51 (return) [ See this church and monast_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)

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.

IV. Even such a tax was less intolerable than the privilege of

monopolies, 8611 which checked the fair competition of industry,

and, for the sake of a small and dishonest gain, imposed an

arbitrary burden on the wants and luxury of the subject. “As

soon” (I transcribe the Anecdotes) “as the exclusive sale of silk

was usurped by the Imperial treasurer, a whole people, the

manufacturers of Tyre and Berytus, was reduced to extreme misery,

and either perished with hunger, or fled to the hostile dominions

of Persia.” A province might suffer by the decay of its

manufactures, but in this example of silk, Procopius has

partially overlooked the inestimable and lasting benefit which

the empire received from the curiosity of Justinian. His addition

of one seventh to the ordinary price of copper money may be

interpreted with the same candor; and the alteration, which might

be wise, appears to have been innocent; since he neither alloyed

the purity, nor enhanced the value, of the gold coin, 87 the

legal measure of public and private payments. V. The ample

jurisdiction required by the farmers of the revenue to accomplish

their engagements might be placed in an odious light, as if they

had purchased from the emperor the lives and fortunes of their

fellow-citizens. And a more direct sale of honors and offices was

transacted in the palace, with the permission, or at least with

the connivance, of Justinian and Theodora. The claims of merit,

even those of favor, were disregarded, and it was almost

reasonable to expect, that the bold adventurer, who had

undertaken the trade of a magistrate, should find a rich

compensation for infamy, labor, danger, the debts which he had

contracted, and the heavy interest which he paid. A sense of the

disgrace and mischief of this venal practice, at length awakened

the slumbering virtue of Justinian; and he attempted, by the

sanction of oaths 88 and penalties, to guard the integrity of his

government: but at the end of a year of perjury, his rigorous

edict was suspended, and corruption licentiously abused her

triumph over the impotence of the laws. VI. The testament of

Eulalius, count of the domestics, declared the emperor his sole

heir, on condition, however, that he should discharge his debts

and legacies, allow to his three daughters a decent maintenance,

and bestow each of them in marriage, with a portion of ten pounds

of gold. But the splendid fortune of Eulalius had been consumed

by fire, and the inventory of his goods did not exceed the

trifling sum of five hundred and sixty-four pieces of gold. A

similar instance, in Grecian history, admonished the emperor of

the honorable part prescribed for his imitation. He checked the

selfish murmurs of the treasury, applauded the confidence of his

friend, discharged the legacies and debts, educated the three

virgins under the eye of the empress Theodora, and doubled the

marriage portion which had satisfied the tenderness of their

father. 89 The humanity of a prince (for princes cannot be

generous) is entitled to some praise; yet even in this act of

virtue we may discover the inveterate custom of supplanting the

legal or natural heirs, which Procopius imputes to the reign of

Justinian. His charge is supported by eminent names and

scandalous examples; neither widows nor orphans were spared; and

the art of soliciting, or extorting, or supposing testaments, was

beneficially practised by the agents of the palace. This base and

mischievous tyranny invades the security of private life; and the

monarch who has indulged an appetite for gain, will soon be

tempted to anticipate the moment of succession, to interpret

wealth as an evidence of guilt, and to proceed, from the claim of

inheritance, to the power of confiscation. VII. Among the forms

of rapine, a philosopher may be permitted to name the conversion

of Pagan or heretical riches to the use of the faithful; but in

the time of Justinian this holy plunder was condemned by the

sectaries alone, who became the victims of his orthodox avarice.

85 (return) [ One to Scythopolis, capital of the second

Palestine, and twelve for the rest of the province. Aleman. (p.

59) honestly produces this fact from a Ms. life of St. Sabas, by

his disciple Cyril, in the Vatican Library, and since published

by Cotelerius.]

86 (return) [ John Malala (tom. ii. p. 232) mentions the want of

bread, and Zonaras (l. xiv. p. 63) the leaden pipes, which

Justinian, or his servants, stole from the aqueducts.]

8611 (return) [ Hullman (Geschichte des Byzantinischen Handels.

p. 15) shows that the despotism of the government was aggravated

by the unchecked rapenity of the officers. This state monopoly,

even of corn, wine, and oil, was to force at the time of the

first crusade.—M.]

87 (return) [ For an aureus, one sixth of an ounce of gold,

instead of 210, he gave no more than 180 folles, or ounces of

copper. A disproportion of the mint, below the market price, must

have soon produced a scarcity of small money. In England twelve

pence in copper would sell for no more than seven pence, (Smith’s

Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 49.) For

Justinian’s gold coin, see Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 30.)]

88 (return) [ The oath is conceived in the most formidable words,

(Novell. viii. tit. 3.) The defaulters imprecate on themselves,

quicquid haben: telorum armamentaria coeli: the part of Judas,

the leprosy of Gieza, the tremor of Cain, &c., besides all

temporal pains.]

89 (return) [ A similar or more generous act of friendship is

related by Lucian of Eudamidas of Corinth, (in Toxare, c. 22, 23,

tom. ii. p. 530,) and the story has produced an ingenious, though

feeble, comedy of Fontenelle.]

90 (return) [ John Malala, tom. ii. p. 101, 102, 103.]

Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part IV.

Dishonor might be ultimately reflected on the character of

Justinian; but much of the guilt, and still more of the profit,

was intercepted by the ministers, who were seldom promoted for

their virtues, and not always selected for their talents. 91 The

merits of Tribonian the quaestor will hereafter be weighed in the

reformation of the Roman law; but the economy of the East was

subordinate to the Praetorian præfect, and Procopius has

justified his anecdotes by the portrait which he exposes in his

public history, of the notorious vices of John of Cappadocia. 92

921 His knowledge was not borrowed from the schools, 93 and his

style was scarcely legible; but he excelled in the powers of

native genius, to suggest the wisest counsels, and to find

expedients in the most desperate situations. The corruption of

his heart was equal to the vigor of his understanding. Although

he was suspected of magic and Pagan superstition, he appeared

insensible to the fear of God or the reproaches of man; and his

aspiring fortune was raised on the death of thousands, the

poverty of millions, the ruins of cities, and the desolation of

provinces. From the dawn of light to the moment of dinner, he

assiduously labored to enrich his master and himself at the

expense of the Roman world; the remainder of the day was spent in

sensual and obscene pleasures, 931 and the silent hours of the

night were interrupted by the perpetual dread of the justice of

an assassin. His abilities, perhaps his vices, recommended him to

the lasting friendship of Justinian: the emperor yielded with

reluctance to the fury of the people; his victory was displayed

by the immediate restoration of their enemy; and they felt above

ten years, under his oppressive administration, that he was

stimulated by revenge, rather than instructed by misfortune.

Their murmurs served only to fortify the resolution of Justinian;

but the præfect, in the insolence of favor, provoked the

resentment of Theodora, disdained a power before which every knee

was bent, and attempted to sow the seeds of discord between the

emperor and his beloved consort. Even Theodora herself was

constrained to dissemble, to wait a favorable moment, and, by an

artful conspiracy, to render John of Coppadocia the accomplice of

his own destruction. 932 At a time when Belisarius, unless he had

been a hero, must have shown himself a rebel, his wife Antonina,

who enjoyed the secret confidence of the empress, communicated

his feigned discontent to Euphemia, the daughter of the præfect;

the credulous virgin imparted to her father the dangerous

project, and John, who might have known the value of oaths and

promises, was tempted to accept a nocturnal, and almost

treasonable, interview with the wife of Belisarius. An ambuscade

of guards and eunuchs had been posted by the command of Theodora;

they rushed with drawn swords to seize or to punish the guilty

minister: he was saved by the fidelity of his attendants; but

instead of appealing to a gracious sovereign, who had privately

warned him of his danger, he pusillanimously fled to the

sanctuary of the church. The favorite of Justinian was sacrificed

to conjugal tenderness or domestic tranquility; the conversion of

a præfect into a priest extinguished his ambitious hopes: but the

friendship of the emperor alleviated his disgrace, and he

retained in the mild exile of Cyzicus an ample portion of his

riches. Such imperfect revenge could not satisfy the unrelenting

hatred of Theodora; the murder of his old enemy, the bishop of

Cyzicus, afforded a decent pretence; and John of Cappadocia,

whose actions had deserved a thousand deaths, was at last

condemned for a crime of which he was innocent. A great minister,

who had been invested with the honors of consul and patrician,

was ignominiously scourged like the vilest of malefactors; a

tattered cloak was the sole remnant of his fortunes; he was

transported in a bark to the place of his banishment at

Antinopolis in Upper Egypt, and the præfect of the East begged

his bread through the cities which had trembled at his name.

