100 (return) [ The inscription on his new tomb was composed by

the preceptor of Otho III., the learned Pope Silvester II., who,

like Boethius himself, was styled a magician by the ignorance of

the times. The Catholic martyr had carried his head in his hands

a considerable way, (Baronius, A.D. 526, No. 17, 18;) and yet on

a similar tale, a lady of my acquaintance once observed, “La

distance n’y fait rien; il n’y a que lo remier pas qui coute.”

Note: Madame du Deffand. This witticism referred to the miracle

of St. Denis.—G.]

101 (return) [ Boethius applauds the virtues of his

father-in-law, (l. i. pros. 4, p. 59, l. ii. pros. 4, p. 118.)

Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. i.,) the Valesian Fragment, (p. 724,)

and the Historia Miscella, (l. xv. p. 105,) agree in praising the

superior innocence or sanctity of Symmachus; and in the

estimation of the legend, the guilt of his murder is equal to the

imprisonment of a pope.]

Humanity will be disposed to encourage any report which testifies

the jurisdiction of conscience and the remorse of kings; and

philosophy is not ignorant that the most horrid spectres are

sometimes created by the powers of a disordered fancy, and the

weakness of a distempered body. After a life of virtue and glory,

Theodoric was now descending with shame and guilt into the grave;

his mind was humbled by the contrast of the past, and justly

alarmed by the invisible terrors of futurity. One evening, as it

is related, when the head of a large fish was served on the royal

table, 102 he suddenly exclaimed, that he beheld the angry

countenance of Symmachus, his eyes glaring fury and revenge, and

his mouth armed with long sharp teeth, which threatened to devour

him. The monarch instantly retired to his chamber, and, as he

lay, trembling with aguish cold, under a weight of bed-clothes,

he expressed, in broken murmurs to his physician Elpidius, his

deep repentance for the murders of Boethius and Symmachus. 103

His malady increased, and after a dysentery which continued three

days, he expired in the palace of Ravenna, in the thirty-third,

or, if we compute from the invasion of Italy, in the

thirty-seventh year of his reign. Conscious of his approaching

end, he divided his treasures and provinces between his two

grandsons, and fixed the Rhone as their common boundary. 104

Amalaric was restored to the throne of Spain. Italy, with all the

conquests of the Ostrogoths, was bequeathed to Athalaric; whose

age did not exceed ten years, but who was cherished as the last

male offspring of the line of Amali, by the short-lived marriage

of his mother Amalasuntha with a royal fugitive of the same

blood. 105 In the presence of the dying monarch, the Gothic

chiefs and Italian magistrates mutually engaged their faith and

loyalty to the young prince, and to his guardian mother; and

received, in the same awful moment, his last salutary advice, to

maintain the laws, to love the senate and people of Rome, and to

cultivate with decent reverence the friendship of the emperor.

106 The monument of Theodoric was erected by his daughter

Amalasuntha, in a conspicuous situation, which commanded the city

of Ravenna, the harbor, and the adjacent coast. A chapel of a

circular form, thirty feet in diameter, is crowned by a dome of

one entire piece of granite: from the centre of the dome four

columns arose, which supported, in a vase of porphyry, the

remains of the Gothic king, surrounded by the brazen statues of

the twelve apostles. 107 His spirit, after some previous

expiation, might have been permitted to mingle with the

benefactors of mankind, if an Italian hermit had not been

witness, in a vision, to the damnation of Theodoric, 108 whose

soul was plunged, by the ministers of divine vengeance, into the

volcano of Lipari, one of the flaming mouths of the infernal

world. 109

102 (return) [ In the fanciful eloquence of Cassiodorus, the

variety of sea and river fish are an evidence of extensive

dominion; and those of the Rhine, of Sicily, and of the Danube,

were served on the table of Theodoric, (Var. xii. 14.) The

monstrous turbot of Domitian (Juvenal Satir. iii. 39) had been

caught on the shores of the Adriatic.]

103 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 1. But he might have

informed us, whether he had received this curious anecdote from

common report or from the mouth of the royal physician.]

104 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 1, 2, 12, 13. This

partition had been directed by Theodoric, though it was not

executed till after his death, Regni hereditatem superstes

reliquit, (Isidor. Chron. p. 721, edit. Grot.)]

105 (return) [ Berimund, the third in descent from Hermanric,

king of the Ostrogoths, had retired into Spain, where he lived

and died in obscurity, (Jornandes, c. 33, p. 202, edit.

Muratori.) See the discovery, nuptials, and death of his grandson

Eutharic, (c. 58, p. 220.) His Roman games might render him

popular, (Cassiodor. in Chron.,) but Eutharic was asper in

religione, (Anonym. Vales. p. 723.)]

106 (return) [ See the counsels of Theodoric, and the professions

of his successor, in Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 1, 2,) Jornandes,

(c. 59, p. 220, 221,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. viii. 1—7.) These

epistles are the triumph of his ministerial eloquence.]

107 (return) [ Anonym. Vales. p. 724. Agnellus de Vitis. Pont.

Raven. in Muratori Script. Rerum Ital. tom. ii. P. i. p. 67.

Alberti Descrittione d’ Italia, p. 311. * Note: The Mausoleum of

Theodoric, now Sante Maria della Rotonda, is engraved in

D’Agincourt, Histoire de l’Art, p xviii. of the Architectural

Prints.—M]

108 (return) [ This legend is related by Gregory I., (Dialog. iv.

36,) and approved by Baronius, (A.D. 526, No. 28;) and both the

pope and cardinal are grave doctors, sufficient to establish a

probable opinion.]

109 (return) [ Theodoric himself, or rather Cassiodorus, had

described in tragic strains the volcanos of Lipari (Cluver.

Sicilia, p. 406—410) and Vesuvius, (v 50.)]

Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part I.

Elevation Of Justin The Elder.—Reign Of Justinian.—I. The Empress

Theodora.—II. Factions Of The Circus, And Sedition Of

Constantinople.—III. Trade And Manufacture Of Silk.—IV. Finances And

Taxes.—V. Edifices Of Justinian.—Church Of St. Sophia.—Fortifications

And Frontiers Of The Eastern Empire.—Abolition Of The Schools Of

Athens, And The Consulship Of Rome.

The emperor Justinian was born 1 near the ruins of Sardica, (the

modern Sophia,) of an obscure race 2 of Barbarians, 3 the

inhabitants of a wild and desolate country, to which the names of

Dardania, of Dacia, and of Bulgaria, have been successively

applied. His elevation was prepared by the adventurous spirit of

his uncle Justin, who, with two other peasants of the same

village, deserted, for the profession of arms, the more useful

employment of husbandmen or shepherds. 4 On foot, with a scanty

provision of biscuit in their knapsacks, the three youths

followed the high road of Constantinople, and were soon enrolled,

for their strength and stature, among the guards of the emperor

Leo. Under the two succeeding reigns, the fortunate peasant

emerged to wealth and honors; and his escape from some dangers

which threatened his life was afterwards ascribed to the guardian

angel who watches over the fate of kings. His long and laudable

service in the Isaurian and Persian wars would not have preserved

from oblivion the name of Justin; yet they might warrant the

military promotion, which in the course of fifty years he

gradually obtained; the rank of tribune, of count, and of

general; the dignity of senator, and the command of the guards,

who obeyed him as their chief, at the important crisis when the

emperor Anastasius was removed from the world. The powerful

kinsmen whom he had raised and enriched were excluded from the

throne; and the eunuch Amantius, who reigned in the palace, had

secretly resolved to fix the diadem on the head of the most

obsequious of his creatures. A liberal donative, to conciliate

the suffrage of the guards, was intrusted for that purpose in the

hands of their commander. But these weighty arguments were

treacherously employed by Justin in his own favor; and as no

competitor presumed to appear, the Dacian peasant was invested

with the purple by the unanimous consent of the soldiers, who

knew him to be brave and gentle, of the clergy and people, who

believed him to be orthodox, and of the provincials, who yielded

a blind and implicit submission to the will of the capital. The

elder Justin, as he is distinguished from another emperor of the

same family and name, ascended the Byzantine throne at the age of

sixty-eight years; and, had he been left to his own guidance,

every moment of a nine years’ reign must have exposed to his

subjects the impropriety of their choice. His ignorance was

similar to that of Theodoric; and it is remarkable that in an age

not destitute of learning, two contemporary monarchs had never

been instructed in the knowledge of the alphabet. 411 But the

genius of Justin was far inferior to that of the Gothic king: the

experience of a soldier had not qualified him for the government

of an empire; and though personally brave, the consciousness of

his own weakness was naturally attended with doubt, distrust, and

political apprehension. But the official business of the state

was diligently and faithfully transacted by the quaestor Proclus;

5 and the aged emperor adopted the talents and ambition of his

nephew Justinian, an aspiring youth, whom his uncle had drawn

from the rustic solitude of Dacia, and educated at

Constantinople, as the heir of his private fortune, and at length

of the Eastern empire.

1 (return) [ There is some difficulty in the date of his birth

(Ludewig in Vit. Justiniani, p. 125;) none in the place—the

district Bederiana—the village Tauresium, which he afterwards

decorated with his name and splendor, (D’Anville, Hist. de

l’Acad. &c., tom. xxxi. p. 287—292.)]

2 (return) [ The names of these Dardanian peasants are Gothic,

and almost English: Justinian is a translation of uprauda,

(upright;) his father Sabatius (in Graeco-barbarous language

stipes) was styled in his village Istock, (Stock;) his mother

Bigleniza was softened into Vigilantia.]

3 (return) [ Ludewig (p. 127—135) attempts to justify the Anician

name of Justinian and Theodora, and to connect them with a family

from which the house of Austria has been derived.]

4 (return) [ See the anecdotes of Procopius, (c. 6,) with the

notes of N. Alemannus. The satirist would not have sunk, in the

vague and decent appellation of Zonaras. Yet why are those names

disgraceful?—and what German baron would not be proud to descend

from the Eumaeus of the Odyssey! Note: It is whimsical enough

that, in our own days, we should have, even in jest, a claimant

to lineal descent from the godlike swineherd not in the person of

a German baron, but in that of a professor of the Ionian

University. Constantine Koliades, or some malicious wit under

this name, has written a tall folio to prove Ulysses to be Homer,

and himself the descendant, the heir (?), of the Eumaeus of the

Odyssey.—M]

411 (return) [ St. Martin questions the fact in both cases. The

ignorance of Justin rests on the secret history of Procopius,

vol. viii. p. 8. St. Martin’s notes on Le Beau.—M]

5 (return) [ His virtues are praised by Procopius, (Persic. l. i.

c. 11.) The quaestor Proclus was the friend of Justinian, and the

enemy of every other adoption.]

