[9] _Procopius de Bello Vandalico_, lib. i. c. 11. GIBBON (vol. vii. p.
161. note _e_) says that he could not find the Germania, a metropolis of
Thrace, mentioned by Alemanni, in any civil or ecclesiastical lists of
the provinces and cities. Alemanni's authority may be found in _Notitiae
Graecorum Episcopatuum_, where Germania is the sixty-seventh metropolitan
see dependent on the Patriarch of Constantinople.--(_Codinus de officiis
Magnae Ecclesiae et Aulae Constantinopolitanae_, p. 380, ed. Paris.) It is
probable that the city Germane of the _Edifices_ of Procopius (iv. 3) is
the same as Germania. There was a fort in its territory, called Germas.
_De AEdif._ iii. 4. Germanos is still a favourite ecclesiastical name
with the Greeks. There is a place on the Gulf of Corinth, in the
territory of Megara, with splendid remains of the military architecture
of an ancient burgh, now called Porto Germano, the ancient
AEgosthenae.--(_Leake's Travels in Northern Greece_, vol. i. p. 405.)
Herodotus mentions Germanii, [Greek: Germanioi], as an agricultural
tribe of Persians in the time of Cyrus.--(_Clio_, 125.) These various
Germans and Germanians can hardly be blood relations of our Germany or
Deutschland.
[10] _Lord Mahon's Life of Belisarius_, p. 3. _Procopius de Bello Vand._
ii. 6.
[11] _Procopius de Bello Persico_, i. 12. _Clinton's Fasti Romani_. From
this time Procopius was the official secretary of Belisarius.
[12] A good soldier can only be formed from men between eighteen and
forty years of age. In ancient times it required more strength to make a
soldier than in modern. The demand for such men, in an improving state
of society, makes them too valuable to be expended on the game of war,
and hence despots in civilised ages are compelled to use an inferior
class. Good troops must always be highly paid. A good heavy-armed
soldier, in ancient Greece, had half the pay of his captain. The pay of
the celebrated English archers, in the middle ages, was extremely high;
as it required the service of a brave and vigorous yeomanry to give that
corps the efficiency it displayed in so many hard-fought
battles--(_Hallam's Constitutional History of England_, ch. ix. vol. 2.)
Lord Brougham, however, overrates the pay of a mounted archer, in making
it "equal to thirty shillings of our money" a-day.--(_Political
Philosophy_, part iii. p. 237.)
[13] Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, vii. 166. It is impossible to resist
transcribing Gibbon's note.
[Greek: Neuren men mazo pelasen toxo de sideron.
Linxe bios, neure de meg' iachen achto d' oistos.]
_Iliad_, iv. 124-125.
"How concise--how just--how beautiful is the whole picture! I see the
attitudes of the archer--I hear the twanging of the bow." The figures of
the archers in the AEginetan marbles at Munich, admirably illustrate the
genius of Homer and the taste of Gibbon.
[14] _Procopius de Bello Gotthico_, i. c. 18.
[15] _Procopius de Bello Gotthico,_ i. c. 21.
[16] _Ibid._ 28-29.
[17] This singular military manoeuvre was repeated more than once by
Roman generals, and shows how admirably the troops were drilled in what
are called the degenerate days of the Roman armies.--(_Finlay's Greece
under the Romans_, p. 246.)
[18] The best edition of the works of Procopius is that published at
Bonn in the new _Corpus Scriptorum Byzantinae Historiae_ commenced under
the auspices of Niebuhr. It is edited by W. Dindorff, and contains a
corrected text with various readings, and a reprint of the notes of
Alemanni on the Secret History. 3 vols. 8vo. 1833-8.
[19] _Procopius de Bello Vandalico_, ii. c. 9.
[20] _Procopius de Bello Gotthico_, ii. c. 28. [Greek: Basilia t*s
Espirias Bilisariei as*ipin *giksat]
[21] _Life of Belisarius_, p. 1.
[22] _Decline and Fall_, vol. vii. 161.
[23] Crassus was in the habit of saying, that no man was rich who could
not maintain an army.
[24] _Procopius de Bello Gotthico_, iii. 1.
[25] Compare _Procopius de Bello Gotthico_, i. c. 25, with _Anastasius
de Vitis Pontificum Romanorum_, p. 38, ed., Paris.
[26] _De Bello Gotthico_, ii. c. 8.
[27] _Ibid._ i. 22.
[28] There is a touch of the malicious spirit of the Secret History in
the narration of Procopius, caused probably by some recollection of the
ridiculous though dangerous position of Belisarius in avoiding the stab
aimed at him by Konstantinos. The whole scene could hardly fail to
produce a profound impression on the coolest spectator, even in that
age, when men were more accustomed to stabbing than in our delicate days
of gunshot wounds. [Greek: Ho de (Belisarios) kataplageis opiso te
apeste kai Bissa ingus tou estkati periplakeis diaphygein ischyos]--(_De
Bello Gotthico_, ii. 8.) Bessas was as great an extortioner as
Konstantinos. (See _Ibid._ iv. 13.)
[29] Ildiger, doubtless a barbarian, from his name, was married to a
daughter of Antonina by her first husband.--(_De Bello Vandalico_, ii.
8.) Valerian was also probably a barbarian, as he commanded a division
of federate cavalry in the African war. He was general of the right wing
of the Roman army under Narses at the battle of Taginas or Lentagio,
which put an end to the life of the gallant Totila, and gave the mortal
wound to the monarchy of the Ostrogoths.--(_De Bello Gotthico_, iv. 31.)