During an exile of seven years, his life was protracted and

threatened by the ingenious cruelty of Theodora; and when her

death permitted the emperor to recall a servant whom he had

abandoned with regret, the ambition of John of Cappadocia was

reduced to the humble duties of the sacerdotal profession. His

successors convinced the subjects of Justinian, that the arts of

oppression might still be improved by experience and industry;

the frauds of a Syrian banker were introduced into the

administration of the finances; and the example of the præfect

was diligently copied by the quaestor, the public and private

treasurer, the governors of provinces, and the principal

magistrates of the Eastern empire. 94

91 (return) [ One of these, Anatolius, perished in an

earthquake—doubtless a judgment! The complaints and clamors of

the people in Agathias (l. v. p. 146, 147) are almost an echo of

the anecdote. The aliena pecunia reddenda of Corippus (l. ii.

381, &c.,) is not very honorable to Justinian’s memory.]

92 (return) [ See the history and character of John of Cappadocia

in Procopius. (Persic, l. i. c. 35, 25, l. ii. c. 30. Vandal. l.

i. c. 13. Anecdot. c. 2, 17, 22.) The agreement of the history

and anecdotes is a mortal wound to the reputation of the

praefct.]

921 (return) [ This view, particularly of the cruelty of John of

Cappadocia, is confirmed by the testimony of Joannes Lydus, who

was in the office of the præfect, and eye-witness of the tortures

inflicted by his command on the miserable debtors, or supposed

debtors, of the state. He mentions one horrible instance of a

respectable old man, with whom he was personally acquainted, who,

being suspected of possessing money, was hung up by the hands

till he was dead. Lydus de Magist. lib. iii. c. 57, p. 254.—M.]

93 (return) [ A forcible expression.]

931 (return) [ Joannes Lydus is diffuse on this subject, lib.

iii. c. 65, p. 268. But the indignant virtue of Lydus seems

greatly stimulated by the loss of his official fees, which he

ascribes to the innovations of the minister.—M.]

932 (return) [ According to Lydus, Theodora disclosed the crimes

and unpopularity of the minister to Justinian, but the emperor

had not the courage to remove, and was unable to replace, a

servant, under whom his finances seemed to prosper. He attributes

the sedition and conflagration to the popular resentment against

the tyranny of John, lib. iii. c 70, p. 278. Unfortunately there

is a large gap in his work just at this period.—M.]

94 (return) [ The chronology of Procopius is loose and obscure;

but with the aid of Pagi I can discern that John was appointed

Praetorian præfect of the East in the year 530—that he was

removed in January, 532—restored before June, 533—banished in

541—and recalled between June, 548, and April 1, 549. Aleman. (p.

96, 97) gives the list of his ten successors—a rapid series in a

part of a single reign. * Note: Lydus gives a high character of

Phocas, his successor tom. iii. c. 78 p. 288.—M.]

V. The edifices of Justinian were cemented with the blood and

treasure of his people; but those stately structures appeared to

announce the prosperity of the empire, and actually displayed the

skill of their architects. Both the theory and practice of the

arts which depend on mathematical science and mechanical power,

were cultivated under the patronage of the emperors; the fame of

Archimedes was rivalled by Proclus and Anthemius; and if their

miracles had been related by intelligent spectators, they might

now enlarge the speculations, instead of exciting the distrust,

of philosophers. A tradition has prevailed, that the Roman fleet

was reduced to ashes in the port of Syracuse, by the

burning-glasses of Archimedes; 95 and it is asserted, that a

similar expedient was employed by Proclus to destroy the Gothic

vessels in the harbor of Constantinople, and to protect his

benefactor Anastasius against the bold enterprise of Vitalian. 96

A machine was fixed on the walls of the city, consisting of a

hexagon mirror of polished brass, with many smaller and movable

polygons to receive and reflect the rays of the meridian sun; and

a consuming flame was darted, to the distance, perhaps of two

hundred feet. 97 The truth of these two extraordinary facts is

invalidated by the silence of the most authentic historians; and

the use of burning-glasses was never adopted in the attack or

defence of places. 98 Yet the admirable experiments of a French

philosopher 99 have demonstrated the possibility of such a

mirror; and, since it is possible, I am more disposed to

attribute the art to the greatest mathematicians of antiquity,

than to give the merit of the fiction to the idle fancy of a monk

or a sophist. According to another story, Proclus applied sulphur

to the destruction of the Gothic fleet; 100 in a modern

imagination, the name of sulphur is instantly connected with the

suspicion of gunpowder, and that suspicion is propagated by the

secret arts of his disciple Anthemius. 101 A citizen of Tralles

in Asia had five sons, who were all distinguished in their

respective professions by merit and success. Olympius excelled in

the knowledge and practice of the Roman jurisprudence. Dioscorus

and Alexander became learned physicians; but the skill of the

former was exercised for the benefit of his fellow-citizens,

while his more ambitious brother acquired wealth and reputation

at Rome. The fame of Metrodorus the grammarian, and of Anthemius

the mathematician and architect, reached the ears of the emperor

Justinian, who invited them to Constantinople; and while the one

instructed the rising generation in the schools of eloquence, the

other filled the capital and provinces with more lasting

monuments of his art. In a trifling dispute relative to the walls

or windows of their contiguous houses, he had been vanquished by

the eloquence of his neighbor Zeno; but the orator was defeated

in his turn by the master of mechanics, whose malicious, though

harmless, stratagems are darkly represented by the ignorance of

Agathias. In a lower room, Anthemius arranged several vessels or

caldrons of water, each of them covered by the wide bottom of a

leathern tube, which rose to a narrow top, and was artificially

conveyed among the joists and rafters of the adjacent building. A

fire was kindled beneath the caldron; the steam of the boiling

water ascended through the tubes; the house was shaken by the

efforts of imprisoned air, and its trembling inhabitants might

wonder that the city was unconscious of the earthquake which they

had felt. At another time, the friends of Zeno, as they sat at

table, were dazzled by the intolerable light which flashed in

their eyes from the reflecting mirrors of Anthemius; they were

astonished by the noise which he produced from the collision of

certain minute and sonorous particles; and the orator declared in

tragic style to the senate, that a mere mortal must yield to the

power of an antagonist, who shook the earth with the trident of

Neptune, and imitated the thunder and lightning of Jove himself.

The genius of Anthemius, and his colleague Isidore the Milesian,

was excited and employed by a prince, whose taste for

architecture had degenerated into a mischievous and costly

passion. His favorite architects submitted their designs and

difficulties to Justinian, and discreetly confessed how much

their laborious meditations were surpassed by the intuitive

knowledge of celestial inspiration of an emperor, whose views

were always directed to the benefit of his people, the glory of

his reign, and the salvation of his soul. 102

95 (return) [ This conflagration is hinted by Lucian (in Hippia,

c. 2) and Galen, (l. iii. de Temperamentis, tom. i. p. 81, edit.

Basil.) in the second century. A thousand years afterwards, it is

positively affirmed by Zonaras, (l. ix. p. 424,) on the faith of

Dion Cassius, Tzetzes, (Chiliad ii. 119, &c.,) Eustathius, (ad

Iliad. E. p. 338,) and the scholiast of Lucian. See Fabricius,

(Bibliot. Graec. l. iii. c. 22, tom. ii. p. 551, 552,) to whom I

am more or less indebted for several of these quotations.]

96 (return) [ Zonaras (l. xi. c. p. 55) affirms the fact, without

quoting any evidence.]

