Life

Of Arab origin, Modestus was comes Orientis from 358 to 362, succeeding to Nebridius

Nebridius

Saint Nebridius was bishop of Egara and then bishop of Barcelona from 540 to around 547 AD. His feast day falls on February 9. A native of Girona, Nebridius, according to tradition, had three brothers were also saints. They were Saint Justus, bishop of Urgell; Saint Elpidius; and Saint...

 and serving under the Emperors Constantius II

Constantius II

Constantius II , was Roman Emperor from 337 to 361. The second son of Constantine I and Fausta, he ascended to the throne with his brothers Constantine II and Constans upon their father's death....

 and Julian. In 359 he was the president of a commission at Scythopolis, and in this office he judged with cruelty the defendants.

While he was in Antioch

Antioch

Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the...

, Julian appointed Modestus as praefectus urbi

Praefectus urbi

The praefectus urbanus or praefectus urbi, in English the urban prefect, was prefect of the city of Rome, and later also of Constantinople. The office originated under the Roman kings, continued during the Republic and Empire, and held high importance in late Antiquity...

of Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

, an office he held from 362 to 363.

Under Emperor Valens

Valens

Valens was the Eastern Roman Emperor from 364 to 378. He was given the eastern half of the empire by his brother Valentinian I after the latter's accession to the throne...

 he was Praetorian prefect of the East (369-377) and consul in 372. During his office as Praetorian prefect he completed the building of the Cisterna Modestiaca (a cistern identified with Sarrâdshchane), whose building was begun by architect Helpidius in 363, while Modestus was praefectus urbi.

In 371 was appointed as president of a commission that was to judge some high officers who had been accused of practicing magic, in particular of having consulted a soothsayer to learn the name of the successor of Emperor Valens. Modestus acted very cruelly, torturing innocent people, thus extorting confessions from them. His consulate, the following year, was probably a reward for his handling of the process.

Despite the fact that he was strongly connected with the pagan officers and had been a pagan under the pagan Emperor Julian, under Valens he converted to Arianism

Arianism

Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...

, the Emperor's religion. Valens sent Modestus to meet the Nicene bishop Basil of Caesarea

Basil of Caesarea

Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great, was the bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, Asia Minor . He was an influential 4th century Christian theologian...

, to mediate between the two opposing Christian faiths, but Basil refused. Modestus was then ordered by Valens to use violence against the bishop, but he did not.

He is the addressee of 37 letters by Libanius

Libanius

Libanius was a Greek-speaking teacher of rhetoric of the Sophist school. During the rise of Christian hegemony in the later Roman Empire, he remained unconverted and regarded himself as a Hellene in religious matters.-Life:...

.

Sources

• Burns, Paul (ed.), Butler's Lives of the Saints: New Full Edition January. The Liturgical Press. ISBN 0-8146-2377-8.
• Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin
  Arnold Hugh Martin Jones
  Arnold Hugh Martin Jones — known as A.H.M. Jones — was a prominent 20th century British historian of classical antiquity, particularly of the later Roman Empire.-Biography:...
  
  , John Robert Martindale, John Morris
  John Morris (historian)
  John Robert Morris was an English historian who specialised in the study of the institutions of the Roman Empire and the history of Sub-Roman Britain...
  
  , Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
  Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
  Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire is a set of three volumes collectively describing every person attested or claimed to have lived in the Roman world from AD 260, the date of the beginning of Gallienus' sole rule, to 641, the date of the death of Heraclius, which is commonly held to mark the...
  
  , volume 1, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 0521072336, pp. 605-08