returned from a Thracian journey of health, or business, or devotion.
Justinian was afflicted by a pain in his head; and his private entry
countenanced the rumor of his death. Before the third hour of the day,
the bakers' shops were plundered of their bread, the houses were shut,
and every citizen, with hope or terror, prepared for the impending
tumult. The senators themselves, fearful and suspicious, were convened
at the ninth hour; and the prÊfect received their commands to visit
every quarter of the city, and proclaim a general illumination for
the recovery of the emperor's health. The ferment subsided; but every
accident betrayed the impotence of the government, and the factious
temper of the people: the guards were disposed to mutiny as often as
their quarters were changed, or their pay was withheld: the frequent
calamities of fires and earthquakes afforded the opportunities of
disorder; the disputes of the blues and greens, of the orthodox and
heretics, degenerated into bloody battles; and, in the presence of the
Persian ambassador, Justinian blushed for himself and for his subjects.
Capricious pardon and arbitrary punishment imbittered the irksomeness
and discontent of a long reign: a conspiracy was formed in the palace;
and, unless we are deceived by the names of Marcellus and Sergius, the
most virtuous and the most profligate of the courtiers were associated
in the same designs. They had fixed the time of the execution; their
rank gave them access to the royal banquet; and their black slaves were
stationed in the vestibule and porticos, to announce the death of the
tyrant, and to excite a sedition in the capital. But the indiscretion
of an accomplice saved the poor remnant of the days of Justinian. The
conspirators were detected and seized, with daggers hidden under their
garments: Marcellus died by his own hand, and Sergius was dragged from
the sanctuary. Pressed by remorse, or tempted by the hopes of safety, he
accused two officers of the household of Belisarius; and torture forced
them to declare that they had acted according to the secret instructions
of their patron. Posterity will not hastily believe that a hero who,
in the vigor of life, had disdained the fairest offers of ambition and
revenge, should stoop to the murder of his prince, whom he could not
long expect to survive. His followers were impatient to fly; but flight
must have been supported by rebellion, and he had lived enough for
nature and for glory. Belisarius appeared before the council with less
fear than indignation: after forty years' service, the emperor had
prejudged his guilt; and injustice was sanctified by the presence
and authority of the patriarch. The life of Belisarius was graciously
spared; but his fortunes were sequestered, and, from December to July,
he was guarded as a prisoner in his own palace. At length his innocence
was acknowledged; his freedom and honor were restored; and death, which
might be hastened by resentment and grief, removed him from the world
in about eight months after his deliverance. The name of Belisarius can
never die but instead of the funeral, the monuments, the statues, so
justly due to his memory, I only read, that his treasures, the spoil of
the Goths and Vandals, were immediately confiscated by the emperor. Some
decent portion was reserved, however for the use of his widow: and as
Antonina had much to repent, she devoted the last remains of her life
and fortune to the foundation of a convent. Such is the simple and
genuine narrative of the fall of Belisarius and the ingratitude of
Justinian. That he was deprived of his eyes, and reduced by envy to beg
his bread, "Give a penny to Belisarius the general!" is a fiction of
later times, which has obtained credit, or rather favor, as a strange
example of the vicissitudes of fortune.
