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The emperor Justinian was born (1) near the ruins of Sardica,
(the modern Sophia,) of an obscure race (2) of Barbarians, (3)
the inhabitants of a wild and desolate country, to which the
names of Dardania, of Dacia, and of Bulgaria, have been
successively applied. His elevation was prepared by the
adventurous spirit of his uncle Justin, who, with two other
peasants of the same village, deserted, for the profession
of arms, the more useful employment of husbandmen or
shepherds. (4) On foot, with a scanty provision of biscuit in
their knapsacks, the three youths followed the high road of
Constantinople, and were soon enrolled, for their strength
and stature, among the guards of the emperor Leo. Under the
two succeeding reigns, the fortunate peasant emerged to
wealth and honors; and his escape from some dangers which
threatened his life was afterwards ascribed to the guardian
angel who watches over the fate of kings. His long and
laudable service in the Isaurian and Persian wars would not
have preserved from oblivion the name of Justin; yet they
might warrant the military promotion, which in the course of
fifty years he gradually obtained; the rank of tribune, of
count, and of general; the dignity of senator, and the
command of the guards, who obeyed him as their chief, at the
important crisis when the emperor Anastasius was removed
from the world. The powerful kinsmen whom he had raised and
enriched were excluded from the throne; and the eunuch
Amantius, who reigned in the palace, had secretly resolved
to fix the diadem on the head of the most obsequious of his
creatures. A liberal donative, to conciliate the suffrage
of the guards, was intrusted for that purpose in the hands
of their commander. But these weighty arguments were
treacherously employed by Justin in his own favor; and as no
competitor presumed to appear, the Dacian peasant was
invested with the purple by the unanimous consent of the
soldiers, who knew him to be brave and gentle, of the clergy
and people, who believed him to be orthodox, and of the
provincials, who yielded a blind and implicit submission to
the will of the capital. The elder Justin, as he is
distinguished from another emperor of the same family and
name, ascended the Byzantine throne at the age of
sixty-eight years; and, had he been left to his own
guidance, every moment of a nine years' reign must have
exposed to his subjects the impropriety of their choice.
His ignorance was similar to that of Theodoric; and it is
remarkable that in an age not destitute of learning, two
contemporary monarchs had never been instructed in the
knowledge of the alphabet. (A) But the genius of Justin was
far inferior to that of the Gothic king: the experience of a
soldier had not qualified him for the government of an
empire; and though personally brave, the consciousness of
his own weakness was naturally attended with doubt,
distrust, and political apprehension. But the official
business of the state was diligently and faithfully
transacted by the quaestor Proclus; (5) and the aged emperor
adopted the talents and ambition of his nephew Justinian, an
aspiring youth, whom his uncle had drawn from the rustic
solitude of Dacia, and educated at Constantinople, as the
heir of his private fortune, and at length of the Eastern
empire.
Since the eunuch Amantius had been defrauded of his money,
it became necessary to deprive him of his life. The task
was easily accomplished by the charge of a real or
fictitious conspiracy; and the judges were informed, as an
accumulation of guilt, that he was secretly addicted to the
Manichaean heresy. (6) Amantius lost his head; three of his
companions, the first domestics of the palace, were punished
either with death or exile; and their unfortunate candidate
for the purple was cast into a deep dungeon, overwhelmed
with stones, and ignominiously thrown, without burial, into
the sea. The ruin of Vitalian was a work of more difficulty
and danger. That Gothic chief had rendered himself popular
by the civil war which he boldly waged against Anastasius
for the defence of the orthodox faith, and after the
conclusion of an advantageous treaty, he still remained in
the neighborhood of Constantinople at the head of a
formidable and victorious army of Barbarians. By the frail
security of oaths, he was tempted to relinquish this
advantageous situation, and to trust his person within the
walls of a city, whose inhabitants, particularly the blue
faction, were artfully incensed against him by the
remembrance even of his pious hostilities. The emperor and
his nephew embraced him as the faithful and worthy champion
of the church and state; and gratefully adorned their
favorite with the titles of consul and general; but in the
seventh month of his consulship, Vitalian was stabbed with
seventeen wounds at the royal banquet; (7) and Justinian, who
inherited the spoil, was accused as the assassin of a
spiritual brother, to whom he had recently pledged his faith
in the participation of the Christian mysteries. (8) After
the fall of his rival, he was promoted, without any claim of
military service, to the office of master-general of the
Eastern armies, whom it was his duty to lead into the field
against the public enemy. But, in the pursuit of fame,
Justinian might have lost his present dominion over the age
and weakness of his uncle; and instead of acquiring by
Scythian or Persian trophies the applause of his countrymen,
(9) the prudent warrior solicited their favor in the
churches, the circus, and the senate, of Constantinople. The
Catholics were attached to the nephew of Justin, who,
between the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies, trod the
narrow path of inflexible and intolerant orthodoxy. (10) In
the first days of the new reign, he prompted and gratified
the popular enthusiasm against the memory of the deceased
emperor. After a schism of thirty-four years, he reconciled
the proud and angry spirit of the Roman pontiff, and spread
among the Latins a favorable report of his pious respect for
the apostolic see. The thrones of the East were filled with
Catholic bishops, devoted to his interest, the clergy and
the monks were gained by his liberality, and the people were
taught to pray for their future sovereign, the hope and
pillar of the true religion. The magnificence of Justinian
was displayed in the superior pomp of his public spectacles,
an object not less sacred and important in the eyes of the
multitude than the creed of Nice or Chalcedon: the expense
of his consulship was esteemed at two hundred and
twenty-eight thousand pieces of gold; twenty lions, and
thirty leopards, were produced at the same time in the
amphitheatre, and a numerous train of horses, with their