Since the eunuch Amantius had been defrauded of his money, it

became necessary to deprive him of his life. The task was easily

accomplished by the charge of a real or fictitious conspiracy;

and the judges were informed, as an accumulation of guilt, that

he was secretly addicted to the Manichaean heresy. 6 Amantius

lost his head; three of his companions, the first domestics of

the palace, were punished either with death or exile; and their

unfortunate candidate for the purple was cast into a deep

dungeon, overwhelmed with stones, and ignominiously thrown,

without burial, into the sea. The ruin of Vitalian was a work of

more difficulty and danger. That Gothic chief had rendered

himself popular by the civil war which he boldly waged against

Anastasius for the defence of the orthodox faith, and after the

conclusion of an advantageous treaty, he still remained in the

neighborhood of Constantinople at the head of a formidable and

victorious army of Barbarians. By the frail security of oaths, he

was tempted to relinquish this advantageous situation, and to

trust his person within the walls of a city, whose inhabitants,

particularly the blue faction, were artfully incensed against him

by the remembrance even of his pious hostilities. The emperor and

his nephew embraced him as the faithful and worthy champion of

the church and state; and gratefully adorned their favorite with

the titles of consul and general; but in the seventh month of his

consulship, Vitalian was stabbed with seventeen wounds at the

royal banquet; 7 and Justinian, who inherited the spoil, was

accused as the assassin of a spiritual brother, to whom he had

recently pledged his faith in the participation of the Christian

mysteries. 8 After the fall of his rival, he was promoted,

without any claim of military service, to the office of

master-general of the Eastern armies, whom it was his duty to

lead into the field against the public enemy. But, in the pursuit

of fame, Justinian might have lost his present dominion over the

age and weakness of his uncle; and instead of acquiring by

Scythian or Persian trophies the applause of his countrymen, 9

the prudent warrior solicited their favor in the churches, the

circus, and the senate, of Constantinople. The Catholics were

attached to the nephew of Justin, who, between the Nestorian and

Eutychian heresies, trod the narrow path of inflexible and

intolerant orthodoxy. 10 In the first days of the new reign, he

prompted and gratified the popular enthusiasm against the memory

of the deceased emperor. After a schism of thirty-four years, he

reconciled the proud and angry spirit of the Roman pontiff, and

spread among the Latins a favorable report of his pious respect

for the apostolic see. The thrones of the East were filled with

Catholic bishops, devoted to his interest, the clergy and the

monks were gained by his liberality, and the people were taught

to pray for their future sovereign, the hope and pillar of the

true religion. The magnificence of Justinian was displayed in the

superior pomp of his public spectacles, an object not less sacred

and important in the eyes of the multitude than the creed of Nice

or Chalcedon: the expense of his consulship was esteemed at two

hundred and twenty-eight thousand pieces of gold; twenty lions,

and thirty leopards, were produced at the same time in the

amphitheatre, and a numerous train of horses, with their rich

trappings, was bestowed as an extraordinary gift on the

victorious charioteers of the circus. While he indulged the

people of Constantinople, and received the addresses of foreign

kings, the nephew of Justin assiduously cultivated the friendship

of the senate. That venerable name seemed to qualify its members

to declare the sense of the nation, and to regulate the

succession of the Imperial throne: the feeble Anastasius had

permitted the vigor of government to degenerate into the form or

substance of an aristocracy; and the military officers who had

obtained the senatorial rank were followed by their domestic

guards, a band of veterans, whose arms or acclamations might fix

in a tumultuous moment the diadem of the East. The treasures of

the state were lavished to procure the voices of the senators,

and their unanimous wish, that he would be pleased to adopt

Justinian for his colleague, was communicated to the emperor. But

this request, which too clearly admonished him of his approaching

end, was unwelcome to the jealous temper of an aged monarch,

desirous to retain the power which he was incapable of

exercising; and Justin, holding his purple with both his hands,

advised them to prefer, since an election was so profitable, some

older candidate. Not withstanding this reproach, the senate

proceeded to decorate Justinian with the royal epithet of

nobilissimus; and their decree was ratified by the affection or

the fears of his uncle. After some time the languor of mind and

body, to which he was reduced by an incurable wound in his thigh,

indispensably required the aid of a guardian. He summoned the

patriarch and senators; and in their presence solemnly placed the

diadem on the head of his nephew, who was conducted from the

palace to the circus, and saluted by the loud and joyful applause

of the people. The life of Justin was prolonged about four

months; but from the instant of this ceremony, he was considered

as dead to the empire, which acknowledged Justinian, in the

forty-fifth year of his age, for the lawful sovereign of the

East. 11

6 (return) [ Manichaean signifies Eutychian. Hear the furious

acclamations of Constantinople and Tyre, the former no more than

six days after the decease of Anastasius. They produced, the

latter applauded, the eunuch’s death, (Baronius, A.D. 518, P. ii.

No. 15. Fleury, Hist Eccles. tom. vii. p. 200, 205, from the

Councils, tom. v. p. 182, 207.)]

7 (return) [ His power, character, and intentions, are perfectly

explained by the court de Buat, (tom. ix. p. 54—81.) He was

great-grandson of Aspar, hereditary prince in the Lesser Scythia,

and count of the Gothic foederati of Thrace. The Bessi, whom he

could influence, are the minor Goths of Jornandes, (c. 51.)]

8 (return) [ Justiniani patricii factione dicitur interfectus

fuisse, (Victor Tu nunensis, Chron. in Thesaur. Temp. Scaliger,

P. ii. p. 7.) Procopius (Anecdot. c. 7) styles him a tyrant, but

acknowledges something which is well explained by Alemannus.]

9 (return) [ In his earliest youth (plane adolescens) he had

passed some time as a hostage with Theodoric. For this curious

fact, Alemannus (ad Procop. Anecdot. c. 9, p. 34, of the first

edition) quotes a Ms. history of Justinian, by his preceptor

Theophilus. Ludewig (p. 143) wishes to make him a soldier.]

10 (return) [ The ecclesiastical history of Justinian will be

shown hereafter. See Baronius, A.D. 518—521, and the copious

article Justinianas in the index to the viith volume of his

Annals.]

11 (return) [ The reign of the elder Justin may be found in the

three Chronicles of Marcellinus, Victor, and John Malala, (tom.

ii. p. 130—150,) the last of whom (in spite of Hody, Prolegom.

No. 14, 39, edit. Oxon.) lived soon after Justinian, (Jortin’s

Remarks, &c., vol. iv p. 383:) in the Ecclesiastical History of

Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 1, 2, 3, 9,) and the Excerpta of Theodorus

Lector, (No. 37,) and in Cedrenus, (p. 362—366,) and Zonaras, (l.

xiv. p. 58—61,) who may pass for an original. * Note: Dindorf, in

his preface to the new edition of Malala, p. vi., concurs with

this opinion of Gibbon, which was also that of Reiske, as to the

age of the chronicler.—M.]

From his elevation to his death, Justinian governed the Roman

empire thirty-eight years, seven months, and thirteen days.

The events of his reign, which excite our curious attention by

their number, variety, and importance, are diligently related by

the secretary of Belisarius, a rhetorician, whom eloquence had

promoted to the rank of senator and præfect of Constantinople.

According to the vicissitudes of courage or servitude, of favor

or disgrace, Procopius 12 successively composed the history, the

panegyric, and the satire of his own times. The eight books of

the Persian, Vandalic, and Gothic wars, 13 which are continued in

the five books of Agathias, deserve our esteem as a laborious and

successful imitation of the Attic, or at least of the Asiatic,

writers of ancient Greece. His facts are collected from the

personal experience and free conversation of a soldier, a

statesman, and a traveller; his style continually aspires, and

often attains, to the merit of strength and elegance; his

reflections, more especially in the speeches, which he too

frequently inserts, contain a rich fund of political knowledge;

and the historian, excited by the generous ambition of pleasing

and instructing posterity, appears to disdain the prejudices of

the people, and the flattery of courts. The writings of Procopius

14 were read and applauded by his contemporaries: 15 but,

although he respectfully laid them at the foot of the throne, the

pride of Justinian must have been wounded by the praise of a

hero, who perpetually eclipses the glory of his inactive

sovereign. The conscious dignity of independence was subdued by

the hopes and fears of a slave; and the secretary of Belisarius

labored for pardon and reward in the six books of the Imperial

edifices. He had dexterously chosen a subject of apparent

splendor, in which he could loudly celebrate the genius, the

magnificence, and the piety of a prince, who, both as a conqueror

and legislator, had surpassed the puerile virtues of Themistocles

and Cyrus. 16 Disappointment might urge the flatterer to secret

revenge; and the first glance of favor might again tempt him to

suspend and suppress a libel, 17 in which the Roman Cyrus is

degraded into an odious and contemptible tyrant, in which both

the emperor and his consort Theodora are seriously represented as

two daemons, who had assumed a human form for the destruction of

mankind. 18 Such base inconsistency must doubtless sully the

reputation, and detract from the credit, of Procopius: yet, after

the venom of his malignity has been suffered to exhale, the

residue of the anecdotes, even the most disgraceful facts, some

of which had been tenderly hinted in his public history, are

established by their internal evidence, or the authentic

monuments of the times. 19 1911 From these various materials, I

shall now proceed to describe the reign of Justinian, which will

deserve and occupy an ample space. The present chapter will

explain the elevation and character of Theodora, the factions of

the circus, and the peaceful administration of the sovereign of

the East. In the three succeeding chapters, I shall relate the

wars of Justinian, which achieved the conquest of Africa and

Italy; and I shall follow the victories of Belisarius and Narses,

without disguising the vanity of their triumphs, or the hostile

virtue of the Persian and Gothic heroes. The series of this and

the following volume will embrace the jurisprudence and theology

of the emperor; the controversies and sects which still divide

the Oriental church; the reformation of the Roman law which is

obeyed or respected by the nations of modern Europe.

12 (return) [ See the characters of Procopius and Agathias in La

Mothe le Vayer, (tom. viii. p. 144—174,) Vossius, (de Historicis

Graecis, l. ii. c. 22,) and Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. l. v. c.

5, tom. vi. p. 248—278.) Their religion, an honorable problem,

betrays occasional conformity, with a secret attachment to

Paganism and Philosophy.]

13 (return) [ In the seven first books, two Persic, two Vandalic,

and three Gothic, Procopius has borrowed from Appian the division

of provinces and wars: the viiith book, though it bears the name

of Gothic, is a miscellaneous and general supplement down to the

spring of the year 553, from whence it is continued by Agathias

till 559, (Pagi, Critica, A.D. 579, No. 5.)]

14 (return) [ The literary fate of Procopius has been somewhat

unlucky.

1. His book de Bello Gothico were stolen by Leonard Aretin, and

published (Fulginii, 1470, Venet. 1471, apud Janson. Mattaire,

Annal Typograph. tom. i. edit. posterior, p. 290, 304, 279, 299,)

in his own name, (see Vossius de Hist. Lat. l. iii. c. 5, and the

feeble defence of the Venice Giornale de Letterati, tom. xix. p.

207.)

2. His works were mutilated by the first Latin translators,

Christopher Persona, (Giornale, tom. xix. p. 340—348,) and

Raphael de Volaterra, (Huet, de Claris Interpretibus, p. 166,)

who did not even consult the Ms. of the Vatican library, of which

they were præfects, (Aleman. in Praefat Anecdot.) 3. The Greek

text was not printed till 1607, by Hoeschelius of Augsburg,

(Dictionnaire de Bayle, tom. ii. p. 782.)

4. The Paris edition was imperfectly executed by Claude Maltret,

a Jesuit of Toulouse, (in 1663,) far distant from the Louvre

press and the Vatican Ms., from which, however, he obtained some

supplements. His promised commentaries, &c., have never appeared.

The Agathias of Leyden (1594) has been wisely reprinted by the

Paris editor, with the Latin version of Bonaventura Vulcanius, a

learned interpreter, (Huet, p. 176.)

* Note: Procopius forms a part of the new Byzantine collection

under the superintendence of Dindorf.—M.]

15 (return) [ Agathias in Praefat. p. 7, 8, l. iv. p. 137.

Evagrius, l. iv. c. 12. See likewise Photius, cod. lxiii. p. 65.]

16 (return) [ Says, he, Praefat. ad l. de Edificiis is no more

than a pun! In these five books, Procopius affects a Christian as

well as a courtly style.]

17 (return) [ Procopius discloses himself, (Praefat. ad Anecdot.

c. 1, 2, 5,) and the anecdotes are reckoned as the ninth book by

Suidas, (tom. iii. p. 186, edit. Kuster.) The silence of Evagrius

is a poor objection. Baronius (A.D. 548, No. 24) regrets the loss

of this secret history: it was then in the Vatican library, in

his own custody, and was first published sixteen years after his

death, with the learned, but partial notes of Nicholas Alemannus,

(Lugd. 1623.)]