If the emperor could rejoice in the death of Belisarius, he enjoyed
the base satisfaction only eight months, the last period of a reign
of thirty-eight years, and a life of eighty-three years. It would
be difficult to trace the character of a prince who is not the most
conspicuous object of his own times: but the confessions of an enemy may
be received as the safest evidence of his virtues. The resemblance
of Justinian to the bust of Domitian, is maliciously urged; with
the acknowledgment, however, of a well-proportioned figure, a ruddy
complexion, and a pleasing countenance. The emperor was easy of access,
patient of hearing, courteous and affable in discourse, and a master
of the angry passions which rage with such destructive violence in the
breast of a despot. Procopius praises his temper, to reproach him with
calm and deliberate cruelty: but in the conspiracies which attacked his
authority and person, a more candid judge will approve the justice, or
admire the clemency, of Justinian. He excelled in the private virtues
of chastity and temperance: but the impartial love of beauty would have
been less mischievous than his conjugal tenderness for Theodora; and his
abstemious diet was regulated, not by the prudence of a philosopher, but
the superstition of a monk. His repasts were short and frugal: on solemn
fasts, he contented himself with water and vegetables; and such was his
strength, as well as fervor, that he frequently passed two days, and as
many nights, without tasting any food. The measure of his sleep was not
less rigorous: after the repose of a single hour, the body was awakened
by the soul, and, to the astonishment of his chamberlain, Justinian
walked or studied till the morning light. Such restless application
prolonged his time for the acquisition of knowledge and the despatch of
business; and he might seriously deserve the reproach of confounding,
by minute and preposterous diligence, the general order of his
administration. The emperor professed himself a musician and architect,
a poet and philosopher, a lawyer and theologian; and if he failed in the
enterprise of reconciling the Christian sects, the review of the Roman
jurisprudence is a noble monument of his spirit and industry. In the
government of the empire, he was less wise, or less successful: the age
was unfortunate; the people was oppressed and discontented; Theodora
abused her power; a succession of bad ministers disgraced his judgment;
and Justinian was neither beloved in his life, nor regretted at his
death. The love of fame was deeply implanted in his breast, but he
condescended to the poor ambition of titles, honors, and contemporary
praise; and while he labored to fix the admiration, he forfeited the
esteem and affection, of the Romans. The design of the African and
Italian wars was boldly conceived and executed; and his penetration
discovered the talents of Belisarius in the camp, of Narses in the
palace. But the name of the emperor is eclipsed by the names of his
victorious generals; and Belisarius still lives, to upbraid the envy and
ingratitude of his sovereign. The partial favor of mankind applauds
the genius of a conqueror, who leads and directs his subjects in the
exercise of arms. The characters of Philip the Second and of Justinian
are distinguished by the cold ambition which delights in war, and
declines the dangers of the field. Yet a colossal statue of bronze
represented the emperor on horseback, preparing to march against the
Persians in the habit and armor of Achilles. In the great square before
the church of St. Sophia, this monument was raised on a brass column
and a stone pedestal of seven steps; and the pillar of Theodosius, which
weighed seven thousand four hundred pounds of silver, was removed from
the same place by the avarice and vanity of Justinian. Future princes
were more just or indulgent to _his_ memory; the elder Andronicus, in
the beginning of the fourteenth century, repaired and beautified his
equestrian statue: since the fall of the empire it has been melted into
cannon by the victorious Turks.
I shall conclude this chapter with the comets, the earthquakes, and the
plague, which astonished or afflicted the age of Justinian.
I. In the fifth year of his reign, and in the month of September, a
comet was seen during twenty days in the western quarter of the heavens,
and which shot its rays into the north. Eight years afterwards, while
the sun was in Capricorn, another comet appeared to follow in the
Sagittary; the size was gradually increasing; the head was in the east,
the tail in the west, and it remained visible above forty days. The
nations, who gazed with astonishment, expected wars and calamities
from their baleful influence; and these expectations were abundantly
fulfilled. The astronomers dissembled their ignorance of the nature of
these blazing stars, which they affected to represent as the floating
meteors of the air; and few among them embraced the simple notion of
Seneca and the Chaldeans, that they are only planets of a longer
period and more eccentric motion. Time and science have justified the
conjectures and predictions of the Roman sage: the telescope has opened
new worlds to the eyes of astronomers; and, in the narrow space of
history and fable, one and the same comet is already found to have
revisited the earth in _seven_ equal revolutions of five hundred and
seventy-five years. The _first_, which ascends beyond the Christian Êra
one thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven years, is coeval with Ogyges,
the father of Grecian antiquity. And this appearance explains the
tradition which Varro has preserved, that under his reign the planet
Venus changed her color, size, figure, and course; a prodigy without
example either in past or succeeding ages. The _second_ visit, in the
year eleven hundred and ninety-three, is darkly implied in the fable of
Electra, the seventh of the Pleiads, who have been reduced to six since