97 (return) [ Tzetzes describes the artifice of these

burning-glasses, which he had read, perhaps, with no learned

eyes, in a mathematical treatise of Anthemius. That treatise has

been lately published, translated, and illustrated, by M. Dupuys,

a scholar and a mathematician, (Memoires de l’Academie des

Inscriptions, tom xlii p. 392—451.)]

98 (return) [ In the siege of Syracuse, by the silence of

Polybius, Plutarch, Livy; in the siege of Constantinople, by that

of Marcellinus and all the contemporaries of the vith century.]

99 (return) [ Without any previous knowledge of Tzetzes or

Anthemius, the immortal Buffon imagined and executed a set of

burning-glasses, with which he could inflame planks at the

distance of 200 feet, (Supplement a l’Hist. Naturelle, tom. i.

399—483, quarto edition.) What miracles would not his genius have

performed for the public service, with royal expense, and in the

strong sun of Constantinople or Syracuse?]

100 (return) [ John Malala (tom. ii. p. 120—124) relates the

fact; but he seems to confound the names or persons of Proclus

and Marinus.]

101 (return) [ Agathias, l. v. p. 149—152. The merit of Anthemius

as an architect is loudly praised by Procopius (de Edif. l. i. c.

1) and Paulus Silentiarius, (part i. 134, &c.)]

102 (return) [ See Procopius, (de Edificiis, l. i. c. 1, 2, l.

ii. c. 3.) He relates a coincidence of dreams, which supposes

some fraud in Justinian or his architect. They both saw, in a

vision, the same plan for stopping an inundation at Dara. A stone

quarry near Jerusalem was revealed to the emperor, (l. v. c. 6:)

an angel was tricked into the perpetual custody of St. Sophia,

(Anonym. de Antiq. C. P. l. iv. p. 70.)]

The principal church, which was dedicated by the founder of

Constantinople to St. Sophia, or the eternal wisdom, had been

twice destroyed by fire; after the exile of John Chrysostom, and

during the Nika of the blue and green factions. No sooner did the

tumult subside, than the Christian populace deplored their

sacrilegious rashness; but they might have rejoiced in the

calamity, had they foreseen the glory of the new temple, which at

the end of forty days was strenuously undertaken by the piety of

Justinian. 103 The ruins were cleared away, a more spacious plan

was described, and as it required the consent of some proprietors

of ground, they obtained the most exorbitant terms from the eager

desires and timorous conscience of the monarch. Anthemius formed

the design, and his genius directed the hands of ten thousand

workmen, whose payment in pieces of fine silver was never delayed

beyond the evening. The emperor himself, clad in a linen tunic,

surveyed each day their rapid progress, and encouraged their

diligence by his familiarity, his zeal, and his rewards. The new

Cathedral of St. Sophia was consecrated by the patriarch, five

years, eleven months, and ten days from the first foundation; and

in the midst of the solemn festival Justinian exclaimed with

devout vanity, “Glory be to God, who hath thought me worthy to

accomplish so great a work; I have vanquished thee, O Solomon!”

104 But the pride of the Roman Solomon, before twenty years had

elapsed, was humbled by an earthquake, which overthrew the

eastern part of the dome. Its splendor was again restored by the

perseverance of the same prince; and in the thirty-sixth year of

his reign, Justinian celebrated the second dedication of a temple

which remains, after twelve centuries, a stately monument of his

fame. The architecture of St. Sophia, which is now converted into

the principal mosque, has been imitated by the Turkish sultans,

and that venerable pile continues to excite the fond admiration

of the Greeks, and the more rational curiosity of European

travellers. The eye of the spectator is disappointed by an

irregular prospect of half-domes and shelving roofs: the western

front, the principal approach, is destitute of simplicity and

magnificence; and the scale of dimensions has been much surpassed

by several of the Latin cathedrals. But the architect who first

erected an _aerial_ cupola, is entitled to the praise of bold

design and skilful execution. The dome of St. Sophia, illuminated

by four-and-twenty windows, is formed with so small a curve, that

the depth is equal only to one sixth of its diameter; the measure

of that diameter is one hundred and fifteen feet, and the lofty

centre, where a crescent has supplanted the cross, rises to the

perpendicular height of one hundred and eighty feet above the

pavement. The circle which encompasses the dome, lightly reposes

on four strong arches, and their weight is firmly supported by

four massy piles, whose strength is assisted, on the northern and

southern sides, by four columns of Egyptian granite.

A Greek cross, inscribed in a quadrangle, represents the form of

the edifice; the exact breadth is two hundred and forty-three

feet, and two hundred and sixty-nine may be assigned for the

extreme length from the sanctuary in the east, to the nine

western doors, which open into the vestibule, and from thence

into the narthex or exterior portico. That portico was the humble

station of the penitents. The nave or body of the church was

filled by the congregation of the faithful; but the two sexes

were prudently distinguished, and the upper and lower galleries

were allotted for the more private devotion of the women. Beyond

the northern and southern piles, a balustrade, terminated on

either side by the thrones of the emperor and the patriarch,

divided the nave from the choir; and the space, as far as the

steps of the altar, was occupied by the clergy and singers. The

altar itself, a name which insensibly became familiar to

Christian ears, was placed in the eastern recess, artificially

built in the form of a demi-cylinder; and this sanctuary

communicated by several doors with the sacristy, the vestry, the

baptistery, and the contiguous buildings, subservient either to

the pomp of worship, or the private use of the ecclesiastical

ministers. The memory of past calamities inspired Justinian with

a wise resolution, that no wood, except for the doors, should be

admitted into the new edifice; and the choice of the materials

was applied to the strength, the lightness, or the splendor of

the respective parts. The solid piles which contained the cupola

were composed of huge blocks of freestone, hewn into squares and

triangles, fortified by circles of iron, and firmly cemented by

the infusion of lead and quicklime: but the weight of the cupola

was diminished by the levity of its substance, which consists

either of pumice-stone that floats in the water, or of bricks

from the Isle of Rhodes, five times less ponderous than the

ordinary sort. The whole frame of the edifice was constructed of

brick; but those base materials were concealed by a crust of

marble; and the inside of St. Sophia, the cupola, the two larger,

and the six smaller, semi-domes, the walls, the hundred columns,

and the pavement, delight even the eyes of Barbarians, with a

rich and variegated picture. A poet, 105 who beheld the primitive

lustre of St. Sophia, enumerates the colors, the shades, and the

spots of ten or twelve marbles, jaspers, and porphyries, which

nature had profusely diversified, and which were blended and

contrasted as it were by a skilful painter. The triumph of Christ

was adorned with the last spoils of Paganism, but the greater

part of these costly stones was extracted from the quarries of

Asia Minor, the isles and continent of Greece, Egypt, Africa, and

Gaul. Eight columns of porphyry, which Aurelian had placed in the

temple of the sun, were offered by the piety of a Roman matron;

eight others of green marble were presented by the ambitious zeal

of the magistrates of Ephesus: both are admirable by their size

and beauty, but every order of architecture disclaims their

fantastic capital. A variety of ornaments and figures was

curiously expressed in mosaic; and the images of Christ, of the

Virgin, of saints, and of angels, which have been defaced by

Turkish fanaticism, were dangerously exposed to the superstition

of the Greeks. According to the sanctity of each object, the

precious metals were distributed in thin leaves or in solid

masses. The balustrade of the choir, the capitals of the pillars,

the ornaments of the doors and galleries, were of gilt bronze;

the spectator was dazzled by the glittering aspect of the cupola;

the sanctuary contained forty thousand pounds weight of silver;

and the holy vases and vestments of the altar were of the purest

gold, enriched with inestimable gems. Before the structure of the

church had arisen two cubits above the ground, forty-five

thousand two hundred pounds were already consumed; and the whole

expense amounted to three hundred and twenty thousand: each

reader, according to the measure of his belief, may estimate

their value either in gold or silver; but the sum of one million

sterling is the result of the lowest computation. A magnificent

temple is a laudable monument of national taste and religion; and

the enthusiast who entered the dome of St. Sophia might be

tempted to suppose that it was the residence, or even the

workmanship, of the Deity. Yet how dull is the artifice, how

insignificant is the labor, if it be compared with the formation

of the vilest insect that crawls upon the surface of the temple!