rich trappings, was bestowed as an extraordinary gift on the
victorious charioteers of the circus. While he indulged the
people of Constantinople, and received the addresses of
foreign kings, the nephew of Justin assiduously cultivated
the friendship of the senate. That venerable name seemed to
qualify its members to declare the sense of the nation, and
to regulate the succession of the Imperial throne: the
feeble Anastasius had permitted the vigor of government to
degenerate into the form or substance of an aristocracy; and
the military officers who had obtained the senatorial rank
were followed by their domestic guards, a band of veterans,
whose arms or acclamations might fix in a tumultuous moment
the diadem of the East. The treasures of the state were
lavished to procure the voices of the senators, and their
unanimous wish, that he would be pleased to adopt Justinian
for his colleague, was communicated to the emperor. But
this request, which too clearly admonished him of his
approaching end, was unwelcome to the jealous temper of an
aged monarch, desirous to retain the power which he was
incapable of exercising; and Justin, holding his purple with
both his hands, advised them to prefer, since an election
was so profitable, some older candidate. Not withstanding
this reproach, the senate proceeded to decorate Justinian
with the royal epithet of nobilissimus; and their decree was
ratified by the affection or the fears of his uncle. After
some time the languor of mind and body, to which he was
reduced by an incurable wound in his thigh, indispensably
required the aid of a guardian. He summoned the patriarch
and senators; and in their presence solemnly placed the
diadem on the head of his nephew, who was conducted from the
palace to the circus, and saluted by the loud and joyful
applause of the people. The life of Justin was prolonged
about four months; but from the instant of this ceremony, he
was considered as dead to the empire, which acknowledged
Justinian, in the forty-fifth year of his age, for the
lawful sovereign of the East. (11)
From his elevation to his death, Justinian governed the
Roman empire thirty-eight years, seven months, and thirteen
days. The events of his reign, which excite our curious
attention by their number, variety, and importance, are
diligently related by the secretary of Belisarius, a
rhetorician, whom eloquence had promoted to the rank of
senator and praefect of Constantinople. According to the
vicissitudes of courage or servitude, of favor or disgrace,
Procopius (12) successively composed the history, the
panegyric, and the satire of his own times. The eight books
of the Persian, Vandalic, and Gothic wars, (13) which are
continued in the five books of Agathias, deserve our esteem
as a laborious and successful imitation of the Attic, or at
least of the Asiatic, writers of ancient Greece. His facts
are collected from the personal experience and free
conversation of a soldier, a statesman, and a traveller; his
style continually aspires, and often attains, to the merit
of strength and elegance; his reflections, more especially
in the speeches, which he too frequently inserts, contain a
rich fund of political knowledge; and the historian, excited
by the generous ambition of pleasing and instructing
posterity, appears to disdain the prejudices of the people,
and the flattery of courts. The writings of Procopius (14)
were read and applauded by his contemporaries: (15) but,
although he respectfully laid them at the foot of the
throne, the pride of Justinian must have been wounded by the
praise of a hero, who perpetually eclipses the glory of his
inactive sovereign. The conscious dignity of independence
was subdued by the hopes and fears of a slave; and the
secretary of Belisarius labored for pardon and reward in the
six books of the Imperial edifices. He had dexterously
chosen a subject of apparent splendor, in which he could
loudly celebrate the genius, the magnificence, and the piety
of a prince, who, both as a conqueror and legislator, had
surpassed the puerile virtues of Themistocles and Cyrus. (16)
Disappointment might urge the flatterer to secret revenge;
and the first glance of favor might again tempt him to
suspend and suppress a libel, (17) in which the Roman Cyrus
is degraded into an odious and contemptible tyrant, in which
both the emperor and his consort Theodora are seriously
represented as two daemons, who had assumed a human form for
the destruction of mankind. (18) Such base inconsistency must
doubtless sully the reputation, and detract from the credit,
of Procopius: yet, after the venom of his malignity has been
suffered to exhale, the residue of the anecdotes, even the
most disgraceful facts, some of which had been tenderly
hinted in his public history, are established by their
internal evidence, or the authentic monuments of the times.
(19) (B) From these various materials, I shall now proceed to
describe the reign of Justinian, which will deserve and
occupy an ample space. The present chapter will explain the
elevation and character of Theodora, the factions of the
circus, and the peaceful administration of the sovereign of
the East. In the three succeeding chapters, I shall relate
the wars of Justinian, which achieved the conquest of Africa
and Italy; and I shall follow the victories of Belisarius
and Narses, without disguising the vanity of their triumphs,
or the hostile virtue of the Persian and Gothic heroes. The
series of this and the following volume will embrace the
jurisprudence and theology of the emperor; the controversies
and sects which still divide the Oriental church; the
reformation of the Roman law which is obeyed or respected by
the nations of modern Europe.
I. In the exercise of supreme power, the first act of
Justinian was to divide it with the woman whom he loved, the
famous Theodora, (20) whose strange elevation cannot be
applauded as the triumph of female virtue. Under the reign
of Anastasius, the care of the wild beasts maintained by the
green faction at Constantinople was intrusted to Acacius, a
native of the Isle of Cyprus, who, from his employment, was
surnamed the master of the bears. This honorable office was
given after his death to another candidate, notwithstanding
the diligence of his widow, who had already provided a
husband and a successor. Acacius had left three daughters,
Comito, (21) Theodora, and Anastasia, the eldest of whom did
not then exceed the age of seven years. On a solemn
festival, these helpless orphans were sent by their
distressed and indignant mother, in the garb of suppliants,
into the midst of the theatre: the green faction received
them with contempt, the blues with compassion; and this
difference, which sunk deep into the mind of Theodora, was
felt long afterwards in the administration of the empire.