the time of the Trojan war. That nymph, the wife of Dardanus, was unable
to support the ruin of her country: she abandoned the dances of her
sister orbs, fled from the zodiac to the north pole, and obtained,
from her dishevelled locks, the name of the _comet_. The _third_ period
expires in the year six hundred and eighteen, a date that exactly agrees
with the tremendous comet of the Sibyl, and perhaps of Pliny, which
arose in the West two generations before the reign of Cyrus. The
_fourth_ apparition, forty-four years before the birth of Christ, is of
all others the most splendid and important. After the death of CÊsar, a
long-haired star was conspicuous to Rome and to the nations, during the
games which were exhibited by young Octavian in honor of Venus and his
uncle. The vulgar opinion, that it conveyed to heaven the divine soul of
the dictator, was cherished and consecrated by the piety of a statesman;
while his secret superstition referred the comet to the glory of his own
times. The _fifth_ visit has been already ascribed to the fifth year of
Justinian, which coincides with the five hundred and thirty-first of
the Christian Êra. And it may deserve notice, that in this, as in the
preceding instance, the comet was followed, though at a longer interval,
by a remarkable paleness of the sun. The _sixth_ return, in the year
eleven hundred and six, is recorded by the chronicles of Europe and
China: and in the first fervor of the crusades, the Christians and
the Mahometans might surmise, with equal reason, that it portended the
destruction of the Infidels. The _seventh_ phenomenon, of one thousand
six hundred and eighty, was presented to the eyes of an enlightened age.
The philosophy of Bayle dispelled a prejudice which Milton's muse had
so recently adorned, that the comet, "from its horrid hair shakes
pestilence and war." Its road in the heavens was observed with exquisite
skill by Flamstead and Cassini: and the mathematical science of
Bernoulli, Newton, and Halley, investigated the laws of its
revolutions. At the _eighth_ period, in the year two thousand three
hundred and fifty-five, their calculations may perhaps be verified
by the astronomers of some future capital in the Siberian or American
wilderness.
II. The near approach of a comet may injure or destroy the globe which
we inhabit; but the changes on its surface have been hitherto produced
by the action of volcanoes and earthquakes. The nature of the soil may
indicate the countries most exposed to these formidable concussions,
since they are caused by subterraneous fires, and such fires are kindled
by the union and fermentation of iron and sulphur. But their times
and effects appear to lie beyond the reach of human curiosity; and the
philosopher will discreetly abstain from the prediction of earthquakes,
till he has counted the drops of water that silently filtrate on
the inflammable mineral, and measured the caverns which increase by
resistance the explosion of the imprisoned air. Without assigning the
cause, history will distinguish the periods in which these calamitous
events have been rare or frequent, and will observe, that this fever of
the earth raged with uncommon violence during the reign of Justinian.
Each year is marked by the repetition of earthquakes, of such duration,
that Constantinople has been shaken above forty days; of such extent,
that the shock has been communicated to the whole surface of the globe,
or at least of the Roman empire. An impulsive or vibratory motion was
felt: enormous chasms were opened, huge and heavy bodies were discharged
into the air, the sea alternately advanced and retreated beyond its
ordinary bounds, and a mountain was torn from Libanus, and cast into
the waves, where it protected, as a mole, the new harbor of Botrys
in Phnicia. The stroke that agitates an ant-hill may crush the
insect-myriads in the dust; yet truth must extort confession that man
has industriously labored for his own destruction. The institution of
great cities, which include a nation within the limits of a wall, almost
realizes the wish of Caligula, that the Roman people had but one neck.
Two hundred and fifty thousand persons are said to have perished in the
earthquake of Antioch, whose domestic multitudes were swelled by the
conflux of strangers to the festival of the Ascension. The loss of
Berytus was of smaller account, but of much greater value. That city,
on the coast of Phnicia, was illustrated by the study of the civil
law, which opened the surest road to wealth and dignity: the schools of
Berytus were filled with the rising spirits of the age, and many a youth
was lost in the earthquake, who might have lived to be the scourge or
the guardian of his country. In these disasters, the architect becomes
the enemy of mankind. The hut of a savage, or the tent of an Arab, may
be thrown down without injury to the inhabitant; and the Peruvians had
reason to deride the folly of their Spanish conquerors, who with so
much cost and labor erected their own sepulchres. The rich marbles of a
patrician are dashed on his own head: a whole people is buried under the
ruins of public and private edifices, and the conflagration is kindled
and propagated by the innumerable fires which are necessary for the
subsistence and manufactures of a great city. Instead of the mutual
sympathy which might comfort and assist the distressed, they dreadfully
experience the vices and passions which are released from the fear
of punishment: the tottering houses are pillaged by intrepid avarice;
revenge embraces the moment, and selects the victim; and the earth often
swallows the assassin, or the ravisher, in the consummation of their
crimes. Superstition involves the present danger with invisible terrors;
and if the image of death may sometimes be subservient to the virtue or
repentance of individuals, an affrighted people is more forcibly moved
to expect the end of the world, or to deprecate with servile homage the
wrath of an avenging Deity.