18 (return) [ Justinian an ass—the perfect likeness of

Domitian—Anecdot. c. 8.—Theodora’s lovers driven from her bed by

rival daemons—her marriage foretold with a great daemon—a monk

saw the prince of the daemons, instead of Justinian, on the

throne—the servants who watched beheld a face without features, a

body walking without a head, &c., &c. Procopius declares his own

and his friends’ belief in these diabolical stories, (c. 12.)]

19 (return) [ Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur et la

Decadence des Romains, c. xx.) gives credit to these anecdotes,

as connected, 1. with the weakness of the empire, and, 2. with

the instability of Justinian’s laws.]

1911 (return) [ The Anecdota of Procopius, compared with the

former works of the same author, appear to me the basest and most

disgraceful work in literature. The wars, which he has described

in the former volumes as glorious or necessary, are become

unprofitable and wanton massacres; the buildings which he

celebrated, as raised to the immortal honor of the great emperor,

and his admirable queen, either as magnificent embellishments of

the city, or useful fortifications for the defence of the

frontier, are become works of vain prodigality and useless

ostentation. I doubt whether Gibbon has made sufficient allowance

for the “malignity” of the Anecdota; at all events, the extreme

and disgusting profligacy of Theodora’s early life rests entirely

on this viratent libel—M.]

I. In the exercise of supreme power, the first act of Justinian

was to divide it with the woman whom he loved, the famous

Theodora, 20 whose strange elevation cannot be applauded as the

triumph of female virtue. Under the reign of Anastasius, the care

of the wild beasts maintained by the green faction at

Constantinople was intrusted to Acacius, a native of the Isle of

Cyprus, who, from his employment, was surnamed the master of the

bears. This honorable office was given after his death to another

candidate, notwithstanding the diligence of his widow, who had

already provided a husband and a successor. Acacius had left

three daughters, Comito, 21 Theodora, and Anastasia, the eldest

of whom did not then exceed the age of seven years. On a solemn

festival, these helpless orphans were sent by their distressed

and indignant mother, in the garb of suppliants, into the midst

of the theatre: the green faction received them with contempt,

the blues with compassion; and this difference, which sunk deep

into the mind of Theodora, was felt long afterwards in the

administration of the empire. As they improved in age and beauty,

the three sisters were successively devoted to the public and

private pleasures of the Byzantine people: and Theodora, after

following Comito on the stage, in the dress of a slave, with a

stool on her head, was at length permitted to exercise her

independent talents. She neither danced, nor sung, nor played on

the flute; her skill was confined to the pantomime arts; she

excelled in buffoon characters, and as often as the comedian

swelled her cheeks, and complained with a ridiculous tone and

gesture of the blows that were inflicted, the whole theatre of

Constantinople resounded with laughter and applause. The beauty

of Theodora 22 was the subject of more flattering praise, and the

source of more exquisite delight. Her features were delicate and

regular; her complexion, though somewhat pale, was tinged with a

natural color; every sensation was instantly expressed by the

vivacity of her eyes; her easy motions displayed the graces of a

small but elegant figure; and either love or adulation might

proclaim, that painting and poetry were incapable of delineating

the matchless excellence of her form. But this form was degraded

by the facility with which it was exposed to the public eye, and

prostituted to licentious desire. Her venal charms were abandoned

to a promiscuous crowd of citizens and strangers of every rank,

and of every profession: the fortunate lover who had been

promised a night of enjoyment, was often driven from her bed by a

stronger or more wealthy favorite; and when she passed through

the streets, her presence was avoided by all who wished to escape

either the scandal or the temptation. The satirical historian has

not blushed 23 to describe the naked scenes which Theodora was

not ashamed to exhibit in the theatre. 24 After exhausting the

arts of sensual pleasure, 25 she most ungratefully murmured

against the parsimony of Nature; 26 but her murmurs, her

pleasures, and her arts, must be veiled in the obscurity of a

learned language. After reigning for some time, the delight and

contempt of the capital, she condescended to accompany Ecebolus,

a native of Tyre, who had obtained the government of the African

Pentapolis. But this union was frail and transient; Ecebolus soon

rejected an expensive or faithless concubine; she was reduced at

Alexandria to extreme distress; and in her laborious return to

Constantinople, every city of the East admired and enjoyed the

fair Cyprian, whose merit appeared to justify her descent from

the peculiar island of Venus. The vague commerce of Theodora, and

the most detestable precautions, preserved her from the danger

which she feared; yet once, and once only, she became a mother.

The infant was saved and educated in Arabia, by his father, who

imparted to him on his death-bed, that he was the son of an

empress. Filled with ambitious hopes, the unsuspecting youth

immediately hastened to the palace of Constantinople, and was

admitted to the presence of his mother. As he was never more

seen, even after the decease of Theodora, she deserves the foul

imputation of extinguishing with his life a secret so offensive

to her Imperial virtue. 2611

20 (return) [ For the life and manners of the empress Theodora

see the Anecdotes; more especially c. 1—5, 9, 10—15, 16, 17, with

the learned notes of Alemannus—a reference which is always

implied.]

21 (return) [ Comito was afterwards married to Sittas, duke of

Armenia, the father, perhaps, at least she might be the mother,

of the empress Sophia. Two nephews of Theodora may be the sons of

Anastasia, (Aleman. p. 30, 31.)]

22 (return) [ Her statute was raised at Constantinople, on a

porphyry column. See Procopius, (de Edif. l. i. c. 11,) who gives

her portrait in the Anecdotes, (c. 10.) Aleman. (p. 47) produces

one from a Mosaic at Ravenna, loaded with pearls and jewels, and

yet handsome.]

23 (return) [ A fragment of the Anecdotes, (c. 9,) somewhat too

naked, was suppressed by Alemannus, though extant in the Vatican

Ms.; nor has the defect been supplied in the Paris or Venice

editions. La Mothe le Vayer (tom. viii. p. 155) gave the first

hint of this curious and genuine passage, (Jortin’s Remarks, vol.

iv. p. 366,) which he had received from Rome, and it has been

since published in the Menagiana (tom. iii. p. 254—259) with a

Latin version.]

24 (return) [ After the mention of a narrow girdle, (as none

could appear stark naked in the theatre,) Procopius thus

proceeds. I have heard that a learned prelate, now deceased, was

fond of quoting this passage in conversation.]

25 (return) [ Theodora surpassed the Crispa of Ausonius, (Epigram

lxxi.,) who imitated the capitalis luxus of the females of Nola.

See Quintilian Institut. viii. 6, and Torrentius ad Horat.

Sermon. l. i. sat. 2, v. 101. At a memorable supper, thirty

slaves waited round the table ten young men feasted with

Theodora. Her charity was universal. Et lassata viris, necdum

satiata, recessit.]

26 (return) [ She wished for a fourth altar, on which she might

pour libations to the god of love.]

2611 (return) [ Gibbon should have remembered the axiom which he

quotes in another piece, scelera ostendi oportet dum puniantur

abscondi flagitia.—M.]

In the most abject state of her fortune, and reputation, some

vision, either of sleep or of fancy, had whispered to Theodora

the pleasing assurance that she was destined to become the spouse

of a potent monarch. Conscious of her approaching greatness, she

returned from Paphlagonia to Constantinople; assumed, like a

skilful actress, a more decent character; relieved her poverty by

the laudable industry of spinning wool; and affected a life of

chastity and solitude in a small house, which she afterwards

changed into a magnificent temple. 27 Her beauty, assisted by art

or accident, soon attracted, captivated, and fixed, the patrician

Justinian, who already reigned with absolute sway under the name

of his uncle. Perhaps she contrived to enhance the value of a

gift which she had so often lavished on the meanest of mankind;

perhaps she inflamed, at first by modest delays, and at last by

sensual allurements, the desires of a lover, who, from nature or

devotion, was addicted to long vigils and abstemious diet. When

his first transports had subsided, she still maintained the same

ascendant over his mind, by the more solid merit of temper and

understanding. Justinian delighted to ennoble and enrich the

object of his affection; the treasures of the East were poured at

her feet, and the nephew of Justin was determined, perhaps by

religious scruples, to bestow on his concubine the sacred and

legal character of a wife. But the laws of Rome expressly

prohibited the marriage of a senator with any female who had been

dishonored by a servile origin or theatrical profession: the

empress Lupicina, or Euphemia, a Barbarian of rustic manners, but

of irreproachable virtue, refused to accept a prostitute for her

niece; and even Vigilantia, the superstitious mother of

Justinian, though she acknowledged the wit and beauty of

Theodora, was seriously apprehensive, lest the levity and

arrogance of that artful paramour might corrupt the piety and

happiness of her son. These obstacles were removed by the

inflexible constancy of Justinian. He patiently expected the

death of the empress; he despised the tears of his mother, who

soon sunk under the weight of her affliction; and a law was

promulgated in the name of the emperor Justin, which abolished

the rigid jurisprudence of antiquity. A glorious repentance (the

words of the edict) was left open for the unhappy females who had

prostituted their persons on the theatre, and they were permitted

to contract a legal union with the most illustrious of the

Romans. 28 This indulgence was speedily followed by the solemn

nuptials of Justinian and Theodora; her dignity was gradually

exalted with that of her lover, and, as soon as Justin had

invested his nephew with the purple, the patriarch of

Constantinople placed the diadem on the heads of the emperor and

empress of the East. But the usual honors which the severity of

Roman manners had allowed to the wives of princes, could not

satisfy either the ambition of Theodora or the fondness of

Justinian. He seated her on the throne as an equal and

independent colleague in the sovereignty of the empire, and an

oath of allegiance was imposed on the governors of the provinces

in the joint names of Justinian and Theodora. 29 The Eastern

world fell prostrate before the genius and fortune of the

daughter of Acacius. The prostitute who, in the presence of

innumerable spectators, had polluted the theatre of

Constantinople, was adored as a queen in the same city, by grave

magistrates, orthodox bishops, victorious generals, and captive

monarchs. 30

27 (return) [ Anonym. de Antiquitat. C. P. l. iii. 132, in

Banduri Imperium Orient. tom. i. p. 48. Ludewig (p. 154) argues

sensibly that Theodora would not have immortalized a brothel: but

I apply this fact to her second and chaster residence at

Constantinople.]

28 (return) [ See the old law in Justinian’s Code, (l. v. tit. v.

leg. 7, tit. xxvii. leg. 1,) under the years 336 and 454. The new

edict (about the year 521 or 522, Aleman. p. 38, 96) very

awkwardly repeals no more than the clause of mulieres scenicoe,

libertinae, tabernariae. See the novels 89 and 117, and a Greek

rescript from Justinian to the bishops, (Aleman. p. 41.)]

29 (return) [ I swear by the Father, &c., by the Virgin Mary, by

the four Gospels, quae in manibus teneo, and by the Holy

Archangels Michael and Gabriel, puram conscientiam germanumque

servitium me servaturum, sacratissimis DDNN. Justiniano et

Theodorae conjugi ejus, (Novell. viii. tit. 3.) Would the oath

have been binding in favor of the widow? Communes tituli et

triumphi, &c., (Aleman. p. 47, 48.)]

30 (return) [ “Let greatness own her, and she’s mean no more,”

&c. Without Warburton’s critical telescope, I should never have

seen, in this general picture of triumphant vice, any personal

allusion to Theodora.]

Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part II.