As they improved in age and beauty, the three sisters were
successively devoted to the public and private pleasures of
the Byzantine people: and Theodora, after following Comito
on the stage, in the dress of a slave, with a stool on her
head, was at length permitted to exercise her independent
talents. She neither danced, nor sung, nor played on the
flute; her skill was confined to the pantomime arts; she
excelled in buffoon characters, and as often as the comedian
swelled her cheeks, and complained with a ridiculous tone
and gesture of the blows that were inflicted, the whole
theatre of Constantinople resounded with laughter and
applause. The beauty of Theodora (22) was the subject of
more flattering praise, and the source of more exquisite
delight. Her features were delicate and regular; her
complexion, though somewhat pale, was tinged with a natural
color; every sensation was instantly expressed by the
vivacity of her eyes; her easy motions displayed the graces
of a small but elegant figure; and either love or adulation
might proclaim, that painting and poetry were incapable of
delineating the matchless excellence of her form. But this
form was degraded by the facility with which it was exposed
to the public eye, and prostituted to licentious desire.
Her venal charms were abandoned to a promiscuous crowd of
citizens and strangers of every rank, and of every
profession: the fortunate lover who had been promised a
night of enjoyment, was often driven from her bed by a
stronger or more wealthy favorite; and when she passed
through the streets, her presence was avoided by all who
wished to escape either the scandal or the temptation. The
satirical historian has not blushed (23) to describe the
naked scenes which Theodora was not ashamed to exhibit in
the theatre. (24) After exhausting the arts of sensual
pleasure, (25) she most ungratefully murmured against the
parsimony of Nature; (26) but her murmurs, her pleasures, and
her arts, must be veiled in the obscurity of a learned
language. After reigning for some time, the delight and
contempt of the capital, she condescended to accompany
Ecebolus, a native of Tyre, who had obtained the government
of the African Pentapolis. But this union was frail and
transient; Ecebolus soon rejected an expensive or faithless
concubine; she was reduced at Alexandria to extreme
distress; and in her laborious return to Constantinople,
every city of the East admired and enjoyed the fair Cyprian,
whose merit appeared to justify her descent from the
peculiar island of Venus. The vague commerce of Theodora,
and the most detestable precautions, preserved her from the
danger which she feared; yet once, and once only, she became
a mother. The infant was saved and educated in Arabia, by
his father, who imparted to him on his death-bed, that he
was the son of an empress. Filled with ambitious hopes, the
unsuspecting youth immediately hastened to the palace of
Constantinople, and was admitted to the presence of his
mother. As he was never more seen, even after the decease
of Theodora, she deserves the foul imputation of
extinguishing with his life a secret so offensive to her
Imperial virtue.
In the most abject state of her fortune, and reputation,
some vision, either of sleep or of fancy, had whispered to
Theodora the pleasing assurance that she was destined to
become the spouse of a potent monarch. Conscious of her
approaching greatness, she returned from Paphlagonia to
Constantinople; assumed, like a skilful actress, a more
decent character; relieved her poverty by the laudable
industry of spinning wool; and affected a life of chastity
and solitude in a small house, which she afterwards changed
into a magnificent temple. (27) Her beauty, assisted by art
or accident, soon attracted, captivated, and fixed, the
patrician Justinian, who already reigned with absolute sway
under the name of his uncle. Perhaps she contrived to
enhance the value of a gift which she had so often lavished
on the meanest of mankind; perhaps she inflamed, at first by
modest delays, and at last by sensual allurements, the
desires of a lover, who, from nature or devotion, was
addicted to long vigils and abstemious diet. When his first
transports had subsided, she still maintained the same
ascendant over his mind, by the more solid merit of temper
and understanding. Justinian delighted to ennoble and
enrich the object of his affection; the treasures of the
East were poured at her feet, and the nephew of Justin was
determined, perhaps by religious scruples, to bestow on his
concubine the sacred and legal character of a wife. But the
laws of Rome expressly prohibited the marriage of a senator
with any female who had been dishonored by a servile origin
or theatrical profession: the empress Lupicina, or Euphemia,
a Barbarian of rustic manners, but of irreproachable virtue,
refused to accept a prostitute for her niece; and even
Vigilantia, the superstitious mother of Justinian, though
she acknowledged the wit and beauty of Theodora, was
seriously apprehensive, lest the levity and arrogance of
that artful paramour might corrupt the piety and happiness
of her son. These obstacles were removed by the inflexible
constancy of Justinian. He patiently expected the death of
the empress; he despised the tears of his mother, who soon
sunk under the weight of her affliction; and a law was
promulgated in the name of the emperor Justin, which
abolished the rigid jurisprudence of antiquity. A glorious
repentance (the words of the edict) was left open for the
unhappy females who had prostituted their persons on the
theatre, and they were permitted to contract a legal union
with the most illustrious of the Romans. (28) This indulgence
was speedily followed by the solemn nuptials of Justinian
and Theodora; her dignity was gradually exalted with that of
her lover, and, as soon as Justin had invested his nephew
with the purple, the patriarch of Constantinople placed the
diadem on the heads of the emperor and empress of the East.