III. ∆thiopia and Egypt have been stigmatized, in every age, as the
original source and seminary of the plague. In a damp, hot, stagnating
air, this African fever is generated from the putrefaction of animal
substances, and especially from the swarms of locusts, not less
destructive to mankind in their death than in their lives. The fatal
disease which depopulated the earth in the time of Justinian and his
successors, first appeared in the neighborhood of Pelusium, between the
Serbonian bog and the eastern channel of the Nile. From thence, tracing
as it were a double path, it spread to the East, over Syria, Persia, and
the Indies, and penetrated to the West, along the coast of Africa,
and over the continent of Europe. In the spring of the second year,
Constantinople, during three or four months, was visited by the
pestilence; and Procopius, who observed its progress and symptoms
with the eyes of a physician, has emulated the skill and diligence of
Thucydides in the description of the plague of Athens. The infection
was sometimes announced by the visions of a distempered fancy, and the
victim despaired as soon as he had heard the menace and felt the stroke
of an invisible spectre. But the greater number, in their beds, in the
streets, in their usual occupation, were surprised by a slight fever; so
slight, indeed, that neither the pulse nor the color of the patient
gave any signs of the approaching danger. The same, the next, or
the succeeding day, it was declared by the swelling of the glands,
particularly those of the groin, of the armpits, and under the ear; and
when these buboes or tumors were opened, they were found to contain a
_coal_, or black substance, of the size of a lentil. If they came to a
just swelling and suppuration, the patient was saved by this kind and
natural discharge of the morbid humor. But if they continued hard and
dry, a mortification quickly ensued, and the fifth day was commonly
the term of his life. The fever was often accompanied with lethargy or
delirium; the bodies of the sick were covered with black pustules or
carbuncles, the symptoms of immediate death; and in the constitutions
too feeble to produce an irruption, the vomiting of blood was followed
by a mortification of the bowels. To pregnant women the plague was
generally mortal: yet one infant was drawn alive from his dead mother,
and three mothers survived the loss of their infected ftus. Youth was
the most perilous season; and the female sex was less susceptible than
the male: but every rank and profession was attacked with indiscriminate
rage, and many of those who escaped were deprived of the use of
their speech, without being secure from a return of the disorder. The
physicians of Constantinople were zealous and skilful; but their art
was baffled by the various symptoms and pertinacious vehemence of the
disease: the same remedies were productive of contrary effects, and the
event capriciously disappointed their prognostics of death or recovery.
The order of funerals, and the right of sepulchres, were confounded:
those who were left without friends or servants, lay unburied in the
streets, or in their desolate houses; and a magistrate was authorized to
collect the promiscuous heaps of dead bodies, to transport them by land
or water, and to inter them in deep pits beyond the precincts of the
city. Their own danger, and the prospect of public distress, awakened
some remorse in the minds of the most vicious of mankind: the confidence
of health again revived their passions and habits; but philosophy must
disdain the observation of Procopius, that the lives of such men were
guarded by the peculiar favor of fortune or Providence. He forgot, or
perhaps he secretly recollected, that the plague had touched the
person of Justinian himself; but the abstemious diet of the emperor may
suggest, as in the case of Socrates, a more rational and honorable cause
for his recovery. During his sickness, the public consternation
was expressed in the habits of the citizens; and their idleness and
despondence occasioned a general scarcity in the capital of the East.
