The first poet who emancipated himself from the tyranny of the old laws—hence to be compared to Venantius Fortunatus in the West—and who boldly struck out the new path of harmonious prose, was S. Anatolius of Constantinople. His commencements were not promising. He had been apocrisiarius, or legate, from the arch-heretic Dioscorus, to the Emperor's Court: and at the death of S. Flavian, in consequence of the violence received in the "Robbers’ Meeting" at Ephesus, A.D. 449, was, by the influence of his Pontiff, raised to the vacant throne of Constantinople. He soon, however, vindicated his orthodoxy: and in the Council of Chalcedon, he procured
the enactment of the famous 28th Canon, by which, (in spite of all the efforts of Rome,) Constantinople was raised to the second place among Patriarchal Sees. Having governed his Church eight years in peace, he departed to his rest in A.D. 458. His compositions are not numerous, and are almost all short, but they are usually very spirited.