But the usual honors which the severity of Roman manners had
allowed to the wives of princes, could not satisfy either
the ambition of Theodora or the fondness of Justinian. He
seated her on the throne as an equal and independent
colleague in the sovereignty of the empire, and an oath of
allegiance was imposed on the governors of the provinces in
the joint names of Justinian and Theodora. (29) The Eastern
world fell prostrate before the genius and fortune of the
daughter of Acacius. The prostitute who, in the presence of
innumerable spectators, had polluted the theatre of
Constantinople, was adored as a queen in the same city, by
grave magistrates, orthodox bishops, victorious generals,
and captive monarchs. (30)
Those who believe that the female mind is totally depraved
by the loss of chastity, will eagerly listen to all the
invectives of private envy, or popular resentment which have
dissembled the virtues of Theodora, exaggerated her vices,
and condemned with rigor the venal or voluntary sins of the
youthful harlot. From a motive of shame, or contempt, she
often declined the servile homage of the multitude, escaped
from the odious light of the capital, and passed the
greatest part of the year in the palaces and gardens which
were pleasantly seated on the sea-coast of the Propontis and
the Bosphorus. Her private hours were devoted to the
prudent as well as grateful care of her beauty, the luxury
of the bath and table, and the long slumber of the evening
and the morning. Her secret apartments were occupied by the
favorite women and eunuchs, whose interests and passions she
indulged at the expense of justice; the most illustrious
person ages of the state were crowded into a dark and sultry
antechamber, and when at last, after tedious attendance,
they were admitted to kiss the feet of Theodora, they
experienced, as her humor might suggest, the silent
arrogance of an empress, or the capricious levity of a
comedian. Her rapacious avarice to accumulate an immense
treasure, may be excused by the apprehension of her
husband's death, which could leave no alternative between
ruin and the throne; and fear as well as ambition might
exasperate Theodora against two generals, who, during the
malady of the emperor, had rashly declared that they were
not disposed to acquiesce in the choice of the capital. But
the reproach of cruelty, so repugnant even to her softer
vices, has left an indelible stain on the memory of
Theodora. Her numerous spies observed, and zealously
reported, every action, or word, or look, injurious to their
royal mistress. Whomsoever they accused were cast into her
peculiar prisons, (31) inaccessible to the inquiries of
justice; and it was rumored, that the torture of the rack,
or scourge, had been inflicted in the presence of the female
tyrant, insensible to the voice of prayer or of pity. (32)
Some of these unhappy victims perished in deep, unwholesome
dungeons, while others were permitted, after the loss of
their limbs, their reason, or their fortunes, to appear in
the world, the living monuments of her vengeance, which was
commonly extended to the children of those whom she had
suspected or injured. The senator or bishop, whose death or
exile Theodora had pronounced, was delivered to a trusty
messenger, and his diligence was quickened by a menace from
her own mouth. "If you fail in the execution of my
commands, I swear by Him who liveth forever, that your skin
shall be flayed from your body." (33)
If the creed of Theodora had not been tainted with heresy,
her exemplary devotion might have atoned, in the opinion of
her contemporaries, for pride, avarice, and cruelty. But,
if she employed her influence to assuage the intolerant fury
of the emperor, the present age will allow some merit to her
religion, and much indulgence to her speculative errors. (34)
The name of Theodora was introduced, with equal honor, in
all the pious and charitable foundations of Justinian; and
the most benevolent institution of his reign may be ascribed
to the sympathy of the empress for her less fortunate
sisters, who had been seduced or compelled to embrace the
trade of prostitution. A palace, on the Asiatic side of the
Bosphorus, was converted into a stately and spacious
monastery, and a liberal maintenance was assigned to five
hundred women, who had been collected from the streets and
brothels of Constantinople. In this safe and holy retreat,
they were devoted to perpetual confinement; and the despair
of some, who threw themselves headlong into the sea, was
lost in the gratitude of the penitents, who had been
delivered from sin and misery by their generous
benefactress. (35) The prudence of Theodora is celebrated by
Justinian himself; and his laws are attributed to the sage
counsels of his most reverend wife whom he had received as
the gift of the Deity. (36) Her courage was displayed amidst
the tumult of the people and the terrors of the court. Her
chastity, from the moment of her union with Justinian, is
founded on the silence of her implacable enemies; and
although the daughter of Acacius might be satiated with
love, yet some applause is due to the firmness of a mind
which could sacrifice pleasure and habit to the stronger
sense either of duty or interest. The wishes and prayers of
Theodora could never obtain the blessing of a lawful son,
and she buried an infant daughter, the sole offspring of her
marriage. (37) Notwithstanding this disappointment, her
dominion was permanent and absolute; she preserved, by art
or merit, the affections of Justinian; and their seeming
dissensions were always fatal to the courtiers who believed
them to be sincere. Perhaps her health had been impaired by
the licentiousness of her youth; but it was always delicate,
and she was directed by her physicians to use the Pythian
warm baths. In this journey, the empress was followed by
the Praetorian praefect, the great treasurer, several counts
and patricians, and a splendid train of four thousand
attendants: the highways were repaired at her approach; a
palace was erected for her reception; and as she passed
through Bithynia, she distributed liberal alms to the
churches, the monasteries, and the hospitals, that they
might implore Heaven for the restoration of her health. (38)
At length, in the twenty-fourth year of her marriage, and
the twenty-second of her reign, she was consumed by a
cancer; (39) and the irreparable loss was deplored by her
husband, who, in the room of a theatrical prostitute, might
have selected the purest and most noble virgin of the East.
