Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of

Justinian.—Part IV.

About two years after the last victory of Belisarius, the emperor
returned from a Thracian journey of health, or business, or
devotion. Justinian was afflicted by a pain in his head; and his
private entry countenanced the rumor of his death. Before the
third hour of the day, the bakers’ shops were plundered of their
bread, the houses were shut, and every citizen, with hope or
terror, prepared for the impending tumult. The senators
themselves, fearful and suspicious, were convened at the ninth
hour; and the præfect received their commands to visit every
quarter of the city, and proclaim a general illumination for the
recovery of the emperor’s health. The ferment subsided; but every
accident betrayed the impotence of the government, and the
factious temper of the people: the guards were disposed to mutiny
as often as their quarters were changed, or their pay was
withheld: the frequent calamities of fires and earthquakes
afforded the opportunities of disorder; the disputes of the blues
and greens, of the orthodox and heretics, degenerated into bloody
battles; and, in the presence of the Persian ambassador,
Justinian blushed for himself and for his subjects. Capricious
pardon and arbitrary punishment imbittered the irksomeness and
discontent of a long reign: a conspiracy was formed in the
palace; and, unless we are deceived by the names of Marcellus and
Sergius, the most virtuous and the most profligate of the
courtiers were associated in the same designs. They had fixed the
time of the execution; their rank gave them access to the royal
banquet; and their black slaves 65 were stationed in the
vestibule and porticos, to announce the death of the tyrant, and
to excite a sedition in the capital. But the indiscretion of an
accomplice saved the poor remnant of the days of Justinian. The
conspirators were detected and seized, with daggers hidden under
their garments: Marcellus died by his own hand, and Sergius was
dragged from the sanctuary. 66 Pressed by remorse, or tempted by
the hopes of safety, he accused two officers of the household of
Belisarius; and torture forced them to declare that they had
acted according to the secret instructions of their patron. 67
Posterity will not hastily believe that a hero who, in the vigor
of life, had disdained the fairest offers of ambition and
revenge, should stoop to the murder of his prince, whom he could
not long expect to survive. His followers were impatient to fly;
but flight must have been supported by rebellion, and he had
lived enough for nature and for glory. Belisarius appeared before
the council with less fear than indignation: after forty years’
service, the emperor had prejudged his guilt; and injustice was
sanctified by the presence and authority of the patriarch. The
life of Belisarius was graciously spared; but his fortunes were
sequestered, and, from December to July, he was guarded as a
prisoner in his own palace. At length his innocence was
acknowledged; his freedom and honor were restored; and death,
which might be hastened by resentment and grief, removed him from
the world in about eight months after his deliverance. The name
of Belisarius can never die but instead of the funeral, the
monuments, the statues, so justly due to his memory, I only read,
that his treasures, the spoil of the Goths and Vandals, were
immediately confiscated by the emperor. Some decent portion was
reserved, however for the use of his widow: and as Antonina had
much to repent, she devoted the last remains of her life and
fortune to the foundation of a convent. Such is the simple and
genuine narrative of the fall of Belisarius and the ingratitude
of Justinian. 68 That he was deprived of his eyes, and reduced by
envy to beg his bread, 6811 “Give a penny to Belisarius the
general!” is a fiction of later times, 69 which has obtained
credit, or rather favor, as a strange example of the vicissitudes
of fortune. 70

65 (return) [ They could scarcely be real Indians; and the
Aethiopians, sometimes known by that name, were never used by the
ancients as guards or followers: they were the trifling, though
costly objects of female and royal luxury, (Terent. Eunuch. act.
i. scene ii Sueton. in August. c. 83, with a good note of
Casaubon, in Caligula, c. 57.)]

66 (return) [ The Sergius (Vandal. l. ii. c. 21, 22, Anecdot. c.
5) and Marcellus (Goth. l. iii. c. 32) are mentioned by
Procopius. See Theophanes, p. 197, 201. * Note: Some words, “the
acts of,” or “the crimes cf,” appear to have false from the text.
The omission is in all the editions I have consulted.—M.]