[30] Procopius would lead us to believe that a fine of 300 lbs. of gold
(upwards of L140,000 in specie, and twice that sum in value) extorted
from Belisarius in 543, was the produce of his profits during the
Asiatic campaigns of 541 and 542. But it is difficult to know what
confidence ought to be placed in the details of the Secret History.--C.
4, p. 32, l. 1, ed. Bonn. _Clinton's Fasti Romani_, p. 780.
[31] _Anastasius, or the Memoirs of a Greek, by Thomas Hope_, vol. ii.
393., first edition. The writer of these pages remembers reading
_Anastasius_ with singular pleasure, at the time of its publication.
Now, after four-and-twenty years' intimate acquaintance with the East,
and with the representatives of most of the classes of men depicted in
the novel, he finds that its correctness of description and truth of
character give it all the inexhaustible freshness of actual life.
[32] _Historia Arcana_, c. 4. Tom. iii. p. 34, ed. Bonn.
[33] Ibid, Tom. iii. p. 31.
[34] _De Bello Gotthico_, iii. 35.
[35] _Agathias_, lib. v. c. 6, p. 159, ed. Paris.--The conversion of
royal guards into cheesemongers is by no means a very uncommon
corruption. The dreaded janissaries degenerated into a corporation of
hucksters and green-grocers. The Hellenic kingdom, founded as an
incorporation of the spirit of anarchy and despotism, by the grace of
the foreign secretaries of the three great powers of Europe, possesses a
more singular body of military than even the defunct Ottoman corps of
green-grocers. It consists of officers without troops. Its inventor,
Armansperg, the quintessence of Bavarian corruption in Greece, called it
the Phalanx.
[36] _Agathias_, v. ii. p. 161, ed. Paris.
[37] The authentic history of the last events of the life of Belisarius
must be gathered from Theophanes, p. 201, John Malalas, p. 239, and
Cedrenus, p. 387. Though, perhaps, Cedrenus may be objected to as living
too long after these events. Theophanes died in 817 at the age of 60.
His chronography ends with the year 813. John Malalas lived in the ninth
century. The chronicle of Cedrenus ends with the year 1057.
[38] _Pandects_, xlvii. tit. 18. 1, s. 23.--Quaestioni fidem non semper,
nec tamen nunquam habendum, constitutionibus declaratur; etenim res est
fragilis, et periculosa, et quae veritatem fallat.--Every one conversant
with the social condition of the people of the East, (and probably it is
the case under all despotic governments,) knows the extreme difficulty
of obtaining judicial evidence that can be relied on, and the temptation
judges incur to sanction torture. Hence the common assertion of public
functionaries, that torture is absolutely necessary to secure the
administration of justice; and of course people who require torture to
persuade them to speak the truth, are unfit for self-government and
constitutional liberty. Thus falsehood and oppression are perpetuated,
and truth kept perpetually at bay.
[39] _Joannis Antiocheni cognomenti Malalae Historia Chronica. Pars
altera_, p. 84, ed. Venet.
[40] _Theophanis Chronographia_, p. 201, ed. Paris. The accounts of
Theophanes and Malalas must be compared together, as the comparison
establishes the fact that they were both drawn from official sources.
See also p. 202, 203, and note.
[41] _Georgius Codinus de Originibus Constantinopolitanis_, p. 54.
[42] _Georgii Cedreni Compendium Historiarum_, p. 387.
[43] _Joannis Zonarae Annales_, tom. ii. p. 69. ed. Paris.
[44] This may have resulted from the marriage of Joanna, the daughter of
Belisarius, with Anastasius, the grandson of Theodora.--_Procopii
Arcana_, c. 4, p. 34.
[45] _Leonis Grammatici Chronographia_, p. 132. Bonnae: 1842. 8vo.
[46] _Corpus Juris Civilis. Aliae aliquot Constitutiones_. Tom. ii. p.
511, ed. ster. 4to. _Privilegium pro Titionibus ex Cujac. Obss._ lib. x.
c. 12. In a new edition of the _Corpus_ there is the following
note:--Hoc privilegium editum est in Cujac. Obss., sed ex quo fonte
desumptum sit, non indicatur, nisi quod Cujacius a P. Galesio Hispano se
id decepisse dicat. Non sine ratione addidit Beck. qui in App. Corp.
Juris Civ. hanc constitutionem recepit, an genuina sit, dubio non
carere.
[47] _Greece under the Romans_, p. 229.--If the writer of this article
may presume to refer to his own authority.
[48] _Imperium Orientale: studio A. Banduri_. Tom. i. _pars tertia.
Antiquitatum Constantinopolitanarum_, p. 7. ed. Paris.
[49] _Joannis Tzetzae Historiarum Variarum Chiliades_, p. 94, ed.
Kiesslingii, Lipsiae, 1826, 8vo.
[50] Basil the Macedonian was originally a groom, and owed his first
step in the imperial favour of the Drunkard to his powers as a
whisperer. He broke an ungovernable horse belonging to the emperor, by
the exercise of this singular quality, and rendered it, to the amazement
of the whole court, as tame as a sheep. Leo Grammaticus says, [Greek: Te
men mia cheiri ton chalinon kratesas, te de hetera tou otos draxamenos
eis eme*rot*eta probatou metebalon].--P. 230, ed. Bonn.
[51] _Georgius Monachus_, p. 540. _Simeon Metaph._ p. 449. _Scriptores
post Theophanem_, ed. Paris. _Leo Gramm._, p. 469, ed. Paris, p. 247,
ed. Bonn.
[52] Things have not changed in our day. Capodistrias lighted his pipe
with Canning's treaties and King Leopold's renunciation; and Colettis
makes game of the feeble acts and strong expressions of Viscount
Palmerston.