[Footnote *: See the character of Anastasius in Joannes Lydus de
Magistratibus, iii. c. 45, 46, p. 230 - 232. His economy is
there said to have degenerated into parsimony. He is accused of
having taken away the levying of taxes and payment of the troops
from the municipal authorities, (the decurionate) in the Eastern
cities, and intrusted it to an extortionate officer named Mannus.
But he admits that the imperial revenue was enormously increased
by this measure. A statue of iron had been erected to Anastasius
in the Hippodrome, on which appeared one morning this pasquinade.
This epigram is also found in the Anthology. Jacobs, vol.
iv. p. 114 with some better readings.
This iron statue meetly do we place To thee, world-wasting king,
than brass more base; For all the death, the penury, famine, woe,
That from thy wide-destroying avarice flow, This fell Charybdis,
Scylla, near to thee, This fierce devouring Anastasius, see; And
tremble, Scylla! on thee, too, his greed, Coining thy brazen
deity, may feed.
But Lydus, with no uncommon inconsistency in such writers,
proceeds to paint the character of Anastasius as endowed with
almost every virtue, not excepting the utmost liberality. He was
only prevented by death from relieving his subjects altogether
from the capitation tax, which he greatly diminished. - M.]
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