67 (return) [ Alemannus, (p. quotes an old Byzantian Ms., which
has been printed in the Imperium Orientale of Banduri.)]

68 (return) [ Of the disgrace and restoration of Belisarius, the
genuine original record is preserved in the Fragment of John
Malala (tom. ii. p. 234—243) and the exact Chronicle of
Theophanes, (p. 194—204.) Cedrenus (Compend. p. 387, 388) and
Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 69) seem to hesitate between the
obsolete truth and the growing falsehood.]

6811 (return) [ Le Beau, following Allemannus, conceives that
Belisarius was confounded with John of Cappadocia, who was thus
reduced to beggary, (vol. ix. p. 58, 449.) Lord Mahon has, with
considerable learning, and on the authority of a yet unquoted
writer of the eleventh century, endeavored to reestablish the old
tradition. I cannot acknowledge that I have been convinced, and
am inclined to subscribe to the theory of Le Beau.—M.]

69 (return) [ The source of this idle fable may be derived from a
miscellaneous work of the xiith century, the Chiliads of John
Tzetzes, a monk, (Basil. 1546, ad calcem Lycophront. Colon.
Allobrog. 1614, in Corp. Poet. Graec.) He relates the blindness
and beggary of Belisarius in ten vulgar or political verses,
(Chiliad iii. No. 88, 339—348, in Corp. Poet. Graec. tom. ii. p.
311.) This moral or romantic tale was imported into Italy with
the language and manuscripts of Greece; repeated before the end
of the xvth century by Crinitus, Pontanus, and Volaterranus,
attacked by Alciat, for the honor of the law; and defended by
Baronius, (A.D. 561, No. 2, &c.,) for the honor of the church.
Yet Tzetzes himself had read in other chronicles, that Belisarius
did not lose his sight, and that he recovered his fame and
fortunes. * Note: I know not where Gibbon found Tzetzes to be a
monk; I suppose he considered his bad verses a proof of his
monachism. Compare to Gerbelius in Kiesling’s edition of
Tzetzes.—M.]

70 (return) [ The statue in the villa Borghese at Rome, in a
sitting posture, with an open hand, which is vulgarly given to
Belisarius, may be ascribed with more dignity to Augustus in the
act of propitiating Nemesis, (Winckelman, Hist. de l’Art, tom.
iii. p. 266.) Ex nocturno visu etiam stipem, quotannis, die
certo, emendicabat a populo, cavana manum asses porrigentibus
praebens, (Sueton. in August. c. 91, with an excellent note of
Casaubon.) * Note: Lord Mahon abandons the statue, as altogether
irreconcilable with the state of the arts at this period, (p.
472.)—M.]