(40)
II. A material difference may be observed in the games of
antiquity: the most eminent of the Greeks were actors, the
Romans were merely spectators. The Olympic stadium was open
to wealth, merit, and ambition; and if the candidates could
depend on their personal skill and activity, they might
pursue the footsteps of Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct
their own horses in the rapid career. (41) Ten, twenty, forty
chariots were allowed to start at the same instant; a crown
of leaves was the reward of the victor; and his fame, with
that of his family and country, was chanted in lyric strains
more durable than monuments of brass and marble. But a
senator, or even a citizen, conscious of his dignity, would
have blushed to expose his person, or his horses, in the
circus of Rome. The games were exhibited at the expense of
the republic, the magistrates, or the emperors: but the
reins were abandoned to servile hands; and if the profits of
a favorite charioteer sometimes exceeded those of an
advocate, they must be considered as the effects of popular
extravagance, and the high wages of a disgraceful
profession. The race, in its first institution, was a
simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were
distinguished by white and red liveries: two additional
colors, a light green, and a caerulean blue, were afterwards
introduced; and as the races were repeated twenty-five
times, one hundred chariots contributed in the same day to
the pomp of the circus. The four factions soon acquired a
legal establishment, and a mysterious origin, and their
fanciful colors were derived from the various appearances of
nature in the four seasons of the year; the red dogstar of
summer, the snows of winter, the deep shades of autumn, and
the cheerful verdure of the spring. (42) Another
interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons, and
the struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent
the conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective
victories announced either a plentiful harvest or a
prosperous navigation, and the hostility of the husbandmen
and mariners was somewhat less absurd than the blind ardor
of the Roman people, who devoted their lives and fortunes to
the color which they had espoused. Such folly was disdained
and indulged by the wisest princes; but the names of
Caligula, Nero, Vitellius, Verus, Commodus, Caracalla, and
Elagabalus, were enrolled in the blue or green factions of
the circus; they frequented their stables, applauded their
favorites, chastised their antagonists, and deserved the
esteem of the populace, by the natural or affected imitation
of their manners. The bloody and tumultuous contest
continued to disturb the public festivity, till the last age
of the spectacles of Rome; and Theodoric, from a motive of
justice or affection, interposed his authority to protect
the greens against the violence of a consul and a patrician,
who were passionately addicted to the blue faction of the
circus. (43)
Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues,
of ancient Rome; and the same factions which had agitated
the circus, raged with redoubled fury in the hippodrome.
Under the reign of Anastasius, this popular frenzy was
inflamed by religious zeal; and the greens, who had
treacherously concealed stones and daggers under baskets of
fruit, massacred, at a solemn festival, three thousand of
their blue adversaries. (44) From this capital, the
pestilence was diffused into the provinces and cities of the
East, and the sportive distinction of two colors produced
two strong and irreconcilable factions, which shook the
foundations of a feeble government. (45) The popular
dissensions, founded on the most serious interest, or holy
pretence, have scarcely equalled the obstinacy of this
wanton discord, which invaded the peace of families, divided
friends and brothers, and tempted the female sex, though
seldom seen in the circus, to espouse the inclinations of
their lovers, or to contradict the wishes of their husbands.
Every law, either human or divine, was trampled under foot,
and as long as the party was successful, its deluded
followers appeared careless of private distress or public
calamity. The license, without the freedom, of democracy,
was revived at Antioch and Constantinople, and the support
of a faction became necessary to every candidate for civil
or ecclesiastical honors. A secret attachment to the family
or sect of Anastasius was imputed to the greens; the blues
were zealously devoted to the cause of orthodoxy and
Justinian, (46) and their grateful patron protected, above
five years, the disorders of a faction, whose seasonable
tumults overawed the palace, the senate, and the capitals of
the East. Insolent with royal favor, the blues affected to
strike terror by a peculiar and Barbaric dress, the long
hair of the Huns, their close sleeves and ample garments, a
lofty step, and a sonorous voice. In the day they concealed
their two-edged poniards, but in the night they boldly
assembled in arms, and in numerous bands, prepared for every
act of violence and rapine. Their adversaries of the green
faction, or even inoffensive citizens, were stripped and
often murdered by these nocturnal robbers, and it became
dangerous to wear any gold buttons or girdles, or to appear
at a late hour in the streets of a peaceful capital. A
daring spirit, rising with impunity, proceeded to violate
the safeguard of private houses; and fire was employed to
facilitate the attack, or to conceal the crimes of these
factious rioters. No place was safe or sacred from their
depredations; to gratify either avarice or revenge, they
profusely spilt the blood of the innocent; churches and
altars were polluted by atrocious murders; and it was the
boast of the assassins, that their dexterity could always
inflict a mortal wound with a single stroke of their dagger.
The dissolute youth of Constantinople adopted the blue
livery of disorder; the laws were silent, and the bonds of
society were relaxed: creditors were compelled to resign
their obligations; judges to reverse their sentence; masters
to enfranchise their slaves; fathers to supply the
extravagance of their children; noble matrons were
prostituted to the lust of their servants; beautiful boys
were torn from the arms of their parents; and wives, unless
they preferred a voluntary death, were ravished in the
presence of their husbands. (47) The despair of the greens,
who were persecuted by their enemies, and deserted by the
magistrates, assumed the privilege of defence, perhaps of
retaliation; but those who survived the combat were dragged
to execution, and the unhappy fugitives, escaping to woods
and caverns, preyed without mercy on the society from whence
they were expelled. Those ministers of justice who had
courage to punish the crimes, and to brave the resentment,
of the blues, became the victims of their indiscreet zeal; a
praefect of Constantinople fled for refuge to the holy
sepulchre, a count of the East was ignominiously whipped,
and a governor of Cilicia was hanged, by the order of
Theodora, on the tomb of two assassins whom he had condemned
for the murder of his groom, and a daring attack upon his
own life. (48) An aspiring candidate may be tempted to build
his greatness on the public confusion, but it is the
interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the
authority of the laws. The first edict of Justinian, which
was often repeated, and sometimes executed, announced his
firm resolution to support the innocent, and to chastise the
guilty, of every denomination and color. Yet the balance of
justice was still inclined in favor of the blue faction, by
the secret affection, the habits, and the fears of the
emperor; his equity, after an apparent struggle, submitted,
without reluctance, to the implacable passions of Theodora,
and the empress never forgot, or forgave, the injuries of
the comedian. At the accession of the younger Justin, the
proclamation of equal and rigorous justice indirectly
condemned the partiality of the former reign. "Ye blues,
Justinian is no more! ye greens, he is still alive!" (49)
A sedition, which almost laid Constantinople in ashes, was
excited by the mutual hatred and momentary reconciliation of
the two factions. In the fifth year of his reign, Justinian
celebrated the festival of the ides of January; the games
were incessantly disturbed by the clamorous discontent of
the greens: till the twenty-second race, the emperor
maintained his silent gravity; at length, yielding to his
impatience, he condescended to hold, in abrupt sentences,
and by the voice of a crier, the most singular dialogue (50)
that ever passed between a prince and his subjects. Their
first complaints were respectful and modest; they accused
the subordinate ministers of oppression, and proclaimed
their wishes for the long life and victory of the emperor.