Those who believe that the female mind is totally depraved by the

loss of chastity, will eagerly listen to all the invectives of

private envy, or popular resentment which have dissembled the

virtues of Theodora, exaggerated her vices, and condemned with

rigor the venal or voluntary sins of the youthful harlot. From a

motive of shame, or contempt, she often declined the servile

homage of the multitude, escaped from the odious light of the

capital, and passed the greatest part of the year in the palaces

and gardens which were pleasantly seated on the sea-coast of the

Propontis and the Bosphorus. Her private hours were devoted to

the prudent as well as grateful care of her beauty, the luxury of

the bath and table, and the long slumber of the evening and the

morning. Her secret apartments were occupied by the favorite

women and eunuchs, whose interests and passions she indulged at

the expense of justice; the most illustrious personages of the

state were crowded into a dark and sultry antechamber, and when

at last, after tedious attendance, they were admitted to kiss the

feet of Theodora, they experienced, as her humor might suggest,

the silent arrogance of an empress, or the capricious levity of a

comedian. Her rapacious avarice to accumulate an immense

treasure, may be excused by the apprehension of her husband’s

death, which could leave no alternative between ruin and the

throne; and fear as well as ambition might exasperate Theodora

against two generals, who, during the malady of the emperor, had

rashly declared that they were not disposed to acquiesce in the

choice of the capital. But the reproach of cruelty, so repugnant

even to her softer vices, has left an indelible stain on the

memory of Theodora. Her numerous spies observed, and zealously

reported, every action, or word, or look, injurious to their

royal mistress. Whomsoever they accused were cast into her

peculiar prisons, 31 inaccessible to the inquiries of justice;

and it was rumored, that the torture of the rack, or scourge, had

been inflicted in the presence of the female tyrant, insensible

to the voice of prayer or of pity. 32 Some of these unhappy

victims perished in deep, unwholesome dungeons, while others were

permitted, after the loss of their limbs, their reason, or their

fortunes, to appear in the world, the living monuments of her

vengeance, which was commonly extended to the children of those

whom she had suspected or injured. The senator or bishop, whose

death or exile Theodora had pronounced, was delivered to a trusty

messenger, and his diligence was quickened by a menace from her

own mouth. “If you fail in the execution of my commands, I swear

by Him who liveth forever, that your skin shall be flayed from

your body.” 33

31 (return) [ Her prisons, a labyrinth, a Tartarus, (Anecdot. c.

4,) were under the palace. Darkness is propitious to cruelty, but

it is likewise favorable to calumny and fiction.]

32 (return) [ A more jocular whipping was inflicted on

Saturninus, for presuming to say that his wife, a favorite of the

empress, had not been found. (Anecdot. c. 17.)]

33 (return) [ Per viventem in saecula excoriari te faciam.

Anastasius de Vitis Pont. Roman. in Vigilio, p. 40.]

If the creed of Theodora had not been tainted with heresy, her

exemplary devotion might have atoned, in the opinion of her

contemporaries, for pride, avarice, and cruelty. But, if she

employed her influence to assuage the intolerant fury of the

emperor, the present age will allow some merit to her religion,

and much indulgence to her speculative errors. 34 The name of

Theodora was introduced, with equal honor, in all the pious and

charitable foundations of Justinian; and the most benevolent

institution of his reign may be ascribed to the sympathy of the

empress for her less fortunate sisters, who had been seduced or

compelled to embrace the trade of prostitution. A palace, on the

Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, was converted into a stately and

spacious monastery, and a liberal maintenance was assigned to

five hundred women, who had been collected from the streets and

brothels of Constantinople. In this safe and holy retreat, they

were devoted to perpetual confinement; and the despair of some,

who threw themselves headlong into the sea, was lost in the

gratitude of the penitents, who had been delivered from sin and

misery by their generous benefactress. 35 The prudence of

Theodora is celebrated by Justinian himself; and his laws are

attributed to the sage counsels of his most reverend wife whom he

had received as the gift of the Deity. 36 Her courage was

displayed amidst the tumult of the people and the terrors of the

court. Her chastity, from the moment of her union with Justinian,

is founded on the silence of her implacable enemies; and although

the daughter of Acacius might be satiated with love, yet some

applause is due to the firmness of a mind which could sacrifice

pleasure and habit to the stronger sense either of duty or

interest. The wishes and prayers of Theodora could never obtain

the blessing of a lawful son, and she buried an infant daughter,

the sole offspring of her marriage. 37 Notwithstanding this

disappointment, her dominion was permanent and absolute; she

preserved, by art or merit, the affections of Justinian; and

their seeming dissensions were always fatal to the courtiers who

believed them to be sincere. Perhaps her health had been impaired

by the licentiousness of her youth; but it was always delicate,

and she was directed by her physicians to use the Pythian warm

baths. In this journey, the empress was followed by the

Praetorian præfect, the great treasurer, several counts and

patricians, and a splendid train of four thousand attendants: the

highways were repaired at her approach; a palace was erected for

her reception; and as she passed through Bithynia, she

distributed liberal alms to the churches, the monasteries, and

the hospitals, that they might implore Heaven for the restoration

of her health. 38 At length, in the twenty-fourth year of her

marriage, and the twenty-second of her reign, she was consumed by

a cancer; 39 and the irreparable loss was deplored by her

husband, who, in the room of a theatrical prostitute, might have

selected the purest and most noble virgin of the East. 40

34 (return) [ Ludewig, p. 161—166. I give him credit for the

charitable attempt, although he hath not much charity in his

temper.]

35 (return) [ Compare the anecdotes (c. 17) with the Edifices (l.

i. c. 9)—how differently may the same fact be stated! John Malala

(tom. ii. p. 174, 175) observes, that on this, or a similar

occasion, she released and clothed the girls whom she had

purchased from the stews at five aurei apiece.]

36 (return) [ Novel. viii. 1. An allusion to Theodora. Her

enemies read the name Daemonodora, (Aleman. p. 66.)]

37 (return) [ St. Sabas refused to pray for a son of Theodora,

lest he should prove a heretic worse than Anastasius himself,

(Cyril in Vit. St. Sabae, apud Aleman. p. 70, 109.)]

38 (return) [ See John Malala, tom. ii. p. 174. Theophanes, p.

158. Procopius de Edific. l. v. c. 3.]

39 (return) [ Theodora Chalcedonensis synodi inimica canceris

plaga toto corpore perfusa vitam prodigiose finivit, (Victor

Tununensis in Chron.) On such occasions, an orthodox mind is

steeled against pity. Alemannus (p. 12, 13) understands of

Theophanes as civil language, which does not imply either piety

or repentance; yet two years after her death, St. Theodora is

celebrated by Paul Silentiarius, (in proem. v. 58—62.)]

40 (return) [ As she persecuted the popes, and rejected a

council, Baronius exhausts the names of Eve, Dalila, Herodias,

&c.; after which he has recourse to his infernal dictionary:

civis inferni—alumna daemonum—satanico agitata spiritu-oestro

percita diabolico, &c., &c., (A.D. 548, No. 24.)]

II. A material difference may be observed in the games of

antiquity: the most eminent of the Greeks were actors, the Romans

were merely spectators. The Olympic stadium was open to wealth,

merit, and ambition; and if the candidates could depend on their

personal skill and activity, they might pursue the footsteps of

Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct their own horses in the rapid

career. 41 Ten, twenty, forty chariots were allowed to start at

the same instant; a crown of leaves was the reward of the victor;

and his fame, with that of his family and country, was chanted in

lyric strains more durable than monuments of brass and marble.

But a senator, or even a citizen, conscious of his dignity, would

have blushed to expose his person, or his horses, in the circus

of Rome. The games were exhibited at the expense of the republic,

the magistrates, or the emperors: but the reins were abandoned to

servile hands; and if the profits of a favorite charioteer

sometimes exceeded those of an advocate, they must be considered

as the effects of popular extravagance, and the high wages of a

disgraceful profession. The race, in its first institution, was a

simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were distinguished

by white and red liveries: two additional colors, a light green,

and a caerulean blue, were afterwards introduced; and as the

races were repeated twenty-five times, one hundred chariots

contributed in the same day to the pomp of the circus. The four

factions soon acquired a legal establishment, and a mysterious

origin, and their fanciful colors were derived from the various

appearances of nature in the four seasons of the year; the red

dogstar of summer, the snows of winter, the deep shades of

autumn, and the cheerful verdure of the spring. 42 Another

interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons, and the

struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent the

conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories

announced either a plentiful harvest or a prosperous navigation,

and the hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat

less absurd than the blind ardor of the Roman people, who devoted

their lives and fortunes to the color which they had espoused.

Such folly was disdained and indulged by the wisest princes; but

the names of Caligula, Nero, Vitellius, Verus, Commodus,

Caracalla, and Elagabalus, were enrolled in the blue or green

factions of the circus; they frequented their stables, applauded

their favorites, chastised their antagonists, and deserved the

esteem of the populace, by the natural or affected imitation of

their manners. The bloody and tumultuous contest continued to

disturb the public festivity, till the last age of the spectacles

of Rome; and Theodoric, from a motive of justice or affection,

interposed his authority to protect the greens against the

violence of a consul and a patrician, who were passionately

addicted to the blue faction of the circus. 43

41 (return) [ Read and feel the xxiid book of the Iliad, a living

picture of manners, passions, and the whole form and spirit of

the chariot race West’s Dissertation on the Olympic Games (sect.

xii.—xvii.) affords much curious and authentic information.]

42 (return) [ The four colors, albati, russati, prasini, veneti,

represent the four seasons, according to Cassiodorus, (Var. iii.

51,) who lavishes much wit and eloquence on this theatrical

mystery. Of these colors, the three first may be fairly

translated white, red, and green. Venetus is explained by

coeruleus, a word various and vague: it is properly the sky

reflected in the sea; but custom and convenience may allow blue

as an equivalent, (Robert. Stephan. sub voce. Spence’s Polymetis,

p. 228.)]

43 (return) [ See Onuphrius Panvinius de Ludis Circensibus, l. i.

c. 10, 11; the xviith Annotation on Mascou’s History of the

Germans; and Aleman ad c. vii.]

Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues, of

ancient Rome; and the same factions which had agitated the

circus, raged with redoubled fury in the hippodrome. Under the

reign of Anastasius, this popular frenzy was inflamed by

religious zeal; and the greens, who had treacherously concealed

stones and daggers under baskets of fruit, massacred, at a solemn

festival, three thousand of their blue adversaries. 44 From this

capital, the pestilence was diffused into the provinces and

cities of the East, and the sportive distinction of two colors

produced two strong and irreconcilable factions, which shook the

foundations of a feeble government. 45 The popular dissensions,

founded on the most serious interest, or holy pretence, have

scarcely equalled the obstinacy of this wanton discord, which

invaded the peace of families, divided friends and brothers, and

tempted the female sex, though seldom seen in the circus, to

espouse the inclinations of their lovers, or to contradict the

wishes of their husbands. Every law, either human or divine, was

trampled under foot, and as long as the party was successful, its

deluded followers appeared careless of private distress or public

calamity. The license, without the freedom, of democracy, was

revived at Antioch and Constantinople, and the support of a

faction became necessary to every candidate for civil or

ecclesiastical honors. A secret attachment to the family or sect

of Anastasius was imputed to the greens; the blues were zealously

devoted to the cause of orthodoxy and Justinian, 46 and their

grateful patron protected, above five years, the disorders of a

faction, whose seasonable tumults overawed the palace, the

senate, and the capitals of the East. Insolent with royal favor,

the blues affected to strike terror by a peculiar and Barbaric

dress, the long hair of the Huns, their close sleeves and ample

garments, a lofty step, and a sonorous voice. In the day they

concealed their two-edged poniards, but in the night they boldly

assembled in arms, and in numerous bands, prepared for every act

of violence and rapine. Their adversaries of the green faction,

or even inoffensive citizens, were stripped and often murdered by

these nocturnal robbers, and it became dangerous to wear any gold

buttons or girdles, or to appear at a late hour in the streets of

a peaceful capital. A daring spirit, rising with impunity,

proceeded to violate the safeguard of private houses; and fire

was employed to facilitate the attack, or to conceal the crimes

of these factious rioters. No place was safe or sacred from their

depredations; to gratify either avarice or revenge, they

profusely spilt the blood of the innocent; churches and altars

were polluted by atrocious murders; and it was the boast of the

assassins, that their dexterity could always inflict a mortal

wound with a single stroke of their dagger. The dissolute youth

of Constantinople adopted the blue livery of disorder; the laws

were silent, and the bonds of society were relaxed: creditors

were compelled to resign their obligations; judges to reverse

their sentence; masters to enfranchise their slaves; fathers to

supply the extravagance of their children; noble matrons were

prostituted to the lust of their servants; beautiful boys were

torn from the arms of their parents; and wives, unless they

preferred a voluntary death, were ravished in the presence of

their husbands. 47 The despair of the greens, who were persecuted

by their enemies, and deserted by the magistrates, assumed the

privilege of defence, perhaps of retaliation; but those who

survived the combat were dragged to execution, and the unhappy

fugitives, escaping to woods and caverns, preyed without mercy on

the society from whence they were expelled. Those ministers of

justice who had courage to punish the crimes, and to brave the

resentment, of the blues, became the victims of their indiscreet

zeal; a præfect of Constantinople fled for refuge to the holy

sepulchre, a count of the East was ignominiously whipped, and a

governor of Cilicia was hanged, by the order of Theodora, on the

tomb of two assassins whom he had condemned for the murder of his

groom, and a daring attack upon his own life. 48 An aspiring

candidate may be tempted to build his greatness on the public

confusion, but it is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign

to maintain the authority of the laws. The first edict of

Justinian, which was often repeated, and sometimes executed,

announced his firm resolution to support the innocent, and to

chastise the guilty, of every denomination and color. Yet the

balance of justice was still inclined in favor of the blue

faction, by the secret affection, the habits, and the fears of

the emperor; his equity, after an apparent struggle, submitted,

without reluctance, to the implacable passions of Theodora, and

the empress never forgot, or forgave, the injuries of the

comedian. At the accession of the younger Justin, the

proclamation of equal and rigorous justice indirectly condemned

the partiality of the former reign. “Ye blues, Justinian is no

more! ye greens, he is still alive!” 49

44 (return) [ Marcellin. in Chron. p. 47. Instead of the vulgar

word venata he uses the more exquisite terms of coerulea and

coerealis. Baronius (A.D. 501, No. 4, 5, 6) is satisfied that the

blues were orthodox; but Tillemont is angry at the supposition,

and will not allow any martyrs in a playhouse, (Hist. des Emp.

tom. vi. p. 554.)]

45 (return) [ See Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 24.) In describing

the vices of the factions and of the government, the public, is

not more favorable than the secret, historian. Aleman. (p. 26)

has quoted a fine passage from Gregory Nazianzen, which proves

the inveteracy of the evil.]

46 (return) [ The partiality of Justinian for the blues (Anecdot.

c. 7) is attested by Evagrius, (Hist. Eccles. l. iv. c. 32,) John

Malala, (tom ii p. 138, 139,) especially for Antioch; and

Theophanes, (p. 142.)]

47 (return) [ A wife, (says Procopius,) who was seized and almost

ravished by a blue-coat, threw herself into the Bosphorus. The

bishops of the second Syria (Aleman. p. 26) deplore a similar

suicide, the guilt or glory of female chastity, and name the

heroine.]

48 (return) [ The doubtful credit of Procopius (Anecdot. c. 17)

is supported by the less partial Evagrius, who confirms the fact,

and specifies the names. The tragic fate of the præfect of

Constantinople is related by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 139.)]

49 (return) [ See John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 147;) yet he owns

that Justinian was attached to the blues. The seeming discord of

the emperor and Theodora is, perhaps, viewed with too much

jealousy and refinement by Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 10.) See

Aleman. Praefat. p. 6.]

A sedition, which almost laid Constantinople in ashes, was

excited by the mutual hatred and momentary reconciliation of the

two factions. In the fifth year of his reign, Justinian

celebrated the festival of the ides of January; the games were

incessantly disturbed by the clamorous discontent of the greens:

till the twenty-second race, the emperor maintained his silent

gravity; at length, yielding to his impatience, he condescended

to hold, in abrupt sentences, and by the voice of a crier, the

most singular dialogue 50 that ever passed between a prince and

his subjects. Their first complaints were respectful and modest;

they accused the subordinate ministers of oppression, and

proclaimed their wishes for the long life and victory of the

emperor. “Be patient and attentive, ye insolent railers!”

exclaimed Justinian; “be mute, ye Jews, Samaritans, and

Manichaeans!” The greens still attempted to awaken his

compassion. “We are poor, we are innocent, we are injured, we

dare not pass through the streets: a general persecution is

exercised against our name and color. Let us die, O emperor! but

let us die by your command, and for your service!” But the

repetition of partial and passionate invectives degraded, in

their eyes, the majesty of the purple; they renounced allegiance

to the prince who refused justice to his people; lamented that

the father of Justinian had been born; and branded his son with

the opprobrious names of a homicide, an ass, and a perjured

tyrant. “Do you despise your lives?” cried the indignant monarch:

the blues rose with fury from their seats; their hostile clamors

thundered in the hippodrome; and their adversaries, deserting the

unequal contest spread terror and despair through the streets of

Constantinople. At this dangerous moment, seven notorious

assassins of both factions, who had been condemned by the

præfect, were carried round the city, and afterwards transported

to the place of execution in the suburb of Pera. Four were

immediately beheaded; a fifth was hanged: but when the same

punishment was inflicted on the remaining two, the rope broke,

they fell alive to the ground, the populace applauded their

escape, and the monks of St. Conon, issuing from the neighboring

convent, conveyed them in a boat to the sanctuary of the church.

51 As one of these criminals was of the blue, and the other of

the green livery, the two factions were equally provoked by the

cruelty of their oppressor, or the ingratitude of their patron;

and a short truce was concluded till they had delivered their

prisoners and satisfied their revenge. The palace of the præfect,

who withstood the seditious torrent, was instantly burnt, his

officers and guards were massacred, the prisons were forced open,

and freedom was restored to those who could only use it for the

public destruction. A military force, which had been despatched

to the aid of the civil magistrate, was fiercely encountered by

an armed multitude, whose numbers and boldness continually

increased; and the Heruli, the wildest Barbarians in the service

of the empire, overturned the priests and their relics, which,

from a pious motive, had been rashly interposed to separate the

bloody conflict. The tumult was exasperated by this sacrilege,

the people fought with enthusiasm in the cause of God; the women,

from the roofs and windows, showered stones on the heads of the

soldiers, who darted fire brands against the houses; and the

various flames, which had been kindled by the hands of citizens

and strangers, spread without control over the face of the city.

The conflagration involved the cathedral of St. Sophia, the baths

of Zeuxippus, a part of the palace, from the first entrance to

the altar of Mars, and the long portico from the palace to the

forum of Constantine: a large hospital, with the sick patients,

was consumed; many churches and stately edifices were destroyed

and an immense treasure of gold and silver was either melted or

lost. From such scenes of horror and distress, the wise and

wealthy citizens escaped over the Bosphorus to the Asiatic side;

and during five days Constantinople was abandoned to the

factions, whose watchword, Nika, vanquish! has given a name to

this memorable sedition. 52

50 (return) [ This dialogue, which Theophanes has preserved,

exhibits the popular language, as well as the manners, of

Constantinople, in the vith century. Their Greek is mingled with

many strange and barbarous words, for which Ducange cannot always

find a meaning or etymology.]

51 (return) [ See this church and monastery in Ducange, C. P.

Christiana, l. iv p 182.]

52 (return) [ The history of the Nika sedition is extracted from

Marcellinus, (in Chron.,) Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 26,) John

Malala, (tom. ii. p. 213—218,) Chron. Paschal., (p. 336—340,)

Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 154—158) and Zonaras, (l. xiv. p.

61—63.)]

As long as the factions were divided, the triumphant blues, and

desponding greens, appeared to behold with the same indifference

the disorders of the state. They agreed to censure the corrupt

management of justice and the finance; and the two responsible

ministers, the artful Tribonian, and the rapacious John of

Cappadocia, were loudly arraigned as the authors of the public

misery. The peaceful murmurs of the people would have been

disregarded: they were heard with respect when the city was in

flames; the quaestor, and the præfect, were instantly removed,

and their offices were filled by two senators of blameless

integrity. After this popular concession, Justinian proceeded to

the hippodrome to confess his own errors, and to accept the

repentance of his grateful subjects; but they distrusted his

assurances, though solemnly pronounced in the presence of the

holy Gospels; and the emperor, alarmed by their distrust,

retreated with precipitation to the strong fortress of the

palace. The obstinacy of the tumult was now imputed to a secret

and ambitious conspiracy, and a suspicion was entertained, that

the insurgents, more especially the green faction, had been

supplied with arms and money by Hypatius and Pompey, two

patricians, who could neither forget with honor, nor remember

with safety, that they were the nephews of the emperor

Anastasius. Capriciously trusted, disgraced, and pardoned, by the

jealous levity of the monarch, they had appeared as loyal

servants before the throne; and, during five days of the tumult,

they were detained as important hostages; till at length, the

fears of Justinian prevailing over his prudence, he viewed the

two brothers in the light of spies, perhaps of assassins, and

sternly commanded them to depart from the palace. After a

fruitless representation, that obedience might lead to

involuntary treason, they retired to their houses, and in the

morning of the sixth day, Hypatius was surrounded and seized by

the people, who, regardless of his virtuous resistance, and the

tears of his wife, transported their favorite to the forum of

Constantine, and instead of a diadem, placed a rich collar on his

head. If the usurper, who afterwards pleaded the merit of his

delay, had complied with the advice of his senate, and urged the

fury of the multitude, their first irresistible effort might have

oppressed or expelled his trembling competitor. The Byzantine

palace enjoyed a free communication with the sea; vessels lay

ready at the garden stairs; and a secret resolution was already

formed, to convey the emperor with his family and treasures to a

safe retreat, at some distance from the capital.

Justinian was lost, if the prostitute whom he raised from the

theatre had not renounced the timidity, as well as the virtues,

of her sex. In the midst of a council, where Belisarius was

present, Theodora alone displayed the spirit of a hero; and she

alone, without apprehending his future hatred, could save the

emperor from the imminent danger, and his unworthy fears. “If

flight,” said the consort of Justinian, “were the only means of

safety, yet I should disdain to fly. Death is the condition of

our birth; but they who have reigned should never survive the

loss of dignity and dominion. I implore Heaven, that I may never

be seen, not a day, without my diadem and purple; that I may no

longer behold the light, when I cease to be saluted with the name

of queen. If you resolve, O Caesar! to fly, you have treasures;

behold the sea, you have ships; but tremble lest the desire of

life should expose you to wretched exile and ignominious death.

For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity, that the

throne is a glorious sepulchre.” The firmness of a woman restored

the courage to deliberate and act, and courage soon discovers the

resources of the most desperate situation. It was an easy and a

decisive measure to revive the animosity of the factions; the

blues were astonished at their own guilt and folly, that a

trifling injury should provoke them to conspire with their

implacable enemies against a gracious and liberal benefactor;

they again proclaimed the majesty of Justinian; and the greens,

with their upstart emperor, were left alone in the hippodrome.

The fidelity of the guards was doubtful; but the military force

of Justinian consisted in three thousand veterans, who had been

trained to valor and discipline in the Persian and Illyrian wars.