If the emperor could rejoice in the death of Belisarius, he
enjoyed the base satisfaction only eight months, the last period
of a reign of thirty-eight years, and a life of eighty-three
years. It would be difficult to trace the character of a prince
who is not the most conspicuous object of his own times: but the
confessions of an enemy may be received as the safest evidence of
his virtues. The resemblance of Justinian to the bust of
Domitian, is maliciously urged; 71 with the acknowledgment,
however, of a well-proportioned figure, a ruddy complexion, and a
pleasing countenance. The emperor was easy of access, patient of
hearing, courteous and affable in discourse, and a master of the
angry passions which rage with such destructive violence in the
breast of a despot. Procopius praises his temper, to reproach him
with calm and deliberate cruelty: but in the conspiracies which
attacked his authority and person, a more candid judge will
approve the justice, or admire the clemency, of Justinian. He
excelled in the private virtues of chastity and temperance: but
the impartial love of beauty would have been less mischievous
than his conjugal tenderness for Theodora; and his abstemious
diet was regulated, not by the prudence of a philosopher, but the
superstition of a monk. His repasts were short and frugal: on
solemn fasts, he contented himself with water and vegetables; and
such was his strength, as well as fervor, that he frequently
passed two days, and as many nights, without tasting any food.
The measure of his sleep was not less rigorous: after the repose
of a single hour, the body was awakened by the soul, and, to the
astonishment of his chamberlain, Justinian walked or studied till
the morning light. Such restless application prolonged his time
for the acquisition of knowledge 72 and the despatch of business;
and he might seriously deserve the reproach of confounding, by
minute and preposterous diligence, the general order of his
administration. The emperor professed himself a musician and
architect, a poet and philosopher, a lawyer and theologian; and
if he failed in the enterprise of reconciling the Christian
sects, the review of the Roman jurisprudence is a noble monument
of his spirit and industry. In the government of the empire, he
was less wise, or less successful: the age was unfortunate; the
people was oppressed and discontented; Theodora abused her power;
a succession of bad ministers disgraced his judgment; and
Justinian was neither beloved in his life, nor regretted at his
death. The love of fame was deeply implanted in his breast, but
he condescended to the poor ambition of titles, honors, and
contemporary praise; and while he labored to fix the admiration,
he forfeited the esteem and affection, of the Romans.

The design of the African and Italian wars was boldly conceived
and executed; and his penetration discovered the talents of
Belisarius in the camp, of Narses in the palace. But the name of
the emperor is eclipsed by the names of his victorious generals;
and Belisarius still lives, to upbraid the envy and ingratitude
of his sovereign. The partial favor of mankind applauds the
genius of a conqueror, who leads and directs his subjects in the
exercise of arms. The characters of Philip the Second and of
Justinian are distinguished by the cold ambition which delights
in war, and declines the dangers of the field. Yet a colossal
statue of bronze represented the emperor on horseback, preparing
to march against the Persians in the habit and armor of Achilles.
In the great square before the church of St. Sophia, this
monument was raised on a brass column and a stone pedestal of
seven steps; and the pillar of Theodosius, which weighed seven
thousand four hundred pounds of silver, was removed from the same
place by the avarice and vanity of Justinian. Future princes were
more just or indulgent to his memory; the elder Andronicus, in
the beginning of the fourteenth century, repaired and beautified
his equestrian statue: since the fall of the empire it has been
melted into cannon by the victorious Turks. 73

71 (return) [ The rubor of Domitian is stigmatized, quaintly
enough, by the pen of Tacitus, (in Vit. Agricol. c. 45;) and has
been likewise noticed by the younger Pliny, (Panegyr. c. 48,) and
Suetonius, (in Domitian, c. 18, and Casaubon ad locum.) Procopius
(Anecdot. c. 8) foolishly believes that only one bust of Domitian
had reached the vith century.]

72 (return) [ The studies and science of Justinian are attested
by the confession (Anecdot. c. 8, 13) still more than by the
praises (Gothic. l. iii. c. 31, de Edific. l. i. Proem. c. 7) of
Procopius. Consult the copious index of Alemannus, and read the
life of Justinian by Ludewig, (p. 135—142.)]

73 (return) [ See in the C. P. Christiana of Ducange (l. i. c.
24, No. 1) a chain of original testimonies, from Procopius in the
vith, to Gyllius in the xvith century.]