103 (return) [Among the crowd of ancients and moderns who have

celebrated the edifice of St. Sophia, I shall distinguish and

follow, 1. Four original spectators and historians: Procopius,

(de Edific. l. i. c. 1,) Agathias, (l. v. p. 152, 153,) Paul

Silentiarius, (in a poem of 1026 hexameters, and calcem Annae

Commen. Alexiad.,) and Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 31.) 2. Two legendary

Greeks of a later period: George Codinus, (de Origin. C. P. p.

64-74,) and the anonymous writer of Banduri, (Imp. Orient. tom.

i. l. iv. p. 65—80.)3. The great Byzantine antiquarian. Ducange,

(Comment. ad Paul Silentiar. p. 525—598, and C. P. Christ. l.

iii. p. 5—78.) 4. Two French travellers—the one, Peter Gyllius,

(de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 3, 4,) in the xvith; the other,

Grelot, (Voyage de C. P. p. 95—164, Paris, 1680, in 4to:) he has

given plans, prospects, and inside views of St. Sophia; and his

plans, though on a smaller scale, appear more correct than those

of Ducange. I have adopted and reduced the measures of Grelot:

but as no Christian can now ascend the dome, the height is

borrowed from Evagrius, compared with Gyllius, Greaves, and the

Oriental Geographer.]

104 (return) [ Solomon’s temple was surrounded with courts,

porticos, &c.; but the proper structure of the house of God was

no more (if we take the Egyptian or Hebrew cubic at 22 inches)

than 55 feet in height, 36 2/3 in breadth, and 110 in length—a

small parish church, says Prideaux, (Connection, vol. i. p. 144,

folio;) but few sanctuaries could be valued at four or five

millions sterling! * Note *: Hist of Jews, vol i p 257.—M]

105 (return) [ Paul Silentiarius, in dark and poetic language,

describes the various stones and marbles that were employed in

the edifice of St. Sophia, (P. ii. p. 129, 133, &c., &c.:)

1. The Carystian—pale, with iron veins.

2. The Phrygian—of two sorts, both of a rosy hue; the one with a

white shade, the other purple, with silver flowers.

3. The Porphyry of Egypt—with small stars.

4. The green marble of Laconia.

5. The Carian—from Mount Iassis, with oblique veins, white and

red. 6. The Lydian—pale, with a red flower.

7. The African, or Mauritanian—of a gold or saffron hue. 8. The

Celtic—black, with white veins.

9. The Bosphoric—white, with black edges. Besides the

Proconnesian which formed the pavement; the Thessalian,

Molossian, &c., which are less distinctly painted.]

So minute a description of an edifice which time has respected,

may attest the truth, and excuse the relation, of the innumerable

works, both in the capital and provinces, which Justinian

constructed on a smaller scale and less durable foundations. 106

In Constantinople alone and the adjacent suburbs, he dedicated

twenty-five churches to the honor of Christ, the Virgin, and the

saints: most of these churches were decorated with marble and

gold; and their various situation was skilfully chosen in a

populous square, or a pleasant grove; on the margin of the

sea-shore, or on some lofty eminence which overlooked the

continents of Europe and Asia. The church of the Holy Apostles at

Constantinople, and that of St. John at Ephesus, appear to have

been framed on the same model: their domes aspired to imitate the

cupolas of St. Sophia; but the altar was more judiciously placed

under the centre of the dome, at the junction of four stately

porticos, which more accurately expressed the figure of the Greek

cross. The Virgin of Jerusalem might exult in the temple erected

by her Imperial votary on a most ungrateful spot, which afforded

neither ground nor materials to the architect. A level was formed

by raising part of a deep valley to the height of the mountain.

The stones of a neighboring quarry were hewn into regular forms;

each block was fixed on a peculiar carriage, drawn by forty of

the strongest oxen, and the roads were widened for the passage of

such enormous weights. Lebanon furnished her loftiest cedars for

the timbers of the church; and the seasonable discovery of a vein

of red marble supplied its beautiful columns, two of which, the

supporters of the exterior portico, were esteemed the largest in

the world. The pious munificence of the emperor was diffused over

the Holy Land; and if reason should condemn the monasteries of

both sexes which were built or restored by Justinian, yet charity

must applaud the wells which he sunk, and the hospitals which he

founded, for the relief of the weary pilgrims. The schismatical

temper of Egypt was ill entitled to the royal bounty; but in

Syria and Africa, some remedies were applied to the disasters of

wars and earthquakes, and both Carthage and Antioch, emerging

from their ruins, might revere the name of their gracious

benefactor. 107 Almost every saint in the calendar acquired the

honors of a temple; almost every city of the empire obtained the

solid advantages of bridges, hospitals, and aqueducts; but the

severe liberality of the monarch disdained to indulge his

subjects in the popular luxury of baths and theatres. While

Justinian labored for the public service, he was not unmindful of

his own dignity and ease. The Byzantine palace, which had been

damaged by the conflagration, was restored with new magnificence;

and some notion may be conceived of the whole edifice, by the

vestibule or hall, which, from the doors perhaps, or the roof,

was surnamed chalce, or the brazen. The dome of a spacious

quadrangle was supported by massy pillars; the pavement and walls

were incrusted with many-colored marbles—the emerald green of

Laconia, the fiery red, and the white Phrygian stone, intersected

with veins of a sea-green hue: the mosaic paintings of the dome

and sides represented the glories of the African and Italian

triumphs. On the Asiatic shore of the Propontis, at a small

distance to the east of Chalcedon, the costly palace and gardens

of Heraeum 108 were prepared for the summer residence of

Justinian, and more especially of Theodora. The poets of the age

have celebrated the rare alliance of nature and art, the harmony

of the nymphs of the groves, the fountains, and the waves: yet

the crowd of attendants who followed the court complained of

their inconvenient lodgings, 109 and the nymphs were too often

alarmed by the famous Porphyrio, a whale of ten cubits in

breadth, and thirty in length, who was stranded at the mouth of

the River Sangaris, after he had infested more than half a

century the seas of Constantinople. 110

106 (return) [ The six books of the Edifices of Procopius are

thus distributed the first is confined to Constantinople: the

second includes Mesopotamia and Syria the third, Armenia and the

Euxine; the fourth, Europe; the fifth, Asia Minor and Palestine;

the sixth, Egypt and Africa. Italy is forgot by the emperor or

the historian, who published this work of adulation before the

date (A.D. 555) of its final conquest.]

107 (return) [ Justinian once gave forty-five centenaries of gold

(180,000 L.) for the repairs of Antioch after the earthquake,

(John Malala, tom. ii p 146—149.)]

108 (return) [ For the Heraeum, the palace of Theodora, see

Gyllius, (de Bosphoro Thracio, l. iii. c. xi.,) Aleman. (Not. ad.

Anec. p. 80, 81, who quotes several epigrams of the Anthology,)

and Ducange, (C. P. Christ. l. iv. c. 13, p. 175, 176.)]

109 (return) [ Compare, in the Edifices, (l. i. c. 11,) and in

the Anecdotes, (c. 8, 15.) the different styles of adulation and

malevolence: stripped of the paint, or cleansed from the dirt,

the object appears to be the same.]

110 (return) [ Procopius, l. viii. 29; most probably a stranger

and wanderer, as the Mediterranean does not breed whales.

Balaenae quoque in nostra maria penetrant, (Plin. Hist. Natur.

ix. 2.) Between the polar circle and the tropic, the cetaceous

animals of the ocean grow to the length of 50, 80, or 100 feet,

(Hist. des Voyages, tom. xv. p. 289. Pennant’s British Zoology,

vol. iii. p. 35.)]

The fortifications of Europe and Asia were multiplied by

Justinian; but the repetition of those timid and fruitless

precautions exposes, to a philosophic eye, the debility of the

empire. 111 From Belgrade to the Euxine, from the conflux of the

Save to the mouth of the Danube, a chain of above fourscore

fortified places was extended along the banks of the great river.

