When Justinian came to the throne, he straightway succeeded in
upsetting everything. What had previously been forbidden by the laws
he introduced, while he abolished all existing institutions, as though
he had assumed the imperial robe for no other purpose than to alter
completely the form of government. He did away with existing offices,
and established other new ones for the management of affairs. He acted
in the same manner in regard to the laws and the army; not that he was
led to do so by any love of justice or the public advantage, but
merely in order that all institutions might be new and might bear his
name; if there was any institution that he was unable to abolish at
once, he gave it his name, that at least it might appear new. He
could never satisfy his insatiable desire, either of money or blood;
but after he had plundered one wealthy house, he would seek for
another to rob, and straightway squander the plunder upon subsidies to
barbarians, or senseless extravagance in building. After he had
destroyed his victims by tens of thousands, he immediately began to
lay plots against even greater numbers. As the Roman Empire was at
peace with foreign nations, his impatience of quiet led him, out of
uncontrollable love of bloodshed, to set the barbarians fighting with
one another. Sending for the chieftains of the Huns for no reason
whatever, he took a pride in lavishing great sums of money upon them,
under the pretext of securing their friendship, just as he did in the
time of the Emperor Justin, as I have already told you. These Huns,
when they had got the money, sent to some of their fellow-chieftains
with their retainers, and bade them make inroads into the Emperor's
territory, that they also might make a bargain with him for the peace
which he was so ready to purchase. These men straightway subjugated
the Empire, and nevertheless remained in the Emperor's pay; and,
following their examples, others straightway began to harass the
wretched Romans, and, after they had secured their booty, were
graciously rewarded by the Emperor for their invasion. Thus the whole
Hunnish nation, one tribe after another, never ceased at any time to
lay waste and plunder the Empire; for these barbarians are under
several independent chieftains, and the war, having once begun through
his foolish generosity, never came to an end, but always kept
beginning anew; so that, during this time, there was no mountain, no
cave, no spot whatever in the Roman Empire that remained unravaged,
and many countries were harried and plundered by the enemy more than
five several times.
These calamities, and those which were brought upon the Empire by the
Medes, the Saracens, the Sclavonians, the Antes, and other barbarians,
I have described in the previous books of my history; but, as I have
said at the beginning of this story, I was here obliged to explain the
causes which led thereto.
Justinian paid Chosroes many centenars in order to secure peace, and
then, with unreasonable arbitrariness, did more than anyone to break
the truce, by employing every effort to bring Alamundur and his Huns
over to his own side, as I have already set forth in plain terms in my
history.
While he was stirring up all this strife and war to plague the Romans,
he also endeavoured, by various devices, to drench the earth in human
blood, to carry off more riches for himself, and to murder many of his
subjects. He proceeded as follows. There prevail in the Roman Empire
many Christian doctrines which are known as heresies, such as those of
the Montanists and Sabbatians and all the others by which men's minds
are led astray. Justinian ordered all these beliefs to be abandoned in
favour of the old religion, and threatened the recusants with legal
disability to transmit their property to their wives and children by
will. The churches of these so-called heretics--especially those
belonging to the Arian heresy--were rich beyond belief. Neither the
whole of the Senate, or any other of the greatest corporations in the
Roman Empire, could be compared with these churches in wealth. They
had gold and silver plate and jewels more than any man could count or
describe; they owned many mansions and villages, and large estates
everywhere, and everything else which is reckoned and called wealth
among men.
As none of the previous Emperors had interfered with them, many
people, even of the orthodox faith, procured, through this wealth,
work and the means of livelihood. But the Emperor Justinian first of
all sequestrated all the property of these churches, and suddenly took
away all that they possessed, by which many people lost the means of
subsistence. Many agents were straightway sent out to all parts of the
Empire to force whomsoever they met to change the faith of his
forefathers. These homely people, considering this an act of impiety,
decided to oppose the Emperor's agents. Hereupon many were put to
death by the persecuting faction, and many made an end of themselves,
thinking, in their superstitious folly, that this course best
satisfied the claims of religion; but the greater part of them
voluntarily quitted the land of their forefathers, and went into
exile. The Montanists, who were settled in Phrygia, shut themselves up
in their churches, set them on fire, and perished in the flames; and,
from this time forth, nothing was to be seen in the Roman Empire
except massacres and flight.
Justinian straightway passed a similar law with regard to the
Samaritans, which produced a riot in Palestine. In my own city of
Caesarea and other cities, the people, thinking that it was a foolish
thing to suffer for a mere senseless dogma, adopted, in place of the
name which they had hitherto borne, the appellation of "Christians,"
and so avoided the danger with which they were threatened by this law.
Such of them as had any claims to reason and who belonged to the
better class, thought it their duty to remain stedfast to their new
faith; but the greater part, as though out of pique at having been
forced against their will by the law to abandon the faith of their
fathers, adopted the belief of the Manicheans, or what is known as
Polytheism.
But all the country people met together in a body and determined to
take up arms against the Emperor. They chose a leader of their own,
named Julian, the son of Sabarus, and for some time held their own in
the struggle with the Imperial troops, but were at last defeated and
cut to pieces, together with their leader. It is said that one hundred
thousand men fell in this engagement, and the most fertile country on
the earth has ever since been without cultivators. This did great harm
to the Christian landowners in that country, for, although they
received nothing from their property, yet they were forced to pay
heavy taxes yearly to the Emperor for the rest of their lives, and no
abatement or relief from this burden was granted to them.
After this he began to persecute those who were called Gentiles,
torturing their persons and plundering their property. All of these
people, who decided to adopt the Christian faith nominally, saved
themselves for the time, but not long afterwards most of them were
caught offering libations and sacrifices and performing other unholy
rites. How he treated the Christians I will subsequently relate.
Next he forbade paederasty by law, and he made this law apply not only
to those who transgressed it after it had been passed, but even to
those who had practised this wickedness long before. The law was
applied to these persons in the loosest fashion, the testimony of one
man or boy, who possibly might be a slave unwilling to bear witness
against his master, was held to be sound evidence. Those who were
convicted were carried through the city, after having had their
genitals cut off. This cruelty was not at first practised against any
except those who belonged to the Green faction or were thought to be
very rich, or had otherwise offended.
Justinian and Theodora also dealt very harshly with the astrologers,
so that the officers appointed to punish thieves proceeded against
these men for no other cause than that they were astrologers, dealt
many stripes on their backs, and paraded them on camels through the
city; yet they were old and respectable men, against whom no reproach
could be brought except that they dwelt in Byzantium and were learned
about the stars.
There was a continual stream of emigration, not only to the lands of
the barbarians, but also to the nations most remote from Rome; and one
saw a very great number of foreigners both in the country and in each
city of the Empire, for men lightly exchanged their native land for
another, as though their own country had been captured by an enemy.