I shall conclude this chapter with the comets, the earthquakes,
and the plague, which astonished or afflicted the age of
Justinian. I. In the fifth year of his reign, and in the month of
September, a comet 74 was seen during twenty days in the western
quarter of the heavens, and which shot its rays into the north.
Eight years afterwards, while the sun was in Capricorn, another
comet appeared to follow in the Sagittary; the size was gradually
increasing; the head was in the east, the tail in the west, and
it remained visible above forty days. The nations, who gazed with
astonishment, expected wars and calamities from their baleful
influence; and these expectations were abundantly fulfilled. The
astronomers dissembled their ignorance of the nature of these
blazing stars, which they affected to represent as the floating
meteors of the air; and few among them embraced the simple notion
of Seneca and the Chaldeans, that they are only planets of a
longer period and more eccentric motion. 75 Time and science have
justified the conjectures and predictions of the Roman sage: the
telescope has opened new worlds to the eyes of astronomers; 76
and, in the narrow space of history and fable, one and the same
comet is already found to have revisited the earth in seven equal
revolutions of five hundred and seventy-five years. The first, 77
which ascends beyond the Christian aera one thousand seven
hundred and sixty-seven years, is coeval with Ogyges, the father
of Grecian antiquity. And this appearance explains the tradition
which Varro has preserved, that under his reign the planet Venus
changed her color, size, figure, and course; a prodigy without
example either in past or succeeding ages. 78 The second visit,
in the year eleven hundred and ninety-three, is darkly implied in
the fable of Electra, the seventh of the Pleiads, who have been
reduced to six since the time of the Trojan war. That nymph, the
wife of Dardanus, was unable to support the ruin of her country:
she abandoned the dances of her sister orbs, fled from the zodiac
to the north pole, and obtained, from her dishevelled locks, the
name of the comet. The third period expires in the year six
hundred and eighteen, a date that exactly agrees with the
tremendous comet of the Sibyl, and perhaps of Pliny, which arose
in the West two generations before the reign of Cyrus. The fourth
apparition, forty-four years before the birth of Christ, is of
all others the most splendid and important. After the death of
Caesar, a long-haired star was conspicuous to Rome and to the
nations, during the games which were exhibited by young Octavian
in honor of Venus and his uncle. The vulgar opinion, that it
conveyed to heaven the divine soul of the dictator, was cherished
and consecrated by the piety of a statesman; while his secret
superstition referred the comet to the glory of his own times. 79
The fifth visit has been already ascribed to the fifth year of
Justinian, which coincides with the five hundred and thirty-first
of the Christian aera. And it may deserve notice, that in this,
as in the preceding instance, the comet was followed, though at a
longer interval, by a remarkable paleness of the sun. The sixth
return, in the year eleven hundred and six, is recorded by the
chronicles of Europe and China: and in the first fervor of the
crusades, the Christians and the Mahometans might surmise, with
equal reason, that it portended the destruction of the Infidels.
The seventh phenomenon, of one thousand six hundred and eighty,
was presented to the eyes of an enlightened age. 80 The
philosophy of Bayle dispelled a prejudice which Milton’s muse had
so recently adorned, that the comet, “from its horrid hair shakes
pestilence and war.” 81 Its road in the heavens was observed with
exquisite skill by Flamstead and Cassini: and the mathematical
science of Bernoulli, Newton 8111, and Halley, investigated the
laws of its revolutions. At the eighth period, in the year two
thousand three hundred and fifty-five, their calculations may
perhaps be verified by the astronomers of some future capital in
the Siberian or American wilderness.

74 (return) [ The first comet is mentioned by John Malala (tom.
ii. p. 190, 219) and Theophanes, (p. 154;) the second by
Procopius, (Persic. l. ii. 4.) Yet I strongly suspect their
identity. The paleness of the sun sum Vandal. (l. ii. c. 14) is
applied by Theophanes (p. 158) to a different year. Note: See
Lydus de Ostentis, particularly c 15, in which the author begins
to show the signification of comets according to the part of the
heavens in which they appear, and what fortunes they
prognosticate to the Roman empire and their Persian enemies. The
chapter, however, is imperfect. (Edit. Neibuhr, p. 290.)—M.]

75 (return) [ Seneca’s viith book of Natural Questions displays,
in the theory of comets, a philosophic mind. Yet should we not
too candidly confound a vague prediction, a venient tempus, &c.,
with the merit of real discoveries.]

76 (return) [ Astronomers may study Newton and Halley. I draw my
humble science from the article Comete, in the French
Encyclopedie, by M. d’Alembert.]