Single watch-towers were changed into spacious citadels; vacant

walls, which the engineers contracted or enlarged according to

the nature of the ground, were filled with colonies or garrisons;

a strong fortress defended the ruins of Trajan’s bridge, 112 and

several military stations affected to spread beyond the Danube

the pride of the Roman name. But that name was divested of its

terrors; the Barbarians, in their annual inroads, passed, and

contemptuously repassed, before these useless bulwarks; and the

inhabitants of the frontier, instead of reposing under the shadow

of the general defence, were compelled to guard, with incessant

vigilance, their separate habitations. The solitude of ancient

cities, was replenished; the new foundations of Justinian

acquired, perhaps too hastily, the epithets of impregnable and

populous; and the auspicious place of his own nativity attracted

the grateful reverence of the vainest of princes. Under the name

of Justiniana prima, the obscure village of Tauresium became the

seat of an archbishop and a præfect, whose jurisdiction extended

over seven warlike provinces of Illyricum; 113 and the corrupt

appellation of Giustendil still indicates, about twenty miles to

the south of Sophia, the residence of a Turkish sanjak. 114 For

the use of the emperor’s countryman, a cathedral, a place, and an

aqueduct, were speedily constructed; the public and private

edifices were adapted to the greatness of a royal city; and the

strength of the walls resisted, during the lifetime of Justinian,

the unskilful assaults of the Huns and Sclavonians. Their

progress was sometimes retarded, and their hopes of rapine were

disappointed, by the innumerable castles which, in the provinces

of Dacia, Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace, appeared to

cover the whole face of the country. Six hundred of these forts

were built or repaired by the emperor; but it seems reasonable to

believe, that the far greater part consisted only of a stone or

brick tower, in the midst of a square or circular area, which was

surrounded by a wall and ditch, and afforded in a moment of

danger some protection to the peasants and cattle of the

neighboring villages. 115 Yet these military works, which

exhausted the public treasure, could not remove the just

apprehensions of Justinian and his European subjects. The warm

baths of Anchialus in Thrace were rendered as safe as they were

salutary; but the rich pastures of Thessalonica were foraged by

the Scythian cavalry; the delicious vale of Tempe, three hundred

miles from the Danube, was continually alarmed by the sound of

war; 116 and no unfortified spot, however distant or solitary,

could securely enjoy the blessings of peace. The Straits of

Thermopylae, which seemed to protect, but which had so often

betrayed, the safety of Greece, were diligently strengthened by

the labors of Justinian. From the edge of the sea-shore, through

the forests and valleys, and as far as the summit of the

Thessalian mountains, a strong wall was continued, which occupied

every practicable entrance. Instead of a hasty crowd of peasants,

a garrison of two thousand soldiers was stationed along the

rampart; granaries of corn and reservoirs of water were provided

for their use; and by a precaution that inspired the cowardice

which it foresaw, convenient fortresses were erected for their

retreat. The walls of Corinth, overthrown by an earthquake, and

the mouldering bulwarks of Athens and Plataea, were carefully

restored; the Barbarians were discouraged by the prospect of

successive and painful sieges: and the naked cities of

Peloponnesus were covered by the fortifications of the Isthmus of

Corinth. At the extremity of Europe, another peninsula, the

Thracian Chersonesus, runs three days’ journey into the sea, to

form, with the adjacent shores of Asia, the Straits of the

Hellespont. The intervals between eleven populous towns were

filled by lofty woods, fair pastures, and arable lands; and the

isthmus, of thirty seven stadia or furlongs, had been fortified

by a Spartan general nine hundred years before the reign of

Justinian. 117 In an age of freedom and valor, the slightest

rampart may prevent a surprise; and Procopius appears insensible

of the superiority of ancient times, while he praises the solid

construction and double parapet of a wall, whose long arms

stretched on either side into the sea; but whose strength was

deemed insufficient to guard the Chersonesus, if each city, and

particularly Gallipoli and Sestus, had not been secured by their

peculiar fortifications. The long wall, as it was emphatically

styled, was a work as disgraceful in the object, as it was

respectable in the execution. The riches of a capital diffuse

themselves over the neighboring country, and the territory of

Constantinople a paradise of nature, was adorned with the

luxurious gardens and villas of the senators and opulent

citizens. But their wealth served only to attract the bold and

rapacious Barbarians; the noblest of the Romans, in the bosom of

peaceful indolence, were led away into Scythian captivity, and

their sovereign might view from his palace the hostile flames

which were insolently spread to the gates of the Imperial city.

At the distance only of forty miles, Anastasius was constrained

to establish a last frontier; his long wall, of sixty miles from

the Propontis to the Euxine, proclaimed the impotence of his

arms; and as the danger became more imminent, new fortifications

were added by the indefatigable prudence of Justinian. 118

111 (return) [ Montesquieu observes, (tom. iii. p. 503,

Considerations sur la Grandeur et la Decadence des Romains, c.

xx.,) that Justinian’s empire was like France in the time of the

Norman inroads—never so weak as when every village was

fortified.]

112 (return) [ Procopius affirms (l. iv. c. 6) that the Danube

was stopped by the ruins of the bridge. Had Apollodorus, the

architect, left a description of his own work, the fabulous

wonders of Dion Cassius (l lxviii. p. 1129) would have been

corrected by the genuine picture Trajan’s bridge consisted of

twenty or twenty-two stone piles with wooden arches; the river is

shallow, the current gentle, and the whole interval no more than

443 (Reimer ad Dion. from Marsigli) or 5l7 toises, (D’Anville,

Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 305.)]

113 (return) [ Of the two Dacias, Mediterranea and Ripensis,

Dardania, Pravalitana, the second Maesia, and the second

Macedonia. See Justinian (Novell. xi.,) who speaks of his castles

beyond the Danube, and on omines semper bellicis sudoribus

inhaerentes.]

114 (return) [ See D’Anville, (Memoires de l’Academie, &c., tom.

xxxi p. 280, 299,) Rycaut, (Present State of the Turkish Empire,

p. 97, 316,) Max sigli, (Stato Militare del Imperio Ottomano, p.

130.) The sanjak of Giustendil is one of the twenty under the

beglerbeg of Rurselis, and his district maintains 48 zaims and

588 timariots.]

115 (return) [ These fortifications may be compared to the

castles in Mingrelia (Chardin, Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 60,

131)—a natural picture.]

116 (return) [ The valley of Tempe is situate along the River

Peneus, between the hills of Ossa and Olympus: it is only five

miles long, and in some places no more than 120 feet in breadth.

Its verdant beauties are elegantly described by Pliny, (Hist.

Natur. l. iv. 15,) and more diffusely by Aelian, (Hist. Var. l.

iii. c. i.)]

117 (return) [ Xenophon Hellenic. l. iii. c. 2. After a long and

tedious conversation with the Byzantine declaimers, how

refreshing is the truth, the simplicity, the elegance of an Attic

writer!]

118 (return) [ See the long wall in Evagarius, (l. iv. c. 38.)

This whole article is drawn from the fourth book of the Edifices,

except Anchialus, (l. iii. c. 7.)]

Asia Minor, after the submission of the Isaurians, 119 remained

without enemies and without fortifications. Those bold savages,

who had disdained to be the subjects of Gallienus, persisted two

hundred and thirty years in a life of independence and rapine.

The most successful princes respected the strength of the

mountains and the despair of the natives; their fierce spirit was

sometimes soothed with gifts, and sometimes restrained by terror;

and a military count, with three legions, fixed his permanent and

ignominious station in the heart of the Roman provinces. 120 But

no sooner was the vigilance of power relaxed or diverted, than

the light-armed squadrons descended from the hills, and invaded

the peaceful plenty of Asia. Although the Isaurians were not

remarkable for stature or bravery, want rendered them bold, and

experience made them skilful in the exercise of predatory war.