Under the command of Belisarius and Mundus, they silently marched

in two divisions from the palace, forced their obscure way

through narrow passages, expiring flames, and falling edifices,

and burst open at the same moment the two opposite gates of the

hippodrome. In this narrow space, the disorderly and affrighted

crowd was incapable of resisting on either side a firm and

regular attack; the blues signalized the fury of their

repentance; and it is computed, that above thirty thousand

persons were slain in the merciless and promiscuous carnage of

the day. Hypatius was dragged from his throne, and conducted,

with his brother Pompey, to the feet of the emperor: they

implored his clemency; but their crime was manifest, their

innocence uncertain, and Justinian had been too much terrified to

forgive. The next morning the two nephews of Anastasius, with

eighteen illustrious accomplices, of patrician or consular rank,

were privately executed by the soldiers; their bodies were thrown

into the sea, their palaces razed, and their fortunes

confiscated. The hippodrome itself was condemned, during several

years, to a mournful silence: with the restoration of the games,

the same disorders revived; and the blue and green factions

continued to afflict the reign of Justinian, and to disturb the

tranquility of the Eastern empire. 53

53 (return) [ Marcellinus says in general terms, innumeris

populis in circotrucidatis. Procopius numbers 30,000 victims: and

the 35,000 of Theophanes are swelled to 40,000 by the more recent

Zonaras. Such is the usual progress of exaggeration.]

III. That empire, after Rome was barbarous, still embraced the

nations whom she had conquered beyond the Adriatic, and as far as

the frontiers of Aethiopia and Persia. Justinian reigned over

sixty-four provinces, and nine hundred and thirty-five cities; 54

his dominions were blessed by nature with the advantages of soil,

situation, and climate: and the improvements of human art had

been perpetually diffused along the coast of the Mediterranean

and the banks of the Nile from ancient Troy to the Egyptian

Thebes. Abraham 55 had been relieved by the well-known plenty of

Egypt; the same country, a small and populous tract, was still

capable of exporting, each year, two hundred and sixty thousand

quarters of wheat for the use of Constantinople; 56 and the

capital of Justinian was supplied with the manufactures of Sidon,

fifteen centuries after they had been celebrated in the poems of

Homer. 57 The annual powers of vegetation, instead of being

exhausted by two thousand harvests, were renewed and invigorated

by skilful husbandry, rich manure, and seasonable repose. The

breed of domestic animals was infinitely multiplied. Plantations,

buildings, and the instruments of labor and luxury, which are

more durable than the term of human life, were accumulated by the

care of successive generations. Tradition preserved, and

experience simplified, the humble practice of the arts: society

was enriched by the division of labor and the facility of

exchange; and every Roman was lodged, clothed, and subsisted, by

the industry of a thousand hands. The invention of the loom and

distaff has been piously ascribed to the gods. In every age, a

variety of animal and vegetable productions, hair, skins, wool,

flax, cotton, and at length silk, have been skilfully

manufactured to hide or adorn the human body; they were stained

with an infusion of permanent colors; and the pencil was

successfully employed to improve the labors of the loom. In the

choice of those colors 58 which imitate the beauties of nature,

the freedom of taste and fashion was indulged; but the deep

purple 59 which the Phœnicians extracted from a shell-fish, was

restrained to the sacred person and palace of the emperor; and

the penalties of treason were denounced against the ambitious

subjects who dared to usurp the prerogative of the throne. 60

54 (return) [ Hierocles, a contemporary of Justinian, composed

his (Itineraria, p. 631,) review of the eastern provinces and

cities, before the year 535, (Wesseling, in Praefat. and Not. ad

p. 623, &c.)]

55 (return) [ See the Book of Genesis (xii. 10) and the

administration of Joseph. The annals of the Greeks and Hebrews

agree in the early arts and plenty of Egypt: but this antiquity

supposes a long series of improvement; and Warburton, who is

almost stifled by the Hebrew calls aloud for the Samaritan,

Chronology, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 29, &c.) * Note: The

recent extraordinary discoveries in Egyptian antiquities strongly

confirm the high notion of the early Egyptian civilization, and

imperatively demand a longer period for their development. As to

the common Hebrew chronology, as far as such a subject is capable

of demonstration, it appears to me to have been framed, with a

particular view, by the Jews of Tiberias. It was not the

chronology of the Samaritans, not that of the LXX., not that of

Josephus, not that of St. Paul.—M.]

56 (return) [ Eight millions of Roman modii, besides a

contribution of 80,000 aurei for the expenses of water-carriage,

from which the subject was graciously excused. See the 13th Edict

of Justinian: the numbers are checked and verified by the

agreement of the Greek and Latin texts.]

57 (return) [ Homer’s Iliad, vi. 289. These veils, were the work

of the Sidonian women. But this passage is more honorable to the

manufactures than to the navigation of Phoenicia, from whence

they had been imported to Troy in Phrygian bottoms.]

58 (return) [ See in Ovid (de Arte Amandi, iii. 269, &c.) a

poetical list of twelve colors borrowed from flowers, the

elements, &c. But it is almost impossible to discriminate by

words all the nice and various shades both of art and nature.]

59 (return) [ By the discovery of cochineal, &c., we far surpass

the colors of antiquity. Their royal purple had a strong smell,

and a dark cast as deep as bull’s blood—obscuritas rubens, (says

Cassiodorus, Var. 1, 2,) nigredo saguinea. The president Goguet

(Origine des Loix et des Arts, part ii. l. ii. c. 2, p. 184—215)

will amuse and satisfy the reader. I doubt whether his book,

especially in England, is as well known as it deserves to be.]

60 (return) [ Historical proofs of this jealousy have been

occasionally introduced, and many more might have been added; but

the arbitrary acts of despotism were justified by the sober and

general declarations of law, (Codex Theodosian. l. x. tit. 21,

leg. 3. Codex Justinian. l. xi. tit. 8, leg. 5.) An inglorious

permission, and necessary restriction, was applied to the mince,

the female dancers, (Cod. Theodos. l. xv. tit. 7, leg. 11.)]

Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part III.

I need not explain that silk 61 is originally spun from the

bowels of a caterpillar, and that it composes the golden tomb,

from whence a worm emerges in the form of a butterfly. Till the

reign of Justinian, the silk-worm who feed on the leaves of the

white mulberry-tree were confined to China; those of the pine,

the oak, and the ash, were common in the forests both of Asia and

Europe; but as their education is more difficult, and their

produce more uncertain, they were generally neglected, except in

the little island of Ceos, near the coast of Attica. A thin gauze

was procured from their webs, and this Cean manufacture, the

invention of a woman, for female use, was long admired both in

the East and at Rome. Whatever suspicions may be raised by the

garments of the Medes and Assyrians, Virgil is the most ancient

writer, who expressly mentions the soft wool which was combed

from the trees of the Seres or Chinese; 62 and this natural

error, less marvellous than the truth, was slowly corrected by

the knowledge of a valuable insect, the first artificer of the

luxury of nations. That rare and elegant luxury was censured, in

the reign of Tiberius, by the gravest of the Romans; and Pliny,

in affected though forcible language, has condemned the thirst of

gain, which explores the last confines of the earth, for the

pernicious purpose of exposing to the public eye naked draperies

and transparent matrons. 63 6311 A dress which showed the turn of

the limbs, and color of the skin, might gratify vanity, or

provoke desire; the silks which had been closely woven in China

were sometimes unravelled by the Phœnician women, and the

precious materials were multiplied by a looser texture, and the

intermixture of linen threads. 64 Two hundred years after the age

of Pliny, the use of pure, or even of mixed silks, was confined

to the female sex, till the opulent citizens of Rome and the

provinces were insensibly familiarized with the example of

Elagabalus, the first who, by this effeminate habit, had sullied

the dignity of an emperor and a man. Aurelian complained, that a

pound of silk was sold at Rome for twelve ounces of gold; but the

supply increased with the demand, and the price diminished with

the supply. If accident or monopoly sometimes raised the value

even above the standard of Aurelian, the manufacturers of Tyre

and Berytus were sometimes compelled, by the operation of the

same causes, to content themselves with a ninth part of that

extravagant rate. 65 A law was thought necessary to discriminate

the dress of comedians from that of senators; and of the silk

exported from its native country the far greater part was

consumed by the subjects of Justinian. They were still more

intimately acquainted with a shell-fish of the Mediterranean,

surnamed the silk-worm of the sea: the fine wool or hair by which

the mother-of-pearl affixes itself to the rock is now

manufactured for curiosity rather than use; and a robe obtained

from the same singular materials was the gift of the Roman

emperor to the satraps of Armenia. 66

61 (return) [ In the history of insects (far more wonderful than

Ovid’s Metamorphoses) the silk-worm holds a conspicuous place.

The bombyx of the Isle of Ceos, as described by Pliny, (Hist.

Natur. xi. 26, 27, with the notes of the two learned Jesuits,

Hardouin and Brotier,) may be illustrated by a similar species in

China, (Memoires sur les Chinois, tom. ii. p. 575—598;) but our

silk-worm, as well as the white mulberry-tree, were unknown to

Theophrastus and Pliny.]

62 (return) [ Georgic. ii. 121. Serica quando venerint in usum

planissime non acio: suspicor tamen in Julii Caesaris aevo, nam

ante non invenio, says Justus Lipsius, (Excursus i. ad Tacit.

Annal. ii. 32.) See Dion Cassius, (l. xliii. p. 358, edit.

Reimar,) and Pausanius, (l. vi. p. 519,) the first who describes,

however strangely, the Seric insect.]

63 (return) [ Tam longinquo orbe petitur, ut in publico matrona

transluceat...ut denudet foeminas vestis, (Plin. vi. 20, xi. 21.)

Varro and Publius Syrus had already played on the Toga vitrea,

ventus texilis, and nebula linen, (Horat. Sermon. i. 2, 101, with

the notes of Torrentius and Dacier.)]

6311 (return) [ Gibbon must have written transparent draperies

and naked matrons. Through sometimes affected, he is never

inaccurate.—M.]

64 (return) [ On the texture, colors, names, and use of the silk,

half silk, and liuen garments of antiquity, see the profound,

diffuse, and obscure researches of the great Salmasius, (in Hist.

August. p. 127, 309, 310, 339, 341, 342, 344, 388—391, 395, 513,)

who was ignorant of the most common trades of Dijon or Leyden.]

65 (return) [ Flavius Vopiscus in Aurelian. c. 45, in Hist.

August. p. 224. See Salmasius ad Hist. Aug. p. 392, and Plinian.

Exercitat. in Solinum, p. 694, 695. The Anecdotes of Procopius

(c. 25) state a partial and imperfect rate of the price of silk

in the time of Justinian.]

66 (return) [ Procopius de Edit. l. iii. c. 1. These pinnes de

mer are found near Smyrna, Sicily, Corsica, and Minorca; and a

pair of gloves of their silk was presented to Pope Benedict XIV.]