77 (return) [ Whiston, the honest, pious, visionary Whiston, had
fancied for the aera of Noah’s flood (2242 years before Christ) a
prior apparition of the same comet which drowned the earth with
its tail.]

78 (return) [ A Dissertation of Freret (Memoires de l’Academie
des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 357-377) affords a happy union of
philosophy and erudition. The phenomenon in the time of Ogyges
was preserved by Varro, (Apud Augustin. de Civitate Dei, xxi. 8,)
who quotes Castor, Dion of Naples, and Adastrus of
Cyzicus—nobiles mathematici. The two subsequent periods are
preserved by the Greek mythologists and the spurious books of
Sibylline verses.]

79 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Nat. ii. 23) has transcribed the
original memorial of Augustus. Mairan, in his most ingenious
letters to the P. Parennin, missionary in China, removes the
games and the comet of September, from the year 44 to the year
43, before the Christian aera; but I am not totally subdued by
the criticism of the astronomer, (Opuscules, p. 275 )]

80 (return) [ This last comet was visible in the month of
December, 1680. Bayle, who began his Pensees sur la Comete in
January, 1681, (Oeuvres, tom. iii.,) was forced to argue that a
supernatural comet would have confirmed the ancients in their
idolatry. Bernoulli (see his Eloge, in Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 99)
was forced to allow that the tail though not the head, was a sign
of the wrath of God.]

81 (return) [ Paradise Lost was published in the year 1667; and
the famous lines (l. ii. 708, &c.) which startled the licenser,
may allude to the recent comet of 1664, observed by Cassini at
Rome in the presence of Queen Christina, (Fontenelle, in his
Eloge, tom. v. p. 338.) Had Charles II. betrayed any symptoms of
curiosity or fear?]

8111 (return) [ Compare Pingre, Histoire des Cometes.—M.]

II. The near approach of a comet may injure or destroy the globe
which we inhabit; but the changes on its surface have been
hitherto produced by the action of volcanoes and earthquakes. 82
The nature of the soil may indicate the countries most exposed to
these formidable concussions, since they are caused by
subterraneous fires, and such fires are kindled by the union and
fermentation of iron and sulphur. But their times and effects
appear to lie beyond the reach of human curiosity; and the
philosopher will discreetly abstain from the prediction of
earthquakes, till he has counted the drops of water that silently
filtrate on the inflammable mineral, and measured the caverns
which increase by resistance the explosion of the imprisoned air.
Without assigning the cause, history will distinguish the periods
in which these calamitous events have been rare or frequent, and
will observe, that this fever of the earth raged with uncommon
violence during the reign of Justinian. 83 Each year is marked by
the repetition of earthquakes, of such duration, that
Constantinople has been shaken above forty days; of such extent,
that the shock has been communicated to the whole surface of the
globe, or at least of the Roman empire. An impulsive or vibratory
motion was felt: enormous chasms were opened, huge and heavy
bodies were discharged into the air, the sea alternately advanced
and retreated beyond its ordinary bounds, and a mountain was torn
from Libanus, 84 and cast into the waves, where it protected, as
a mole, the new harbor of Botrys 85 in Phoenicia. The stroke that
agitates an ant-hill may crush the insect-myriads in the dust;
yet truth must extort confession that man has industriously
labored for his own destruction. The institution of great cities,
which include a nation within the limits of a wall, almost
realizes the wish of Caligula, that the Roman people had but one
neck. Two hundred and fifty thousand persons are said to have
perished in the earthquake of Antioch, whose domestic multitudes
were swelled by the conflux of strangers to the festival of the
Ascension. The loss of Berytus 86 was of smaller account, but of
much greater value. That city, on the coast of Phoenicia, was
illustrated by the study of the civil law, which opened the
surest road to wealth and dignity: the schools of Berytus were
filled with the rising spirits of the age, and many a youth was
lost in the earthquake, who might have lived to be the scourge or
the guardian of his country. In these disasters, the architect
becomes the enemy of mankind. The hut of a savage, or the tent of
an Arab, may be thrown down without injury to the inhabitant; and
the Peruvians had reason to deride the folly of their Spanish
conquerors, who with so much cost and labor erected their own
sepulchres. The rich marbles of a patrician are dashed on his own
head: a whole people is buried under the ruins of public and
private edifices, and the conflagration is kindled and propagated
by the innumerable fires which are necessary for the subsistence
and manufactures of a great city. Instead of the mutual sympathy
which might comfort and assist the distressed, they dreadfully
experience the vices and passions which are released from the
fear of punishment: the tottering houses are pillaged by intrepid
avarice; revenge embraces the moment, and selects the victim; and
the earth often swallows the assassin, or the ravisher, in the
consummation of their crimes. Superstition involves the present
danger with invisible terrors; and if the image of death may
sometimes be subservient to the virtue or repentance of
individuals, an affrighted people is more forcibly moved to
expect the end of the world, or to deprecate with servile homage
the wrath of an avenging Deity.

