I will now relate the manner in which he got possession of the wealth
of the world, after I have first mentioned a vision which was seen in
a dream by a person of distinction at the commencement of his reign.
He thought he was standing on the coast at Byzantium, opposite
Chalcedon, and saw Justinian standing in the midst of the channel. The
latter drank up all the water of the sea, so that it seemed as if he
were standing on dry land, since the water no longer filled the
strait. After this, other streams of water, full of filth and rubbish,
flowing in from the underground sewers on either side, covered the dry
land. Justinian again swallowed these, and the bed of the channel
again became dry. Such was the vision this person beheld in his dream.
This Justinian, when his uncle Justin succeeded to the throne, found
the treasury well filled, for Anastasius, the most provident and
economical of all the Emperors, fearing (what actually happened) that
his successor, if he found himself in want of money, would probably
plunder his subjects, filled the treasure-houses with vast stores of
gold before his death. Justinian exhausted all this wealth in a very
short time, partly by senseless buildings on the coast, partly by
presents to the barbarians, although one would have imagined that a
successor, however profligate and extravagant, would have been unable
to have spent it in a hundred years; for the superintendents of the
treasures and other royal possessions asserted that Anastasius, during
his reign of more than twenty-seven years, had without any difficulty
accumulated 320,000 centenars, of which absolutely nothing remained,
it having all been spent by this man during the lifetime of his uncle,
as I have related above. It is impossible to describe or estimate the
vast sums which he appropriated to himself during his lifetime by
illegal means and wasted in extravagance; for he swallowed up the
fortunes of his subjects like an ever-flowing river, daily absorbing
them in order to disgorge them amongst the barbarians. Having thus
squandered the wealth of the State, he cast his eyes upon his private
subjects. Most of them he immediately deprived of their possessions
with unbounded rapacity and violence, at the same time bringing
against the wealthy inhabitants of Byzantium, and those of other
cities who were reputed to be so, charges utterly without foundation.
Some were accused of polytheism, others of heresy; some of sodomy,
others of amours with holy women; some of unlawful intercourse, others
of attempts at sedition; some of favouring the Green faction, others
of high treason, or any other charge that could be brought against
them. On his own responsibility he made himself heir not only of the
dead, but also of the living, as opportunity offered. In such matters
he showed himself an accomplished diplomatist. I have already
mentioned above how he profited by the sedition named Nika which was
directed against him, and immediately made himself heir of all the
members of the Senate, and how, shortly before the sedition broke out,
he obtained possession of the fortunes of private individuals. On
every occasion he bestowed handsome presents upon all the barbarians
alike, those of East and West, and North and South, as far as the
inhabitants of the British Islands and of the whole world, nations of
whom we had not even heard before, and whose names we did not know,
until we became acquainted with them through their ambassadors. When
these nations found out Justinian's disposition, they flocked to
Byzantium from all parts of the world to present themselves to him.
He, without any hesitation, overjoyed at the occurrence, and regarding
it as a great piece of good luck to be able to drain the Roman
treasury and fling its wealth to barbarians or the waves of the sea,
dismissed them every day loaded with handsome presents. In this
manner the barbarians became absolute masters of the wealth of the
Romans, either by the donations which they received from the Emperor,
their pillaging of the Empire, the ransom of their prisoners, or their
trafficking in truces. This was the signification of the dream which I
have mentioned above.