Nicomedia, a former Bithynian and for a short time under Diocletian, Roman capital, and a short distance from Constantine's Palace at Nicaea, was an influential and rich city in the early Byzantine empire; the appointment as bishop carried much influence.
He is also known from a letter[5] of George of Laodicea that was critical of the Eudoxian teaching of one Aëtius and his disciples at Antioch[6][7] The Emperor Constantius eventually ordered Aëtius and his followers be brought before Cecropius to answer to the charges alleged against them.
[14] Opponents of Arianism held the earthquake to be divine judgment[15][16] and that fifteen bishops who had arrived for the Council were killed.
[19] The legend of Arsacius holds that as a soldier he tended the emperors lions,[20] but following his time in the army he became a monastic.
One day he had a vision of the calamity to befall his city and going to the clergy with his warning was not believed but ridiculed.