82 (return) [ For the cause of earthquakes, see Buffon, (tom. i.
p. 502—536 Supplement a l’Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 382-390,
edition in 4to., Valmont de Bomare, Dictionnaire d’Histoire
Naturelle, Tremblemen de Terre, Pyrites,) Watson, (Chemical
Essays, tom. i. p. 181—209.)]

83 (return) [ The earthquakes that shook the Roman world in the
reign of Justinian are described or mentioned by Procopius,
(Goth. l. iv. c. 25 Anecdot. c. 18,) Agathias, (l. ii. p. 52, 53,
54, l. v. p. 145-152,) John Malala, (Chron. tom. ii. p. 140-146,
176, 177, 183, 193, 220, 229, 231, 233, 234,) and Theophanes, (p.
151, 183, 189, 191-196.) * Note *: Compare Daubeny on
Earthquakes, and Lyell’s Geology, vol. ii. p. 161 et seq.—M]

84 (return) [ An abrupt height, a perpendicular cape, between
Aradus and Botrys (Polyb. l. v. p. 411. Pompon. Mela, l. i. c.
12, p. 87, cum Isaac. Voss. Observat. Maundrell, Journey, p. 32,
33. Pocock’s Description, vol. ii. p. 99.)]

85 (return) [ Botrys was founded (ann. ante Christ. 935—903) by
Ithobal, king of Tyre, (Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 387, 388.) Its
poor representative, the village of Patrone, is now destitute of
a harbor.]

86 (return) [ The university, splendor, and ruin of Berytus are
celebrated by Heineccius (p. 351—356) as an essential part of the
history of the Roman law. It was overthrown in the xxvth year of
Justinian, A. D 551, July 9, (Theophanes, p. 192;) but Agathias
(l. ii. p. 51, 52) suspends the earthquake till he has achieved
the Italian war.]

