that she is marrying Yamadori and will take their son with her if he does not return. However, she says that she has no intention of really doing this and only wants to play a "little joke" on him. Sharpless gently tells her that he could not take part in such a deception. He encourages her to accept Yamadori's offer and reconcile with her family.


title: Madame Butterfly (short story)

text: Weeks pass with Cho-Cho-San anxiously scanning the horizon for the arrival of Pinkerton's ship. Finally, she sees it coming into the harbour and is overcome with emotion. She and Suzuki prepare the house with flowers to welcome him. Cho-Cho-San dresses in her finest kimono. Then she, Suzuki and the baby hide behind a shoji screen intending to surprise him when he arrives. They wait all night, but Pinkerton never comes. A week later, they see a passenger steamer in the harbour. On the deck is Pinkerton with a young blonde woman. Again she and Suzuki wait all night for him in vain. The next morning his warship is gone from the harbour. Distraught, she visits Sharpless to ask if he had written Pinkerton and why he has left without seeing her. To spare her feelings, Sharpless tells her that he had indeed written to Pinkerton who was on his way to see her but had many duties to perform and then his ship was suddenly ordered to China. Cho-Cho-San is sad but relieved. Then the blonde woman from the steamship enters the office, identifies herself as Pinkerton's wife and asks the consul to send the following telegram to her husband:


title: Madame Butterfly (short story)

text: "Just saw the baby and his nurse. Can't we have him at once? He is lovely. Shall see the mother about it tomorrow. Was not at home when I was there today. Expect to join you Wednesday week per "Kioto Maru". May I bring him along? Adelaide."


title: Madame Butterfly (short story)

text: In despair Cho-Cho-San rushes home. She bids farewell to Suzuki and the baby and shuts herself in her room to commit suicide with her father's sword. After the first thrust of the sword, she hesitates. Although she is bleeding the wound is not fatal. As she raises the sword again, Suzuki silently enters the room with the baby and pinches him to make him cry. Cho-Cho-San lets the sword drop to the floor. As the baby crawls onto Cho-Cho-San's lap, Suzuki dresses her wound. The story ends with the words: "When Mrs. Pinkerton called next day at the little house on Higashi Hill it was quite empty."


title: Madame Butterfly (short story)

text: According to a book by Jan van Rij, Long's story was loosely based on the birth-mother of Tomisaburo, the British-Japanese adopted son of Thomas Blake Glover and his Japanese wife Awajiya Tsuru (淡路屋 ツル).Tomisaburo's birth-mother was Maki Kaga, who worked in the pleasure district of Nagasaki (Glover was not his birth-father, however). It was Long's sister Sara Jane Correll who first used the name "Cho-Cho-San" for Maki Kaga. The story also bears many similarities to the semi-autobiographical novel by Pierre Loti, "Madame Chrysanthème", which also was set in Nagasaki and adapted into an opera.


title: Madame Butterfly (short story)

text: Long's use of the exotic and the classical in "Madame Butterfly" reflected the blending of Japanese and traditional styles in the Arts and Crafts movement around the turn of the 19th century and American fascination with Japan that began with the "opening of Japan" by Matthew C. Perry in 1854.