They advanced with secrecy and speed to the attack of villages

and defenceless towns; their flying parties have sometimes

touched the Hellespont, the Euxine, and the gates of Tarsus,

Antioch, or Damascus; 121 and the spoil was lodged in their

inaccessible mountains, before the Roman troops had received

their orders, or the distant province had computed its loss. The

guilt of rebellion and robbery excluded them from the rights of

national enemies; and the magistrates were instructed, by an

edict, that the trial or punishment of an Isaurian, even on the

festival of Easter, was a meritorious act of justice and piety.

122 If the captives were condemned to domestic slavery, they

maintained, with their sword or dagger, the private quarrel of

their masters; and it was found expedient for the public

tranquillity to prohibit the service of such dangerous retainers.

When their countryman Tarcalissaeus or Zeno ascended the throne,

he invited a faithful and formidable band of Isaurians, who

insulted the court and city, and were rewarded by an annual

tribute of five thousand pounds of gold. But the hopes of fortune

depopulated the mountains, luxury enervated the hardiness of

their minds and bodies, and in proportion as they mixed with

mankind, they became less qualified for the enjoyment of poor and

solitary freedom. After the death of Zeno, his successor

Anastasius suppressed their pensions, exposed their persons to

the revenge of the people, banished them from Constantinople, and

prepared to sustain a war, which left only the alternative of

victory or servitude. A brother of the last emperor usurped the

title of Augustus; his cause was powerfully supported by the

arms, the treasures, and the magazines, collected by Zeno; and

the native Isaurians must have formed the smallest portion of the

hundred and fifty thousand Barbarians under his standard, which

was sanctified, for the first time, by the presence of a fighting

bishop. Their disorderly numbers were vanquished in the plains of

Phrygia by the valor and discipline of the Goths; but a war of

six years almost exhausted the courage of the emperor. 123 The

Isaurians retired to their mountains; their fortresses were

successively besieged and ruined; their communication with the

sea was intercepted; the bravest of their leaders died in arms;

the surviving chiefs, before their execution, were dragged in

chains through the hippodrome; a colony of their youth was

transplanted into Thrace, and the remnant of the people submitted

to the Roman government. Yet some generations elapsed before

their minds were reduced to the level of slavery. The populous

villages of Mount Taurus were filled with horsemen and archers:

they resisted the imposition of tributes, but they recruited the

armies of Justinian; and his civil magistrates, the proconsul of

Cappadocia, the count of Isauria, and the praetors of Lycaonia

and Pisidia, were invested with military power to restrain the

licentious practice of rapes and assassinations. 124

119 (return) [ Turn back to vol. i. p. 328. In the course of this

History, I have sometimes mentioned, and much oftener slighted,

the hasty inroads of the Isaurians, which were not attended with

any consequences.]

120 (return) [ Trebellius Pollio in Hist. August. p. 107, who

lived under Diocletian, or Constantine. See likewise Pancirolus

ad Notit. Imp. Orient c. 115, 141. See Cod. Theodos. l. ix. tit.

35, leg. 37, with a copious collective Annotation of Godefroy,

tom. iii. p. 256, 257.]

121 (return) [ See the full and wide extent of their inroads in

Philostorgius (Hist. Eccles. l. xi. c. 8,) with Godefroy’s

learned Dissertations.]

122 (return) [ Cod. Justinian. l. ix. tit. 12, leg. 10. The

punishments are severs—a fine of a hundred pounds of gold,

degradation, and even death. The public peace might afford a

pretence, but Zeno was desirous of monopolizing the valor and

service of the Isaurians.]

123 (return) [ The Isaurian war and the triumph of Anastasius are

briefly and darkly represented by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 106,

107,) Evagrius, (l. iii. c. 35,) Theophanes, (p. 118—120,) and

the Chronicle of Marcellinus.]

124 (return) [ Fortes ea regio (says Justinian) viros habet, nec

in ullo differt ab Isauria, though Procopius (Persic. l. i. c.

18) marks an essential difference between their military

character; yet in former times the Lycaonians and Pisidians had

defended their liberty against the great king, Xenophon.

(Anabasis, l. iii. c. 2.) Justinian introduces some false and

ridiculous erudition of the ancient empire of the Pisidians, and

of Lycaon, who, after visiting Rome, (long before Aeenas,) gave a

name and people to Lycaoni, (Novell. 24, 25, 27, 30.)]

Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part V.

If we extend our view from the tropic to the mouth of the Tanais,

we may observe, on one hand, the precautions of Justinian to curb

the savages of Aethiopia, 125 and on the other, the long walls

which he constructed in Crimaea for the protection of his

friendly Goths, a colony of three thousand shepherds and

warriors. 126 From that peninsula to Trebizond, the eastern curve

of the Euxine was secured by forts, by alliance, or by religion;

and the possession of Lazica, the Colchos of ancient, the

Mingrelia of modern, geography, soon became the object of an

important war. Trebizond, in after-times the seat of a romantic

empire, was indebted to the liberality of Justinian for a church,

an aqueduct, and a castle, whose ditches are hewn in the solid

rock. From that maritime city, frontier line of five hundred

miles may be drawn to the fortress of Circesium, the last Roman

station on the Euphrates. 127 Above Trebizond immediately, and

five days’ journey to the south, the country rises into dark

forests and craggy mountains, as savage though not so lofty as

the Alps and the Pyrenees. In this rigorous climate, 128 where

the snows seldom melt, the fruits are tardy and tasteless, even

honey is poisonous: the most industrious tillage would be

confined to some pleasant valleys; and the pastoral tribes

obtained a scanty sustenance from the flesh and milk of their

cattle. The Chalybians 129 derived their name and temper from the

iron quality of the soil; and, since the days of Cyrus, they

might produce, under the various appellations of Chaldæans and

Zanians, an uninterrupted prescription of war and rapine. Under

the reign of Justinian, they acknowledged the god and the emperor

of the Romans, and seven fortresses were built in the most

accessible passages, to exclude the ambition of the Persian

monarch. 130 The principal source of the Euphrates descends from

the Chalybian mountains, and seems to flow towards the west and

the Euxine: bending to the south-west, the river passes under the

walls of Satala and Melitene (which were restored by Justinian as

the bulwarks of the Lesser Armenia,) and gradually approaches the

Mediterranean Sea; till at length, repelled by Mount Taurus, 131

the Euphrates inclines its long and flexible course to the

south-east and the Gulf of Persia. Among the Roman cities beyond

the Euphrates, we distinguish two recent foundations, which were

named from Theodosius, and the relics of the martyrs; and two

capitals, Amida and Edessa, which are celebrated in the history

of every age. Their strength was proportioned by Justinian to the

danger of their situation. A ditch and palisade might be

sufficient to resist the artless force of the cavalry of Scythia;

but more elaborate works were required to sustain a regular siege

against the arms and treasures of the great king. His skilful

engineers understood the methods of conducting deep mines, and of

raising platforms to the level of the rampart: he shook the

strongest battlements with his military engines, and sometimes

advanced to the assault with a line of movable turrets on the

backs of elephants. In the great cities of the East, the

disadvantage of space, perhaps of position, was compensated by

the zeal of the people, who seconded the garrison in the defence

of their country and religion; and the fabulous promise of the

Son of God, that Edessa should never be taken, filled the

citizens with valiant confidence, and chilled the besiegers with

doubt and dismay. 132 The subordinate towns of Armenia and

Mesopotamia were diligently strengthened, and the posts which

appeared to have any command of ground or water were occupied by

numerous forts, substantially built of stone, or more hastily

erected with the obvious materials of earth and brick. The eye of

Justinian investigated every spot; and his cruel precautions

might attract the war into some lonely vale, whose peaceful

natives, connected by trade and marriage, were ignorant of

national discord and the quarrels of princes. Westward of the

Euphrates, a sandy desert extends above six hundred miles to the

Red Sea. Nature had interposed a vacant solitude between the

ambition of two rival empires; the Arabians, till Mahomet arose,

were formidable only as robbers; and in the proud security of

peace the fortifications of Syria were neglected on the most

vulnerable side.