Contagion is the inseparable symptom of the plague; which, by mutual
respiration, is transfused from the infected persons to the lungs and
stomach of those who approach them. While philosophers believe and
tremble, it is singular, that the existence of a real danger should have
been denied by a people most prone to vain and imaginary terrors. Yet
the fellow-citizens of Procopius were satisfied, by some short and
partial experience, that the infection could not be gained by the
closest conversation: and this persuasion might support the assiduity
of friends or physicians in the care of the sick, whom inhuman prudence
would have condemned to solitude and despair. But the fatal security,
like the predestination of the Turks, must have aided the progress
of the contagion; and those salutary precautions to which Europe is
indebted for her safety, were unknown to the government of Justinian.
No restraints were imposed on the free and frequent intercourse of the
Roman provinces: from Persia to France, the nations were mingled and
infected by wars and emigrations; and the pestilential odor which lurks
for years in a bale of cotton was imported, by the abuse of trade, into
the most distant regions. The mode of its propagation is explained
by the remark of Procopius himself, that it always spread from the
sea-coast to the inland country: the most sequestered islands and
mountains were successively visited; the places which had escaped the
fury of its first passage were alone exposed to the contagion of the
ensuing year. The winds might diffuse that subtile venom; but unless the
atmosphere be previously disposed for its reception, the plague would
soon expire in the cold or temperate climates of the earth. Such was the
universal corruption of the air, that the pestilence which burst forth
in the fifteenth year of Justinian was not checked or alleviated by any
difference of the seasons. In time, its first malignity was abated and
dispersed; the disease alternately languished and revived; but it was
not till the end of a calamitous period of fifty-two years, that mankind
recovered their health, or the air resumed its pure and salubrious
quality. No facts have been preserved to sustain an account, or even
a conjecture, of the numbers that perished in this extraordinary
mortality. I only find, that during three months, five, and at length
ten, thousand persons died each day at Constantinople; that many cities
of the East were left vacant, and that in several districts of Italy the
harvest and the vintage withered on the ground. The triple scourge of
war, pestilence, and famine, afflicted the subjects of Justinian; and
his reign is disgraced by the visible decrease of the human species,
which has never been repaired in some of the fairest countries of the
globe.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.--Part I.
Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.--The Laws Of The Kings--The
Twelve Of The Decemvirs.--The Laws Of The People.--The
Decrees Of The Senate.--The Edicts Of The Magistrates And
Emperors--Authority Of The Civilians.--Code, Pandects,
Novels, And Institutes Of Justinian:--I. Rights Of Persons.--
II. Rights Of Things.--III. Private Injuries And Actions.--
IV. Crimes And Punishments.
The vain titles of the victories of Justinian are crumbled into dust;
but the name of the legislator is inscribed on a fair and everlasting
monument. Under his reign, and by his care, the civil jurisprudence
was digested in the immortal works of the Code, the Pandects, and
the Institutes: the public reason of the Romans has been silently or
studiously transfused into the domestic institutions of Europe,, and the
laws of Justinian still command the respect or obedience of independent
nations. Wise or fortunate is the prince who connects his own reputation
with the honor or interest of a perpetual order of men. The defence of
their founder is the first cause, which in every age has exercised
the zeal and industry of the civilians. They piously commemorate his
virtues; dissemble or deny his failings; and fiercely chastise the guilt
or folly of the rebels, who presume to sully the majesty of the purple.
The idolatry of love has provoked, as it usually happens, the rancor
of opposition; the character of Justinian has been exposed to the blind
vehemence of flattery and invective; and the injustice of a sect (the
_Anti-Tribonians_,) has refused all praise and merit to the prince, his
ministers, and his laws. Attached to no party, interested only for the
truth and candor of history, and directed by the most temperate and
skilful guides, I enter with just diffidence on the subject of civil
law, which has exhausted so many learned lives, and clothed the walls of
such spacious libraries. In a single, if possible in a short, chapter,
I shall trace the Roman jurisprudence from Romulus to Justinian,
appreciate the labors of that emperor, and pause to contemplate the
principles of a science so important to the peace and happiness of
society. The laws of a nation form the most instructive portion of its
history; and although I have devoted myself to write the annals of a
declining monarchy, I shall embrace the occasion to breathe the pure and
invigorating air of the republic.