A valuable merchandise of small bulk is capable of defraying the

expense of land-carriage; and the caravans traversed the whole

latitude of Asia in two hundred and forty-three days from the

Chinese Ocean to the sea-coast of Syria. Silk was immediately

delivered to the Romans by the Persian merchants, 67 who

frequented the fairs of Armenia and Nisibis; but this trade,

which in the intervals of truce was oppressed by avarice and

jealousy, was totally interrupted by the long wars of the rival

monarchies. The great king might proudly number Sogdiana, and

even Serica, among the provinces of his empire; but his real

dominion was bounded by the Oxus and his useful intercourse with

the Sogdoites, beyond the river, depended on the pleasure of

their conquerors, the white Huns, and the Turks, who successively

reigned over that industrious people. Yet the most savage

dominion has not extirpated the seeds of agriculture and

commerce, in a region which is celebrated as one of the four

gardens of Asia; the cities of Samarcand and Bochara are

advantageously seated for the exchange of its various

productions; and their merchants purchased from the Chinese, 68

the raw or manufactured silk which they transported into Persia

for the use of the Roman empire. In the vain capital of China,

the Sogdian caravans were entertained as the suppliant embassies

of tributary kingdoms, and if they returned in safety, the bold

adventure was rewarded with exorbitant gain. But the difficult

and perilous march from Samarcand to the first town of Shensi,

could not be performed in less than sixty, eighty, or one hundred

days: as soon as they had passed the Jaxartes they entered the

desert; and the wandering hordes, unless they are restrained by

armies and garrisons, have always considered the citizen and the

traveller as the objects of lawful rapine. To escape the Tartar

robbers, and the tyrants of Persia, the silk caravans explored a

more southern road; they traversed the mountains of Thibet,

descended the streams of the Ganges or the Indus, and patiently

expected, in the ports of Guzerat and Malabar, the annual fleets

of the West. 69 But the dangers of the desert were found less

intolerable than toil, hunger, and the loss of time; the attempt

was seldom renewed, and the only European who has passed that

unfrequented way, applauds his own diligence, that, in nine

months after his departure from Pekin, he reached the mouth of

the Indus. The ocean, however, was open to the free communication

of mankind. From the great river to the tropic of Cancer, the

provinces of China were subdued and civilized by the emperors of

the North; they were filled about the time of the Christian aera

with cities and men, mulberry-trees and their precious

inhabitants; and if the Chinese, with the knowledge of the

compass, had possessed the genius of the Greeks or Phœnicians,

they might have spread their discoveries over the southern

hemisphere. I am not qualified to examine, and I am not disposed

to believe, their distant voyages to the Persian Gulf, or the

Cape of Good Hope; but their ancestors might equal the labors and

success of the present race, and the sphere of their navigation

might extend from the Isles of Japan to the Straits of Malacca,

the pillars, if we may apply that name, of an Oriental Hercules.

70 Without losing sight of land, they might sail along the coast

to the extreme promontory of Achin, which is annually visited by

ten or twelve ships laden with the productions, the manufactures,

and even the artificers of China; the Island of Sumatra and the

opposite peninsula are faintly delineated 71 as the regions of

gold and silver; and the trading cities named in the geography of

Ptolemy may indicate, that this wealth was not solely derived

from the mines. The direct interval between Sumatra and Ceylon is

about three hundred leagues: the Chinese and Indian navigators

were conducted by the flight of birds and periodical winds; and

the ocean might be securely traversed in square-built ships,

which, instead of iron, were sewed together with the strong

thread of the cocoanut. Ceylon, Serendib, or Taprobana, was

divided between two hostile princes; one of whom possessed the

mountains, the elephants, and the luminous carbuncle, and the

other enjoyed the more solid riches of domestic industry, foreign

trade, and the capacious harbor of Trinquemale, which received

and dismissed the fleets of the East and West. In this hospitable

isle, at an equal distance (as it was computed) from their

respective countries, the silk merchants of China, who had

collected in their voyages aloes, cloves, nutmeg, and sandal

wood, maintained a free and beneficial commerce with the

inhabitants of the Persian Gulf. The subjects of the great king

exalted, without a rival, his power and magnificence: and the

Roman, who confounded their vanity by comparing his paltry coin

with a gold medal of the emperor Anastasius, had sailed to

Ceylon, in an Aethiopian ship, as a simple passenger. 72

67 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 20, l. ii. c. 25;

Gothic. l. iv. c. 17. Menander in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107. Of the

Parthian or Persian empire, Isidore of Charax (in Stathmis

Parthicis, p. 7, 8, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. ii.) has

marked the roads, and Ammianus Marcellinus (l. xxiii. c. 6, p.

400) has enumerated the provinces. * Note: See St. Martin, Mem.

sur l’Armenie, vol. ii. p. 41.—M.]

68 (return) [ The blind admiration of the Jesuits confounds the

different periods of the Chinese history. They are more

critically distinguished by M. de Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom.

i. part i. in the Tables, part ii. in the Geography. Memoires de

l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxii. xxxvi. xlii. xliii.,)

who discovers the gradual progress of the truth of the annals and

the extent of the monarchy, till the Christian aera. He has

searched, with a curious eye, the connections of the Chinese with

the nations of the West; but these connections are slight,

casual, and obscure; nor did the Romans entertain a suspicion

that the Seres or Sinae possessed an empire not inferior to their

own. * Note: An abstract of the various opinions of the learned

modern writers, Gosselin, Mannert, Lelewel, Malte-Brun, Heeren,

and La Treille, on the Serica and the Thinae of the ancients, may

be found in the new edition of Malte-Brun, vol. vi. p. 368,

382.—M.]

69 (return) [ The roads from China to Persia and Hindostan may be

investigated in the relations of Hackluyt and Thevenot, the

ambassadors of Sharokh, Anthony Jenkinson, the Pere Greuber, &c.

See likewise Hanway’s Travels, vol. i. p. 345—357. A

communication through Thibet has been lately explored by the

English sovereigns of Bengal.]

70 (return) [ For the Chinese navigation to Malacca and Achin,

perhaps to Ceylon, see Renaudot, (on the two Mahometan

Travellers, p. 8—11, 13—17, 141—157;) Dampier, (vol. ii. p. 136;)

the Hist. Philosophique des deux Indes, (tom. i. p. 98,) and

Hist. Generale des Voyages, (tom. vi. p. 201.)]

71 (return) [ The knowledge, or rather ignorance, of Strabo,

Pliny, Ptolemy, Arrian, Marcian, &c., of the countries eastward

of Cape Comorin, is finely illustrated by D’Anville, (Antiquite

Geographique de l’Inde, especially p. 161—198.) Our geography of

India is improved by commerce and conquest; and has been

illustrated by the excellent maps and memoirs of Major Rennel. If

he extends the sphere of his inquiries with the same critical

knowledge and sagacity, he will succeed, and may surpass, the

first of modern geographers.]

72 (return) [ The Taprobane of Pliny, (vi. 24,) Solinus, (c. 53,)

and Salmas. Plinianae Exercitat., (p. 781, 782,) and most of the

ancients, who often confound the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra,

is more clearly described by Cosmas Indicopleustes; yet even the

Christian topographer has exaggerated its dimensions. His

information on the Indian and Chinese trade is rare and curious,

(l. ii. p. 138, l. xi. p. 337, 338, edit. Montfaucon.)]

As silk became of indispensable use, the emperor Justinian saw

with concern that the Persians had occupied by land and sea the

monopoly of this important supply, and that the wealth of his

subjects was continually drained by a nation of enemies and

idolaters. An active government would have restored the trade of

Egypt and the navigation of the Red Sea, which had decayed with

the prosperity of the empire; and the Roman vessels might have

sailed, for the purchase of silk, to the ports of Ceylon, of

Malacca, or even of China. Justinian embraced a more humble

expedient, and solicited the aid of his Christian allies, the

Aethiopians of Abyssinia, who had recently acquired the arts of

navigation, the spirit of trade, and the seaport of Adulis, 73

7311 still decorated with the trophies of a Grecian conqueror.

Along the African coast, they penetrated to the equator in search

of gold, emeralds, and aromatics; but they wisely declined an

unequal competition, in which they must be always prevented by

the vicinity of the Persians to the markets of India; and the

emperor submitted to the disappointment, till his wishes were

gratified by an unexpected event. The gospel had been preached to

the Indians: a bishop already governed the Christians of St.

Thomas on the pepper-coast of Malabar; a church was planted in

Ceylon, and the missionaries pursued the footsteps of commerce to

the extremities of Asia. 74 Two Persian monks had long resided in

China, perhaps in the royal city of Nankin, the seat of a monarch

addicted to foreign superstitions, and who actually received an

embassy from the Isle of Ceylon. Amidst their pious occupations,

they viewed with a curious eye the common dress of the Chinese,

the manufactures of silk, and the myriads of silk-worms, whose

education (either on trees or in houses) had once been considered

as the labor of queens. 75 They soon discovered that it was

impracticable to transport the short-lived insect, but that in

the eggs a numerous progeny might be preserved and multiplied in

a distant climate. Religion or interest had more power over the

Persian monks than the love of their country: after a long

journey, they arrived at Constantinople, imparted their project

to the emperor, and were liberally encouraged by the gifts and

promises of Justinian. To the historians of that prince, a

campaign at the foot of Mount Caucasus has seemed more deserving

of a minute relation than the labors of these missionaries of

commerce, who again entered China, deceived a jealous people by

concealing the eggs of the silk-worm in a hollow cane, and

returned in triumph with the spoils of the East. Under their

direction, the eggs were hatched at the proper season by the

artificial heat of dung; the worms were fed with mulberry leaves;

they lived and labored in a foreign climate; a sufficient number

of butterflies was saved to propagate the race, and trees were

planted to supply the nourishment of the rising generations.

Experience and reflection corrected the errors of a new attempt,

and the Sogdoite ambassadors acknowledged, in the succeeding

reign, that the Romans were not inferior to the natives of China

in the education of the insects, and the manufactures of silk, 76

in which both China and Constantinople have been surpassed by the

industry of modern Europe. I am not insensible of the benefits of

elegant luxury; yet I reflect with some pain, that if the

importers of silk had introduced the art of printing, already

practised by the Chinese, the comedies of Menander and the entire

decads of Livy would have been perpetuated in the editions of the

sixth century.

A larger view of the globe might at least have promoted the

improvement of speculative science, but the Christian geography

was forcibly extracted from texts of Scripture, and the study of

nature was the surest symptom of an unbelieving mind. The

orthodox faith confined the habitable world to one temperate

zone, and represented the earth as an oblong surface, four

hundred days’ journey in length, two hundred in breadth,

encompassed by the ocean, and covered by the solid crystal of the

firmament. 77

73 (return) [ See Procopius, Persic. (l. ii. c. 20.) Cosmas

affords some interesting knowledge of the port and inscription of

Adulis, (Topograph. Christ. l. ii. p. 138, 140—143,) and of the

trade of the Axumites along the African coast of Barbaria or

Zingi, (p. 138, 139,) and as far as Taprobane, (l. xi. p. 339.)]

7311 (return) [ Mr. Salt obtained information of considerable

ruins of an ancient town near Zulla, called Azoole, which answers

to the position of Adulis. Mr. Salt was prevented by illness, Mr.

Stuart, whom he sent, by the jealousy of the natives, from

investigating these ruins: of their existence there seems no

doubt. Salt’s 2d Journey, p. 452.—M.]

74 (return) [ See the Christian missions in India, in Cosmas, (l.

iii. p. 178, 179, l. xi. p. 337,) and consult Asseman. Bibliot.

Orient. (tom. iv. p. 413—548.)]

75 (return) [ The invention, manufacture, and general use of silk

in China, may be seen in Duhalde, (Description Generale de la

Chine, tom. ii. p. 165, 205—223.) The province of Chekian is the

most renowned both for quantity and quality.]

76 (return) [ Procopius, (l. viii. Gothic. iv. c. 17. Theophanes

Byzant. apud Phot. Cod. lxxxiv. p. 38. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv.

p. 69. Pagi tom. ii. p. 602) assigns to the year 552 this

memorable importation. Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107)

mentions the admiration of the Sogdoites; and Theophylact

Simocatta (l. vii. c. 9) darkly represents the two rival kingdoms

in (China) the country of silk.]