125 (return) [ See Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 19. The altar of

national concern, of annual sacrifice and oaths, which Diocletian

had created in the Isla of Elephantine, was demolished by

Justinian with less policy than]

126 (return) [ Procopius de Edificiis, l. iii. c. 7. Hist. l.

viii. c. 3, 4. These unambitious Goths had refused to follow the

standard of Theodoric. As late as the xvth and xvith century, the

name and nation might be discovered between Caffa and the Straits

of Azoph, (D’Anville, Memoires de l’academie, tom. xxx. p. 240.)

They well deserved the curiosity of Busbequius, (p. 321-326;) but

seem to have vanished in the more recent account of the Missions

du Levant, (tom. i.,) Tott, Peysonnnel, &c.]

127 (return) [ For the geography and architecture of this

Armenian border, see the Persian Wars and Edifices (l. ii. c.

4-7, l. iii. c. 2—7) of Procopius.]

128 (return) [ The country is described by Tournefort, (Voyage au

Levant, tom. iii. lettre xvii. xviii.) That skilful botanist soon

discovered the plant that infects the honey, (Plin. xxi. 44, 45:)

he observes, that the soldiers of Lucullus might indeed be

astonished at the cold, since, even in the plain of Erzerum, snow

sometimes falls in June, and the harvest is seldom finished

before September. The hills of Armenia are below the fortieth

degree of latitude; but in the mountainous country which I

inhabit, it is well known that an ascent of some hours carries

the traveller from the climate of Languedoc to that of Norway;

and a general theory has been introduced, that, under the line,

an elevation of 2400 toises is equivalent to the cold of the

polar circle, (Remond, Observations sur les Voyages de Coxe dans

la Suisse, tom. ii. p. 104.)]

129 (return) [ The identity or proximity of the Chalybians, or

Chaldaeana may be investigated in Strabo, (l. xii. p. 825, 826,)

Cellarius, (Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 202—204,) and Freret,

(Mem. de Academie, tom. iv. p. 594) Xenophon supposes, in his

romance, (Cyropaed l. iii.,) the same Barbarians, against whom he

had fought in his retreat, (Anabasis, l. iv.)]

130 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 15. De Edific. l. iii.

c. 6.]

131 (return) [ Ni Taurus obstet in nostra maria venturus,

(Pomponius Mela, iii. 8.) Pliny, a poet as well as a naturalist,

(v. 20,) personifies the river and mountain, and describes their

combat. See the course of the Tigris and Euphrates in the

excellent treatise of D’Anville.]

132 (return) [ Procopius (Persic. l. ii. c. 12) tells the story

with the tone, half sceptical, half superstitious, of Herodotus.

The promise was not in the primitive lie of Eusebius, but dates

at least from the year 400; and a third lie, the Veronica, was

soon raised on the two former, (Evagrius, l. iv. c. 27.) As

Edessa has been taken, Tillemont must disclaim the promise, (Mem.

Eccles. tom. i. p. 362, 383, 617.)]

But the national enmity, at least the effects of that enmity, had

been suspended by a truce, which continued above fourscore years.

An ambassador from the emperor Zeno accompanied the rash and

unfortunate Perozes, 1321 in his expedition against the

Nepthalites, 1322 or white Huns, whose conquests had been

stretched from the Caspian to the heart of India, whose throne

was enriched with emeralds, 133 and whose cavalry was supported

by a line of two thousand elephants. 134 The Persians 1341 were

twice circumvented, in a situation which made valor useless and

flight impossible; and the double victory of the Huns was

achieved by military stratagem. They dismissed their royal

captive after he had submitted to adore the majesty of a

Barbarian; and the humiliation was poorly evaded by the

casuistical subtlety of the Magi, who instructed Perozes to

direct his attention to the rising sun. 1342 The indignant

successor of Cyrus forgot his danger and his gratitude; he

renewed the attack with headstrong fury, and lost both his army

and his life. 135 The death of Perozes abandoned Persia to her

foreign and domestic enemies; 1351 and twelve years of confusion

elapsed before his son Cabades, or Kobad, could embrace any

designs of ambition or revenge. The unkind parsimony of

Anastasius was the motive or pretence of a Roman war; 136 the

Huns and Arabs marched under the Persian standard, and the

fortifications of Armenia and Mesopotamia were, at that time, in

a ruinous or imperfect condition. The emperor returned his thanks

to the governor and people of Martyropolis for the prompt

surrender of a city which could not be successfully defended, and

the conflagration of Theodosiopolis might justify the conduct of

their prudent neighbors. Amida sustained a long and destructive

siege: at the end of three months the loss of fifty thousand of

the soldiers of Cabades was not balanced by any prospect of

success, and it was in vain that the Magi deduced a flattering

prediction from the indecency of the women 1361 on the ramparts,

who had revealed their most secret charms to the eyes of the

assailants. At length, in a silent night, they ascended the most

accessible tower, which was guarded only by some monks,

oppressed, after the duties of a festival, with sleep and wine.

Scaling-ladders were applied at the dawn of day; the presence of

Cabades, his stern command, and his drawn sword, compelled the

Persians to vanquish; and before it was sheathed, fourscore

thousand of the inhabitants had expiated the blood of their

companions. After the siege of Amida, the war continued three

years, and the unhappy frontier tasted the full measure of its

calamities. The gold of Anastasius was offered too late, the

number of his troops was defeated by the number of their

generals; the country was stripped of its inhabitants, and both

the living and the dead were abandoned to the wild beasts of the

desert. The resistance of Edessa, and the deficiency of spoil,

inclined the mind of Cabades to peace: he sold his conquests for

an exorbitant price; and the same line, though marked with

slaughter and devastation, still separated the two empires. To

avert the repetition of the same evils, Anastasius resolved to

found a new colony, so strong, that it should defy the power of

the Persian, so far advanced towards Assyria, that its stationary

troops might defend the province by the menace or operation of

offensive war. For this purpose, the town of Dara, 137 fourteen

miles from Nisibis, and four days’ journey from the Tigris, was

peopled and adorned; the hasty works of Anastasius were improved

by the perseverance of Justinian; and, without insisting on

places less important, the fortifications of Dara may represent

the military architecture of the age. The city was surrounded

with two walls, and the interval between them, of fifty paces,

afforded a retreat to the cattle of the besieged. The inner wall

was a monument of strength and beauty: it measured sixty feet

from the ground, and the height of the towers was one hundred

feet; the loopholes, from whence an enemy might be annoyed with

missile weapons, were small, but numerous; the soldiers were

planted along the rampart, under the shelter of double galleries,

and a third platform, spacious and secure, was raised on the

summit of the towers. The exterior wall appears to have been less

lofty, but more solid; and each tower was protected by a

quadrangular bulwark. A hard, rocky soil resisted the tools of

the miners, and on the south-east, where the ground was more

tractable, their approach was retarded by a new work, which

advanced in the shape of a half-moon. The double and treble

ditches were filled with a stream of water; and in the management

of the river, the most skilful labor was employed to supply the

inhabitants, to distress the besiegers, and to prevent the

mischiefs of a natural or artificial inundation. Dara continued

more than sixty years to fulfil the wishes of its founders, and

to provoke the jealousy of the Persians, who incessantly

complained, that this impregnable fortress had been constructed

in manifest violation of the treaty of peace between the two

empires. 1371

1321 (return) [ Firouz the Conqueror—unfortunately so named. See

St. Martin, vol. vi. p. 439.—M.]

1322 (return) [ Rather Hepthalites.—M.]

133 (return) [ They were purchased from the merchants of Adulis

who traded to India, (Cosmas, Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 339;)

yet, in the estimate of precious stones, the Scythian emerald was

the first, the Bactrian the second, the Aethiopian only the

third, (Hill’s Theophrastus, p. 61, &c., 92.) The production,

mines, &c., of emeralds, are involved in darkness; and it is

doubtful whether we possess any of the twelve sorts known to the

ancients, (Goguet, Origine des Loix, &c., part ii. l. ii. c. 2,

art. 3.) In this war the Huns got, or at least Perozes lost, the

finest pearl in the world, of which Procopius relates a

ridiculous fable.]