"Be patient and attentive, ye insolent railers!" exclaimed
Justinian; "be mute, ye Jews, Samaritans, and Manichaeans!"
The greens still attempted to awaken his compassion. "We
are poor, we are innocent, we are injured, we dare not pass
through the streets: a general persecution is exercised
against our name and color. Let us die, O emperor! but let
us die by your command, and for your service!" But the
repetition of partial and passionate invectives degraded, in
their eyes, the majesty of the purple; they renounced
allegiance to the prince who refused justice to his people;
lamented that the father of Justinian had been born; and
branded his son with the opprobrious names of a homicide, an
ass, and a perjured tyrant. "Do you despise your lives?"
cried the indignant monarch: the blues rose with fury from
their seats; their hostile clamors thundered in the
hippodrome; and their adversaries, deserting the unequal
contest spread terror and despair through the streets of
Constantinople. At this dangerous moment, seven notorious
assassins of both factions, who had been condemned by the
praefect, were carried round the city, and afterwards
transported to the place of execution in the suburb of Pera.
Four were immediately beheaded; a fifth was hanged: but when
the same punishment was inflicted on the remaining two, the
rope broke, they fell alive to the ground, the populace
applauded their escape, and the monks of St. Conon, issuing
from the neighboring convent, conveyed them in a boat to the
sanctuary of the church. (51) As one of these criminals was
of the blue, and the other of the green livery, the two
factions were equally provoked by the cruelty of their
oppressor, or the ingratitude of their patron; and a short
truce was concluded till they had delivered their prisoners
and satisfied their revenge. The palace of the praefect,
who withstood the seditious torrent, was instantly burnt,
his officers and guards were massacred, the prisons were
forced open, and freedom was restored to those who could
only use it for the public destruction. A military force,
which had been despatched to the aid of the civil
magistrate, was fiercely encountered by an armed multitude,
whose numbers and boldness continually increased; and the
Heruli, the wildest Barbarians in the service of the empire,
overturned the priests and their relics, which, from a pious
motive, had been rashly interposed to separate the bloody
conflict. The tumult was exasperated by this sacrilege, the
people fought with enthusiasm in the cause of God; the
women, from the roofs and windows, showered stones on the
heads of the soldiers, who darted fire brands against the
houses; and the various flames, which had been kindled by
the hands of citizens and strangers, spread without control
over the face of the city. The conflagration involved the
cathedral of St. Sophia, the baths of Zeuxippus, a part of
the palace, from the first entrance to the altar of Mars,
and the long portico from the palace to the forum of
Constantine: a large hospital, with the sick patients, was
consumed; many churches and stately edifices were destroyed
and an immense treasure of gold and silver was either melted
or lost. From such scenes of horror and distress, the wise
and wealthy citizens escaped over the Bosphorus to the
Asiatic side; and during five days Constantinople was
abandoned to the factions, whose watchword, Nika, vanquish!
has given a name to this memorable sedition. (52)
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
praefect, 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)
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 Phoenicians 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)
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) (C) 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 Phoenician 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)
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 Phoenicians, 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)
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) (D) 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)
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. (E) 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)
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 praefect; 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, (F) 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)
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 praefect, 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)
(G) 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, (H) 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
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. (I) 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 praefect; 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 praefect 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 praefect 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 praefect was diligently
copied by the quaestor, the public and private treasurer,
the governors of provinces, and the principal magistrates of
the Eastern empire. (94)
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)
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 mosch, 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 and 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!
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)
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 praefect,
whose jurisdiction extended over seven warlike provinces of
Illyricum; (113) and the corrupt apellation 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)
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)
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 Cha daeans
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.
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, (J) in his
expedition against the Nepthalites, (K) 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 (L) 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. (M)! 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; (N)!! 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 (O) 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. (P)
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) (Q) 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)
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.
Athens, after her Persian triumphs, adopted the philosophy
of Ionia and the rhetoric of Sicily; and these studies
became the patrimony of a city, whose inhabitants, about
thirty thousand males, condensed, within the period of a
single life, the genius of ages and millions. Our sense of
the dignity of human nature is exalted by the simple
recollection, that Isocrates (143) was the companion of Plato
and Xenophon; that he assisted, perhaps with the historian
Thucydides, at the first representation of the Oedipus of
Sophocles and the Iphigenia of Euripides; and that his
pupils Aeschines and Demosthenes contended for the crown of
patriotism in the presence of Aristotle, the master of
Theophrastus, who taught at Athens with the founders of the
Stoic and Epicurean sects. (144) The ingenuous youth of
Attica enjoyed the benefits of their domestic education,
which was communicated without envy to the rival cities.
