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.
90

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.]