134 (return) [ The Indo-Scythae continued to reign from the time

of Augustus (Dionys. Perieget. 1088, with the Commentary of

Eustathius, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iv.) to that of the

elder Justin, (Cosmas, Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 338, 339.) On

their origin and conquests, see D’Anville, (sur l’Inde, p. 18,

45, &c., 69, 85, 89.) In the second century they were masters of

Larice or Guzerat.]

1341 (return) [ According to the Persian historians, he was

misled by guides who used he old stratagem of Zopyrus. Malcolm,

vol. i. p. 101.—M.]

1342 (return) [ In the Ms. Chronicle of Tabary, it is said that

the Moubedan Mobed, or Grand Pontiff, opposed with all his

influence the violation of the treaty. St. Martin, vol. vii. p.

254.—M.]

135 (return) [ See the fate of Phirouz, or Perozes, and its

consequences, in Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 3—6,) who may be

compared with the fragments of Oriental history, (D’Herbelot,

Bibliot. Orient. p. 351, and Texeira, History of Persia,

translated or abridged by Stephens, l. i. c. 32, p. 132—138.) The

chronology is ably ascertained by Asseman. (Bibliot. Orient. tom.

iii. p. 396—427.)]

1351 (return) [ When Firoze advanced, Khoosh-Nuaz (the king of

the Huns) presented on the point of a lance the treaty to which

he had sworn, and exhorted him yet to desist before he destroyed

his fame forever. Malcolm, vol. i. p. 103.—M.]

136 (return) [ The Persian war, under the reigns of Anastasius

and Justin, may be collected from Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 7,

8, 9,) Theophanes, (in Chronograph. p. 124—127,) Evagrius, (l.

iii. c. 37,) Marcellinus, (in Chron. p. 47,) and Josue Stylites,

(apud Asseman. tom. i. p. 272—281.)]

1361 (return) [ Gibbon should have written “some prostitutes.”

Proc Pers. vol. 1 p. 7.—M.]

137 (return) [ The description of Dara is amply and correctly

given by Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 10, l. ii. c. 13. De

Edific. l. ii. c. 1, 2, 3, l. iii. c. 5.) See the situation in

D’Anville, (l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 53, 54, 55,) though he

seems to double the interval between Dara and Nisibis.]

1371 (return) [ The situation (of Dara) does not appear to give

it strength, as it must have been commanded on three sides by the

mountains, but opening on the south towards the plains of

Mesopotamia. The foundation of the walls and towers, built of

large hewn stone, may be traced across the valley, and over a

number of low rocky hills which branch out from the foot of Mount

Masius. The circumference I conceive to be nearly two miles and a

half; and a small stream, which flows through the middle of the

place, has induced several Koordish and Armenian families to fix

their residence within the ruins. Besides the walls and towers,

the remains of many other buildings attest the former grandeur of

Dara; a considerable part of the space within the walls is arched

and vaulted underneath, and in one place we perceived a large

cavern, supported by four ponderous columns, somewhat resembling

the great cistern of Constantinople. In the centre of the village

are the ruins of a palace (probably that mentioned by Procopius)

or church, one hundred paces in length, and sixty in breadth. The

foundations, which are quite entire, consist of a prodigious

number of subterraneous vaulted chambers, entered by a narrow

passage forty paces in length. The gate is still standing; a

considerable part of the wall has bid defiance to time, &c. M

Donald Kinneir’s Journey, p. 438.—M]

Between the Euxine and the Caspian, the countries of Colchos,

Iberia, and Albania, are intersected in every direction by the

branches of Mount Caucasus; and the two principal gates, or

passes, from north to south, have been frequently confounded in

the geography both of the ancients and moderns. The name of

Caspian or Albanian gates is properly applied to Derbend, 138

which occupies a short declivity between the mountains and the

sea: the city, if we give credit to local tradition, had been

founded by the Greeks; and this dangerous entrance was fortified

by the kings of Persia with a mole, double walls, and doors of

iron. The Iberian gates 139 1391 are formed by a narrow passage

of six miles in Mount Caucasus, which opens from the northern

side of Iberia, or Georgia, into the plain that reaches to the

Tanais and the Volga. A fortress, designed by Alexander perhaps,

or one of his successors, to command that important pass, had

descended by right of conquest or inheritance to a prince of the

Huns, who offered it for a moderate price to the emperor; but

while Anastasius paused, while he timorously computed the cost

and the distance, a more vigilant rival interposed, and Cabades

forcibly occupied the Straits of Caucasus. The Albanian and

Iberian gates excluded the horsemen of Scythia from the shortest

and most practicable roads, and the whole front of the mountains

was covered by the rampart of Gog and Magog, the long wall which

has excited the curiosity of an Arabian caliph 140 and a Russian

conqueror. 141 According to a recent description, huge stones,

seven feet thick, and twenty-one feet in length or height, are

artificially joined without iron or cement, to compose a wall,

which runs above three hundred miles from the shores of Derbend,

over the hills, and through the valleys of Daghestan and Georgia.

Without a vision, such a work might be undertaken by the policy

of Cabades; without a miracle, it might be accomplished by his

son, so formidable to the Romans, under the name of Chosroes; so

dear to the Orientals, under the appellation of Nushirwan. The

Persian monarch held in his hand the keys both of peace and war;

but he stipulated, in every treaty, that Justinian should

contribute to the expense of a common barrier, which equally

protected the two empires from the inroads of the Scythians. 142

138 (return) [ For the city and pass of Derbend, see D’Herbelot,

(Bibliot. Orient. p. 157, 291, 807,) Petit de la Croix. (Hist. de

Gengiscan, l. iv. c. 9,) Histoire Genealogique des Tatars, (tom.

i. p. 120,) Olearius, (Voyage en Perse, p. 1039—1041,) and

Corneille le Bruyn, (Voyages, tom. i. p. 146, 147:) his view may

be compared with the plan of Olearius, who judges the wall to be

of shells and gravel hardened by time.]

139 (return) [ Procopius, though with some confusion, always

denominates them Caspian, (Persic. l. i. c. 10.) The pass is now

styled Tatar-topa, the Tartar-gates, (D’Anville, Geographie

Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 119, 120.)]

1391 (return) [ Malte-Brun. tom. viii. p. 12, makes three passes:

1. The central, which leads from Mosdok to Teflis. 2. The

Albanian, more inland than the Derbend Pass. 3. The Derbend—the

Caspian Gates. But the narrative of Col. Monteith, in the Journal

of the Geographical Society of London. vol. iii. p. i. p. 39,

clearly shows that there are but two passes between the Black Sea

and the Caspian; the central, the Caucasian, or, as Col. Monteith

calls it, the Caspian Gates, and the pass of Derbend, though it

is practicable to turn this position (of Derbend) by a road a few

miles distant through the mountains, p. 40.—M.]

140 (return) [ The imaginary rampart of Gog and Magog, which was

seriously explored and believed by a caliph of the ninth century,

appears to be derived from the gates of Mount Caucasus, and a

vague report of the wall of China, (Geograph. Nubiensis, p.

267-270. Memoires de l’Academie, tom. xxxi. p. 210—219.)]

141 (return) [ See a learned dissertation of Baier, de muro

Caucaseo, in Comment. Acad. Petropol. ann. 1726, tom. i. p.

425-463; but it is destitute of a map or plan. When the czar

Peter I. became master of Derbend in the year 1722, the measure

of the wall was found to be 3285 Russian orgyioe, or fathom, each

of seven feet English; in the whole somewhat more than four miles

in length.]

142 (return) [ See the fortifications and treaties of Chosroes,

or Nushirwan, in Procopius (Persic. l. i. c. 16, 22, l. ii.) and

D’Herbelot, (p. 682.)] VII. Justinian suppressed the schools of

Athens and the consulship of Rome, which had given so many sages

and heroes to mankind. Both these institutions had long since

degenerated from their primitive glory; yet some reproach may be

justly inflicted on the avarice and jealousy of a prince, by

whose hand such venerable ruins were destroyed.

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