Two thousand disciples heard the lessons of Theophrastus;
(145) the schools of rhetoric must have been still more
populous than those of philosophy; and a rapid succession of
students diffused the fame of their teachers as far as the
utmost limits of the Grecian language and name. Those limits
were enlarged by the victories of Alexander; the arts of
Athens survived her freedom and dominion; and the Greek
colonies which the Macedonians planted in Egypt, and
scattered over Asia, undertook long and frequent pilgrimages
to worship the Muses in their favorite temple on the banks
of the Ilissus. The Latin conquerors respectfully listened
to the instructions of their subjects and captives; the
names of Cicero and Horace were enrolled in the schools of
Athens; and after the perfect settlement of the Roman
empire, the natives of Italy, of Africa, and of Britain,
conversed in the groves of the academy with their
fellow-students of the East. The studies of philosophy and
eloquence are congenial to a popular state, which encourages
the freedom of inquiry, and submits only to the force of
persuasion. In the republics of Greece and Rome, the art of
speaking was the powerful engine of patriotism or ambition;
and the schools of rhetoric poured forth a colony of
statesmen and legislators. When the liberty of public debate
was suppressed, the orator, in the honorable profession of
an advocate, might plead the cause of innocence and justice;
he might abuse his talents in the more profitable trade of
panegyric; and the same precepts continued to dictate the
fanciful declamations of the sophist, and the chaster
beauties of historical composition. The systems which
professed to unfold the nature of God, of man, and of the
universe, entertained the curiosity of the philosophic
student; and according to the temper of his mind, he might
doubt with the Sceptics, or decide with the Stoics,
sublimely speculate with Plato, or severely argue with
Aristotle. The pride of the adverse sects had fixed an
unattainable term of moral happiness and perfection; but the
race was glorious and salutary; the disciples of Zeno, and
even those of Epicurus, were taught both to act and to
suffer; and the death of Petronius was not less effectual
than that of Seneca, to humble a tyrant by the discovery of
his impotence. The light of science could not indeed be
confined within the walls of Athens. Her incomparable
writers address themselves to the human race; the living
masters emigrated to Italy and Asia; Berytus, in later
times, was devoted to the study of the law; astronomy and
physic were cultivated in the musaeum of Alexandria; but the
Attic schools of rhetoric and philosophy maintained their
superior reputation from the Peloponnesian war to the reign
of Justinian. Athens, though situate in a barren soil,
possessed a pure air, a free navigation, and the monuments
of ancient art. That sacred retirement was seldom disturbed
by the business of trade or government; and the last of the
Athenians were distinguished by their lively wit, the purity
of their taste and language, their social manners, and some
traces, at least in discourse, of the magnanimity of their
fathers. In the suburbs of the city, the academy of the
Platonists, the lycaeum of the Peripatetics, the portico of
the Stoics, and the garden of the Epicureans, were planted
with trees and decorated with statues; and the philosophers,
instead of being immured in a cloister, delivered their
instructions in spacious and pleasant walks, which, at
different hours, were consecrated to the exercises of the
mind and body. The genius of the founders still lived in
those venerable seats; the ambition of succeeding to the
masters of human reason excited a generous emulation; and
the merit of the candidates was determined, on each vacancy,
by the free voices of an enlightened people. The Athenian
professors were paid by their disciples: according to their
mutual wants and abilities, the price appears to have
varied; and Isocrates himself, who derides the avarice of
the sophists, required, in his school of rhetoric, about
thirty pounds from each of his hundred pupils. The wages of
industry are just and honorable, yet the same Isocrates shed
tears at the first receipt of a stipend: the Stoic might
blush when he was hired to preach the contempt of money; and
I should be sorry to discover that Aristotle or Plato so far
degenerated from the example of Socrates, as to exchange
knowledge for gold. But some property of lands and houses
was settled by the permission of the laws, and the legacies
of deceased friends, on the philosophic chairs of Athens.
Epicurus bequeathed to his disciples the gardens which he
had purchased for eighty minae or two hundred and fifty
pounds, with a fund sufficient for their frugal subsistence
and monthly festivals; (146) and the patrimony of Plato
afforded an annual rent, which, in eight centuries, was
gradually increased from three to one thousand pieces of
gold. (147) The schools of Athens were protected by the
wisest and most virtuous of the Roman princes. The library,
which Hadrian founded, was placed in a portico adorned with
pictures, statues, and a roof of alabaster, and supported by
one hundred columns of Phrygian marble. The public salaries
were assigned by the generous spirit of the Antonines; and
each professor of politics, of rhetoric, of the Platonic,
the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean philosophy,
received an annual stipend of ten thousand drachmae, or more
than three hundred pounds sterling. (148) After the death of
Marcus, these liberal donations, and the privileges attached
to the thrones of science, were abolished and revived,
diminished and enlarged; but some vestige of royal bounty
may be found under the successors of Constantine; and their
arbitrary choice of an unworthy candidate might tempt the
philosophers of Athens to regret the days of independence
and poverty. (149) It is remarkable, that the impartial favor
of the Antonines was bestowed on the four adverse sects of
philosophy, which they considered as equally useful, or at
least, as equally innocent. Socrates had formerly been the
glory and the reproach of his country; and the first lessons
of Epicurus so strangely scandalized the pious ears of the
Athenians, that by his exile, and that of his antagonists,
they silenced all vain disputes concerning the nature of the
gods. But in the ensuing year they recalled the hasty
decree, restored the liberty of the schools, and were
convinced by the experience of ages, that the moral
character of philosophers is not affected by the diversity
of their theological speculations. (150)
The Gothic arms were less fatal to the schools of Athens
than the establishment of a new religion, whose ministers
superseded the exercise of reason, resolved every question
by an article of faith, and condemned the infidel or sceptic
to eternal flames. In many a volume of laborious
controversy, they exposed the weakness of the understanding
and the corruption of the heart, insulted human nature in
the sages of antiquity, and proscribed the spirit of
philosophical inquiry, so repugnant to the doctrine, or at
least to the temper, of an humble believer. The surviving
sects of the Platonists, whom Plato would have blushed to
acknowledge, extravagantly mingled a sublime theory with the
practice of superstition and magic; and as they remained
alone in the midst of a Christian world, they indulged a
secret rancor against the government of the church and
state, whose severity was still suspended over their heads.