III. Aethiopia and Egypt have been stigmatized, in every age, as
the original source and seminary of the plague. 87 In a damp,
hot, stagnating air, this African fever is generated from the
putrefaction of animal substances, and especially from the swarms
of locusts, not less destructive to mankind in their death than
in their lives. The fatal disease which depopulated the earth in
the time of Justinian and his successors, 88 first appeared in
the neighborhood of Pelusium, between the Serbonian bog and the
eastern channel of the Nile. From thence, tracing as it were a
double path, it spread to the East, over Syria, Persia, and the
Indies, and penetrated to the West, along the coast of Africa,
and over the continent of Europe. In the spring of the second
year, Constantinople, during three or four months, was visited by
the pestilence; and Procopius, who observed its progress and
symptoms with the eyes of a physician, 89 has emulated the skill
and diligence of Thucydides in the description of the plague of
Athens. 90 The infection was sometimes announced by the visions
of a distempered fancy, and the victim despaired as soon as he
had heard the menace and felt the stroke of an invisible spectre.
But the greater number, in their beds, in the streets, in their
usual occupation, were surprised by a slight fever; so slight,
indeed, that neither the pulse nor the color of the patient gave
any signs of the approaching danger. The same, the next, or the
succeeding day, it was declared by the swelling of the glands,
particularly those of the groin, of the armpits, and under the
ear; and when these buboes or tumors were opened, they were found
to contain a coal, or black substance, of the size of a lentil.
If they came to a just swelling and suppuration, the patient was
saved by this kind and natural discharge of the morbid humor. But
if they continued hard and dry, a mortification quickly ensued,
and the fifth day was commonly the term of his life. The fever
was often accompanied with lethargy or delirium; the bodies of
the sick were covered with black pustules or carbuncles, the
symptoms of immediate death; and in the constitutions too feeble
to produce an irruption, the vomiting of blood was followed by a
mortification of the bowels. To pregnant women the plague was
generally mortal: yet one infant was drawn alive from his dead
mother, and three mothers survived the loss of their infected
foetus. Youth was the most perilous season; and the female sex
was less susceptible than the male: but every rank and profession
was attacked with indiscriminate rage, and many of those who
escaped were deprived of the use of their speech, without being
secure from a return of the disorder. 91 The physicians of
Constantinople were zealous and skilful; but their art was
baffled by the various symptoms and pertinacious vehemence of the
disease: the same remedies were productive of contrary effects,
and the event capriciously disappointed their prognostics of
death or recovery. The order of funerals, and the right of
sepulchres, were confounded: those who were left without friends
or servants, lay unburied in the streets, or in their desolate
houses; and a magistrate was authorized to collect the
promiscuous heaps of dead bodies, to transport them by land or
water, and to inter them in deep pits beyond the precincts of the
city. Their own danger, and the prospect of public distress,
awakened some remorse in the minds of the most vicious of
mankind: the confidence of health again revived their passions
and habits; but philosophy must disdain the observation of
Procopius, that the lives of such men were guarded by the
peculiar favor of fortune or Providence. He forgot, or perhaps he
secretly recollected, that the plague had touched the person of
Justinian himself; but the abstemious diet of the emperor may
suggest, as in the case of Socrates, a more rational and
honorable cause for his recovery. 92 During his sickness, the
public consternation was expressed in the habits of the citizens;
and their idleness and despondence occasioned a general scarcity
in the capital of the East.

87 (return) [ I have read with pleasure Mead’s short, but
elegant, treatise concerning Pestilential Disorders, the viiith
edition, London, 1722.]

88 (return) [ The great plague which raged in 542 and the
following years (Pagi, Critica, tom. ii. p. 518) must be traced
in Procopius, (Persic. l. ii. c. 22, 23,) Agathias, (l. v. p.
153, 154,) Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 29,) Paul Diaconus, (l. ii. c.
iv. p. 776, 777,) Gregory of Tours, (tom. ii. l. iv. c. 5, p
205,) who styles it Lues Inguinaria, and the Chronicles of Victor
Tunnunensis, (p. 9, in Thesaur. Temporum,) of Marcellinus, (p.
54,) and of Theophanes, (p. 153.)]

89 (return) [ Dr. Friend (Hist. Medicin. in Opp. p. 416—420,
Lond. 1733) is satisfied that Procopius must have studied physic,
from his knowledge and use of the technical words. Yet many words
that are now scientific were common and popular in the Greek
idiom.]

90 (return) [ See Thucydides, l. ii. c. 47—54, p. 127—133, edit.
Duker, and the poetical description of the same plague by
Lucretius. (l. vi. 1136—1284.) I was indebted to Dr. Hunter for
an elaborate commentary on this part of Thucydides, a quarto of
600 pages, (Venet. 1603, apud Juntas,) which was pronounced in
St. Mark’s Library by Fabius Paullinus Utinensis, a physician and
philosopher.]

