I will, however, mention two instances of his falsehood and hypocrisy.
After having deprived Liberius (of whom I have spoken above) of his
office, he put in his place John, an Egyptian by birth, surnamed
Laxarion. When Pelagius, who was a particular friend of Liberius,
heard of this, he inquired of Justinian whether what he had heard was
true. The Emperor immediately denied it, and protested that he had
done nothing of the kind. He then gave Pelagius a letter in which
Liberius was ordered to hold fast to his government and by no means to
give it up, and added that he had no present intention of removing
Liberius. At that time there resided in Byzantium an uncle of John
named Eudaemon, a man of consular rank and great wealth, who had the
management of the imperial estates. Having been informed of what had
taken place, he also inquired of the Emperor whether his nephew was
assured in his government. Justinian, saying nothing about his letter
to Liberius, sent John positive orders to hold fast to his government,
since his views were still the same concerning it. Trusting to this,
John ordered Liberius to quit the governor's palace, as having been
deprived of his office. Liberius refused, placing equal reliance in
the Emperor's despatch. John, having armed his followers, marched
against Liberius, who defended himself with his guards. An engagement
took place, in which several were slain, and amongst them John, the
new governor.
At the earnest entreaty of Eudaemon, Liberius was immediately summoned
to Byzantium. The matter was investigated before the senate, and
Liberius was acquitted, as being only guilty of justifiable homicide
in self-defence. Justinian, however, did not let him escape, until he
had forced him to give him a considerable sum of money privately. Such
was the great respect Justinian showed for the truth, and such was the
faithfulness with which he kept his promises. I will here permit
myself a brief digression, which may not be irrelevant. This Eudaemon
died shortly afterwards, leaving behind him a large number of
relatives, but no will, either written or verbal. About the same time,
the chief eunuch of the court, named Euphratas, also died intestate;
he left behind him a nephew, who would naturally have succeeded to his
property, which was considerable. The Emperor took possession of both
fortunes, appointing himself sole heir, not even leaving so much as a
three-obol piece to the legal inheritors. Such was the respect
Justinian showed for the laws and the kinsmen of his intimate friends.
In the same manner, without having the least claim to it, he seized
the fortune of Irenaeus, who had died some time before.
Another event which took place about this time I cannot omit. There
lived at Ascalon a man named Anatolius, the most distinguished member
of the senate. His daughter, his only child and heiress, was married
to a citizen of Caesarea, named Mamilianus, a man of distinguished
family. There was an ancient statute which provided that, whenever a
senator died without male issue, the fourth part of his estate should
go to the senate of the town, and the rest to the heirs-at-law. On
this occasion Justinian gave a striking proof of his character. He had
recently made a law which reversed this,--that, when a senator died
without male issue, the fourth part only should go to the heirs, the
three other parts being divided between the senate and the public
treasury, although it had never happened before that the estate of any
senator had been shared between the public treasury and the Emperor.
Anatolius died while this law was in force. His daughter was preparing
to divide her inheritance with the public treasury and the senate of
the town in accordance with the law, when she received letters from
the senate of Ascalon and from the Emperor himself, in which they
resigned all claim to the money, as if they had received their due.
Afterwards Mamilianus (the son-in-law of Anatolius) died, leaving one
daughter, the legal heiress to his estate. The daughter soon
afterwards died, during her mother's lifetime, after having been
married to a person of distinction, by whom, however, she had no
issue, either male or female. Justinian then immediately seized the
whole estate, giving utterance to the strange opinion, that it would
be a monstrous thing that the daughter of Anatolius, in her old age,
should be enriched by the property of both her husband and father.
However, to keep her from want, he ordered that she should receive a
stater of gold a day, as long as she lived; and, in the decree whereby
he deprived her of all her property, he declared that he bestowed this
stater upon her for the sake of religion, seeing that he was always in
the habit of acting with piety and virtue.
I will now show that he cared nothing even for the Blue faction, which
showed itself devoted to him, when it was a question of money. There
was amongst the Cilicians a certain Malthanes, the son-in-law of that
Leo who had held the office of "Referendary," whom Justinian
commissioned to put down seditious movements in the country. On this
pretext, Malthanes treated most of the inhabitants with great cruelty.
He robbed them of their wealth, sent part to the Emperor, and claimed
the rest for himself. Some endured their grievances in silence; but
the inhabitants of Tarsus who belonged to the Blue faction, confident
of the protection of the Empress, assembled in the market-place and
abused Malthanes, who at the time was not present. When he heard of
it, he immediately set out with a body of soldiers, reached Tarsus by
night, sent his soldiers into the houses at daybreak, and ordered them
to put the inhabitants to death. The Blues, imagining that it was an
attack from a foreign foe, defended themselves as best they could.
During the dark, amongst other misfortunes, Damianus, a member of the
senate and president of the Blues in Tarsus, was slain by an arrow.
When the news reached Byzantium, the Blues assembled in the streets
with loud murmurs of indignation, and bitterly complained to the
Emperor of the affair, uttering the most violent threats against Leo
and Malthanes. The Emperor pretended to be as enraged as they were,
and immediately ordered an inquiry to be made into the conduct of the
latter. But Leo, by the present of a considerable sum of money,
appeased him, so that the process was stopped, and the Emperor ceased
to show favour to the Blues. Although the affair remained
uninvestigated, the Emperor received Malthanes, who came to Byzantium
to pay his respects, with great kindness and treated him with honour.
But, as he was leaving the Emperor's presence, the Blues, who had been
on the watch, attacked him in the palace, and would certainly have
slain him, had not some of their own party, bribed by Leo, prevented
them. Who would not consider that state to be in a most pitiable
condition, in which the sovereign allows himself to be bribed to leave
charges uninvestigated, and in which malcontents venture without
hesitation to attack one of the magistrates within the precincts of
the palace, and to lay violent hands upon him? However, no punishment
was inflicted either upon Malthanes or his assailants, which is a
sufficient proof of the character of Justinian.