About a century after the reign of Julian, (151) Proclus (152)
was permitted to teach in the philosophic chair of the
academy; and such was his industry, that he frequently, in
the same day, pronounced five lessons, and composed seven
hundred lines. His sagacious mind explored the deepest
questions of morals and metaphysics, and he ventured to urge
eighteen arguments against the Christian doctrine of the
creation of the world. But in the intervals of study, he
personally conversed with Pan, Aesculapius, and Minerva, in
whose mysteries he was secretly initiated, and whose
prostrate statues he adored; in the devout persuasion that
the philosopher, who is a citizen of the universe, should be
the priest of its various deities. An eclipse of the sun
announced his approaching end; and his life, with that of
his scholar Isidore, (153) compiled by two of their most
learned disciples, exhibits a deplorable picture of the
second childhood of human reason. Yet the golden chain, as
it was fondly styled, of the Platonic succession, continued
forty-four years from the death of Proclus to the edict of
Justinian, (154) which imposed a perpetual silence on the
schools of Athens, and excited the grief and indignation of
the few remaining votaries of Grecian science and
superstition. Seven friends and philosophers, Diogenes and
Hermias, Eulalius and Priscian, Damascius, Isidore, and
Simplicius, who dissented from the religion of their
sovereign, embraced the resolution of seeking in a foreign
land the freedom which was denied in their native country.
They had heard, and they credulously believed, that the
republic of Plato was realized in the despotic government of
Persia, and that a patriot king reigned ever the happiest
and most virtuous of nations. They were soon astonished by
the natural discovery, that Persia resembled the other
countries of the globe; that Chosroes, who affected the name
of a philosopher, was vain, cruel, and ambitious; that
bigotry, and a spirit of intolerance, prevailed among the
Magi; that the nobles were haughty, the courtiers servile,
and the magistrates unjust; that the guilty sometimes
escaped, and that the innocent were often oppressed. The
disappointment of the philosophers provoked them to overlook
the real virtues of the Persians; and they were scandalized,
more deeply perhaps than became their profession, with the
plurality of wives and concubines, the incestuous marriages,
and the custom of exposing dead bodies to the dogs and
vultures, instead of hiding them in the earth, or consuming
them with fire. Their repentance was expressed by a
precipitate return, and they loudly declared that they had
rather die on the borders of the empire, than enjoy the
wealth and favor of the Barbarian. From this journey,
however, they derived a benefit which reflects the purest
lustre on the character of Chosroes. He required, that the
seven sages who had visited the court of Persia should be
exempted from the penal laws which Justinian enacted against
his Pagan subjects; and this privilege, expressly stipulated
in a treaty of peace, was guarded by the vigilance of a
powerful mediator. (155) Simplicius and his companions ended
their lives in peace and obscurity; and as they left no
disciples, they terminate the long list of Grecian
philosophers, who may be justly praised, notwithstanding
their defects, as the wisest and most virtuous of their
contemporaries. The writings of Simplicius are now extant.
His physical and metaphysical commentaries on Aristotle have
passed away with the fashion of the times; but his moral
interpretation of Epictetus is preserved in the library of
nations, as a classic book, most excellently adapted to
direct the will, to purify the heart, and to confirm the
understanding, by a just confidence in the nature both of
God and man.
About the same time that Pythagoras first invented the
appellation of philosopher, liberty and the consulship were
founded at Rome by the elder Brutus. The revolutions of the
consular office, which may be viewed in the successive
lights of a substance, a shadow, and a name, have been
occasionally mentioned in the present History. The first
magistrates of the republic had been chosen by the people,
to exercise, in the senate and in the camp, the powers of
peace and war, which were afterwards translated to the
emperors. But the tradition of ancient dignity was long
revered by the Romans and Barbarians. A Gothic historian
applauds the consulship of Theodoric as the height of all
temporal glory and greatness; (156) the king of Italy himself
congratulated those annual favorites of fortune who, without
the cares, enjoyed the splendor of the throne; and at the
end of a thousand years, two consuls were created by the
sovereigns of Rome and Constantinople, for the sole purpose
of giving a date to the year, and a festival to the people.
But the expenses of this festival, in which the wealthy and
the vain aspired to surpass their predecessors, insensibly
arose to the enormous sum of fourscore thousand pounds; the
wisest senators declined a useless honor, which involved the
certain ruin of their families, and to this reluctance I
should impute the frequent chasms in the last age of the
consular Fasti. The predecessors of Justinian had assisted
from the public treasures the dignity of the less opulent
candidates; the avarice of that prince preferred the cheaper
and more convenient method of advice and regulation. (157)
Seven processions or spectacles were the number to which his
edict confined the horse and chariot races, the athletic
sports, the music, and pantomimes of the theatre, and the
hunting of wild beasts; and small pieces of silver were
discreetly substituted to the gold medals, which had always
excited tumult and drunkenness, when they were scattered
with a profuse hand among the populace. Notwithstanding
these precautions, and his own example, the succession of
consuls finally ceased in the thirteenth year of Justinian,
whose despotic temper might be gratified by the silent
extinction of a title which admonished the Romans of their
ancient freedom. (158) Yet the annual consulship still lived
in the minds of the people; they fondly expected its speedy
restoration; they applauded the gracious condescension of
successive princes, by whom it was assumed in the first year
of their reign; and three centuries elapsed, after the death
of Justinian, before that obsolete dignity, which had been
suppressed by custom, could be abolished by law. (159) The
imperfect mode of distinguishing each year by the name of a
magistrate, was usefully supplied by the date of a permanent
aera: the creation of the world, according to the Septuagint
version, was adopted by the Greeks; (160) and the Latins,
since the age of Charlemagne, have computed their time from
the birth of Christ. (161)