77 (return) [ Cosmas, surnamed Indicopleustes, or the Indian

navigator, performed his voyage about the year 522, and composed

at Alexandria, between 535, and 547, Christian Topography,

(Montfaucon, Praefat. c. i.,) in which he refutes the impious

opinion, that the earth is a globe; and Photius had read this

work, (Cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10,) which displays the prejudices of a

monk, with the knowledge of a merchant; the most valuable part

has been given in French and in Greek by Melchisedec Thevenot,

(Relations Curieuses, part i.,) and the whole is since published

in a splendid edition by Pere Montfaucon, (Nova Collectio Patrum,

Paris, 1707, 2 vols. in fol., tom. ii. p. 113—346.) But the

editor, a theologian, might blush at not discovering the

Nestorian heresy of Cosmas, which has been detected by La Croz

(Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 40—56.)]

IV. The subjects of Justinian were dissatisfied with the times,

and with the government. Europe was overrun by the Barbarians,

and Asia by the monks: the poverty of the West discouraged the

trade and manufactures of the East: the produce of labor was

consumed by the unprofitable servants of the church, the state,

and the army; and a rapid decrease was felt in the fixed and

circulating capitals which constitute the national wealth. The

public distress had been alleviated by the economy of Anastasius,

and that prudent emperor accumulated an immense treasure, while

he delivered his people from the most odious or oppressive taxes.

7711 Their gratitude universally applauded the abolition of the

gold of affliction, a personal tribute on the industry of the

poor, 78 but more intolerable, as it should seem, in the form

than in the substance, since the flourishing city of Edessa paid

only one hundred and forty pounds of gold, which was collected in

four years from ten thousand artificers. 79 Yet such was the

parsimony which supported this liberal disposition, that, in a

reign of twenty-seven years, Anastasius saved, from his annual

revenue, the enormous sum of thirteen millions sterling, or three

hundred and twenty thousand pounds of gold. 80 His example was

neglected, and his treasure was abused, by the nephew of Justin.

The riches of Justinian were speedily exhausted by alms and

buildings, by ambitious wars, and ignominious treaties. His

revenues were found inadequate to his expenses. Every art was

tried to extort from the people the gold and silver which he

scattered with a lavish hand from Persia to France: 81 his reign

was marked by the vicissitudes or rather by the combat, of

rapaciousness and avarice, of splendor and poverty; he lived with

the reputation of hidden treasures, 82 and bequeathed to his

successor the payment of his debts. 83 Such a character has been

justly accused by the voice of the people and of posterity: but

public discontent is credulous; private malice is bold; and a

lover of truth will peruse with a suspicious eye the instructive

anecdotes of Procopius. The secret historian represents only the

vices of Justinian, and those vices are darkened by his

malevolent pencil. Ambiguous actions are imputed to the worst

motives; error is confounded with guilt, accident with design,

and laws with abuses; the partial injustice of a moment is

dexterously applied as the general maxim of a reign of thirty-two

years; the emperor alone is made responsible for the faults of

his officers, the disorders of the times, and the corruption of

his subjects; and even the calamities of nature, plagues,

earthquakes, and inundations, are imputed to the prince of the

daemons, who had mischievously assumed the form of Justinian. 84

7711 (return) [ See the character of Anastasius in Joannes Lydus

de Magistratibus, iii. c. 45, 46, p. 230—232. His economy is

there said to have degenerated into parsimony. He is accused of

having taken away the levying of taxes and payment of the troops

from the municipal authorities, (the decurionate) in the Eastern

cities, and intrusted it to an extortionate officer named Mannus.

But he admits that the imperial revenue was enormously increased

by this measure. A statue of iron had been erected to Anastasius

in the Hippodrome, on which appeared one morning this pasquinade.

This epigram is also found in the Anthology. Jacobs, vol. iv. p.

114 with some better readings. This iron statue meetly do we

place To thee, world-wasting king, than brass more base; For all

the death, the penury, famine, woe, That from thy wide-destroying

avarice flow, This fell Charybdis, Scylla, near to thee, This

fierce devouring Anastasius, see; And tremble, Scylla! on thee,

too, his greed, Coining thy brazen deity, may feed. But Lydus,

with no uncommon inconsistency in such writers, proceeds to paint

the character of Anastasius as endowed with almost every virtue,

not excepting the utmost liberality. He was only prevented by

death from relieving his subjects altogether from the capitation

tax, which he greatly diminished.—M.]

78 (return) [ Evagrius (l. ii. c. 39, 40) is minute and grateful,

but angry with Zosimus for calumniating the great Constantine. In

collecting all the bonds and records of the tax, the humanity of

Anastasius was diligent and artful: fathers were sometimes

compelled to prostitute their daughters, (Zosim. Hist. l. ii. c.

38, p. 165, 166, Lipsiae, 1784.) Timotheus of Gaza chose such an

event for the subject of a tragedy, (Suidas, tom. iii. p. 475,)

which contributed to the abolition of the tax, (Cedrenus, p.

35,)—a happy instance (if it be true) of the use of the theatre.]

79 (return) [ See Josua Stylites, in the Bibliotheca Orientalis

of Asseman, (tom. p. 268.) This capitation tax is slightly

mentioned in the Chronicle of Edessa.]

80 (return) [ Procopius (Anecdot. c. 19) fixes this sum from the

report of the treasurers themselves. Tiberias had vicies ter

millies; but far different was his empire from that of

Anastasius.]

81 (return) [ Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 30,) in the next generation,

was moderate and well informed; and Zonaras, (l. xiv. c. 61,) in

the xiith century, had read with care, and thought without

prejudice; yet their colors are almost as black as those of the

anecdotes.]

82 (return) [ Procopius (Anecdot. c. 30) relates the idle

conjectures of the times. The death of Justinian, says the secret

historian, will expose his wealth or poverty.]

83 (return) [ See Corippus de Laudibus Justini Aug. l. ii. 260,

&c., 384, &c “Plurima sunt vivo nimium neglecta parenti, Unde tot

exhaustus contraxit debita fiscus.” Centenaries of gold were

brought by strong men into the Hippodrome, “Debita persolvit,

genitoris cauta recepit.”]

84 (return) [ The Anecdotes (c. 11—14, 18, 20—30) supply many

facts and more complaints. * Note: The work of Lydus de

Magistratibus (published by Hase at Paris, 1812, and reprinted in

the new edition of the Byzantine Historians,) was written during

the reign of Justinian. This work of Lydus throws no great light

on the earlier history of the Roman magistracy, but gives some

curious details of the changes and retrenchments in the offices

of state, which took place at this time. The personal history of

the author, with the account of his early and rapid advancement,

and the emoluments of the posts which he successively held, with

the bitter disappointment which he expresses, at finding himself,

at the height of his ambition, in an unpaid place, is an

excellent illustration of this statement. Gibbon has before, c.

iv. n. 45, and c. xvii. n. 112, traced the progress of a Roman

citizen to the highest honors of the state under the empire; the

steps by which Lydus reached his humbler eminence may likewise

throw light on the civil service at this period. He was first

received into the office of the Praetorian præfect; became a

notary in that office, and made in one year 1000 golden solidi,

and that without extortion. His place and the influence of his

relatives obtained him a wife with 400 pounds of gold for her

dowry. He became chief chartularius, with an annual stipend of

twenty-four solidi, and considerable emoluments for all the

various services which he performed. He rose to an Augustalis,

and finally to the dignity of Corniculus, the highest, and at one

time the most lucrative office in the department. But the

Praetorian præfect had gradually been deprived of his powers and

his honors. He lost the superintendence of the supply and

manufacture of arms; the uncontrolled charge of the public posts;

the levying of the troops; the command of the army in war when

the emperors ceased nominally to command in person, but really

through the Praetorian præfect; that of the household troops,

which fell to the magister aulae. At length the office was so

completely stripped of its power, as to be virtually abolished,

(see de Magist. l. iii. c. 40, p. 220, &c.) This diminution of

the office of the præfect destroyed the emoluments of his

subordinate officers, and Lydus not only drew no revenue from his

dignity, but expended upon it all the gains of his former

services. Lydus gravely refers this calamitous, and, as he

considers it, fatal degradation of the Praetorian office to the

alteration in the style of the official documents from Latin to

Greek; and refers to a prophecy of a certain Fonteius, which

connected the ruin of the Roman empire with its abandonment of

its language. Lydus chiefly owed his promotion to his knowledge

of Latin!—M.]

After this precaution, I shall briefly relate the anecdotes of

avarice and rapine under the following heads: I. Justinian was so

profuse that he could not be liberal. The civil and military

officers, when they were admitted into the service of the palace,

obtained an humble rank and a moderate stipend; they ascended by

seniority to a station of affluence and repose; the annual

pensions, of which the most honorable class was abolished by

Justinian, amounted to four hundred thousand pounds; and this

domestic economy was deplored by the venal or indigent courtiers

as the last outrage on the majesty of the empire. The posts, the

salaries of physicians, and the nocturnal illuminations, were

objects of more general concern; and the cities might justly

complain, that he usurped the municipal revenues which had been

appropriated to these useful institutions. Even the soldiers were

injured; and such was the decay of military spirit, that they

were injured with impunity. The emperor refused, at the return of

each fifth year, the customary donative of five pieces of gold,

reduced his veterans to beg their bread, and suffered unpaid

armies to melt away in the wars of Italy and Persia. II. The

humanity of his predecessors had always remitted, in some

auspicious circumstance of their reign, the arrears of the public

tribute, and they dexterously assumed the merit of resigning

those claims which it was impracticable to enforce. “Justinian,

in the space of thirty-two years, has never granted a similar

indulgence; and many of his subjects have renounced the

possession of those lands whose value is insufficient to satisfy

the demands of the treasury. To the cities which had suffered by

hostile inroads Anastasius promised a general exemption of seven

years: the provinces of Justinian have been ravaged by the

Persians and Arabs, the Huns and Sclavonians; but his vain and

ridiculous dispensation of a single year has been confined to

those places which were actually taken by the enemy.” Such is the

language of the secret historian, who expressly denies that any

indulgence was granted to Palestine after the revolt of the

Samaritans; a false and odious charge, confuted by the authentic

record which attests a relief of thirteen centenaries of gold

(fifty-two thousand pounds) obtained for that desolate province

by the intercession of St. Sabas. 85 III. Procopius has not

condescended to explain the system of taxation, which fell like a

hail-storm upon the land, like a devouring pestilence on its

inhabitants: but we should become the accomplices of his

malignity, if we imputed to Justinian alone the ancient though

rigorous principle, that a whole district should be condemned to

sustain the partial loss of the persons or property of

individuals. The Annona, or supply of corn for the use of the

army and capital, was a grievous and arbitrary exaction, which

exceeded, perhaps in a tenfold proportion, the ability of the

farmer; and his distress was aggravated by the partial injustice

of weights and measures, and the expense and labor of distant

carriage. In a time of scarcity, an extraordinary requisition was

made to the adjacent provinces of Thrace, Bithynia, and Phrygia:

but the proprietors, after a wearisome journey and perilous

navigation, received so inadequate a compensation, that they

would have chosen the alternative of delivering both the corn and

price at the doors of their granaries. These precautions might

indicate a tender solicitude for the welfare of the capital; yet

Constantinople did not escape the rapacious despotism of

Justinian. Till his reign, the Straits of the Bosphorus and

Hellespont were open to the freedom of trade, and nothing was

prohibited except the exportation of arms for the service of the

Barbarians. At each of these gates of the city, a praetor was

stationed, the minister of Imperial avarice; heavy customs were

imposed on the vessels and their merchandise; the oppression was

retaliated on the helpless consumer; the poor were afflicted by

the artificial scarcity, and exorbitant price of the market; and

a people, accustomed to depend on the liberality of their prince,

might sometimes complain of the deficiency of water and bread. 86

The aerial tribute, without a name, a law, or a definite object,

was an annual gift of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds,

which the emperor accepted from his Praetorian præfect; and the

means of payment were abandoned to the discretion of that

powerful magistrate.