91 (return) [ Thucydides (c. 51) affirms, that the infection
could only be once taken; but Evagrius, who had family experience
of the plague, observes, that some persons, who had escaped the
first, sunk under the second attack; and this repetition is
confirmed by Fabius Paullinus, (p. 588.) I observe, that on this
head physicians are divided; and the nature and operation of the
disease may not always be similar.]

92 (return) [ It was thus that Socrates had been saved by his
temperance, in the plague of Athens, (Aul. Gellius, Noct. Attic.
ii. l.) Dr. Mead accounts for the peculiar salubrity of religious
houses, by the two advantages of seclusion and abstinence, (p.
18, 19.)]

Contagion is the inseparable symptom of the plague; which, by
mutual respiration, is transfused from the infected persons to
the lungs and stomach of those who approach them. While
philosophers believe and tremble, it is singular, that the
existence of a real danger should have been denied by a people
most prone to vain and imaginary terrors. 93 Yet the
fellow-citizens of Procopius were satisfied, by some short and
partial experience, that the infection could not be gained by the
closest conversation: 94 and this persuasion might support the
assiduity of friends or physicians in the care of the sick, whom
inhuman prudence would have condemned to solitude and despair.
But the fatal security, like the predestination of the Turks,
must have aided the progress of the contagion; and those salutary
precautions to which Europe is indebted for her safety, were
unknown to the government of Justinian. No restraints were
imposed on the free and frequent intercourse of the Roman
provinces: from Persia to France, the nations were mingled and
infected by wars and emigrations; and the pestilential odor which
lurks for years in a bale of cotton was imported, by the abuse of
trade, into the most distant regions. The mode of its propagation
is explained by the remark of Procopius himself, that it always
spread from the sea-coast to the inland country: the most
sequestered islands and mountains were successively visited; the
places which had escaped the fury of its first passage were alone
exposed to the contagion of the ensuing year. The winds might
diffuse that subtile venom; but unless the atmosphere be
previously disposed for its reception, the plague would soon
expire in the cold or temperate climates of the earth. Such was
the universal corruption of the air, that the pestilence which
burst forth in the fifteenth year of Justinian was not checked or
alleviated by any difference of the seasons. In time, its first
malignity was abated and dispersed; the disease alternately
languished and revived; but it was not till the end of a
calamitous period of fifty-two years, that mankind recovered
their health, or the air resumed its pure and salubrious quality.

No facts have been preserved to sustain an account, or even a
conjecture, of the numbers that perished in this extraordinary
mortality. I only find, that during three months, five, and at
length ten, thousand persons died each day at Constantinople;
that many cities of the East were left vacant, and that in
several districts of Italy the harvest and the vintage withered
on the ground. The triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine,
afflicted the subjects of Justinian; and his reign is disgraced
by the visible decrease of the human species, which has never
been repaired in some of the fairest countries of the globe. 95

93 (return) [ Mead proves that the plague is contagious from
Thucydides, Lacretius, Aristotle, Galen, and common experience,
(p. 10—20;) and he refutes (Preface, p. 2—13) the contrary
opinion of the French physicians who visited Marseilles in the
year 1720. Yet these were the recent and enlightened spectators
of a plague which, in a few months, swept away 50,000 inhabitants
(sur le Peste de Marseille, Paris, 1786) of a city that, in the
present hour of prosperity and trade contains no more then 90,000
souls, (Necker, sur les Finances, tom. i. p. 231.)]

94 (return) [ The strong assertions of Procopius are overthrown
by the subsequent experience of Evagrius.]

95 (return) [ After some figures of rhetoric, the sands of the
sea, &c., Procopius (Anecdot. c. 18) attempts a more definite
account; that it had been exterminated under the reign of the
Imperial demon. The expression is obscure in grammar and
arithmetic and a literal interpretation would produce several
millions of millions Alemannus (p. 80) and Cousin (tom. iii. p.
178) translate this passage, “two hundred millions:” but I am
ignorant of their motives. The remaining myriad of myriads, would
furnish one hundred millions, a number not wholly inadmissible.]