A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

surnamed MAGNUS, or THE GREAT, emperor of CONSTANTINOPLE and ROME from A. D. 527 to 565. His descent and family connections are given in the following genealogical table:--

The date of the birth of Justinian is fixed on the 11th of May, A. D. 483, in L' Art de Vérifier les Dates (vol. i. p. 409), where the question is critically investigated. His birthplace was the village of Tauresium, in the district of Bederiana, in Dardania, where he afterwards built the splendid city of Justiniana, on the site of which stands the modern town of Kostendil. (See D'Anville, Mémoire sur deux villes qui ont porté le nom de Justiniana, in the 31 st vol. of Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.)

At an early age Justinian went to Constantinople, where his uncle Justin, who had risen to high military honours, took care of his education and advancement. During some time he lived as an hostage at the court of Theodoric, king of the East Goths. After the accession of his uncle Justin to the imperial throne, in 518, he rose to eminence, and prepared his own fortune by securing that of the emperor. Active in the destruction of the eunuch Amantius and his associates, he contrived or perpetrated the murder of Vitalian, the Goth, so famous by his rebellion against the emperor Anastasius, and who was stabbed at a banquet in the presence of Justin and Justinian. In reward for his faithful allegiance, Justinian was made commander-in-chief of the armies in Asia; but he was no warrior, and preferred remaining at Constantinople, where he canvassed the friendship of the clergy and the senators. He was advanced to the consulship in 521, and his influence became so great, that, at the suggestion of the senate, the aged emperor adopted him, and proclaimed him co-emperor, 1st of April, 527. Justin died a few months afterwards, and Justinian was crowned by the patriarch of Constantinople, together with his wife, the actress Theodora, whom he raised to the dignity of empress, in spite of the opposition of his mother and other relatives. [THEODORA.]

Justinian signalised his accession by public festivals more splendid than the Greeks had ever witnessed, and the money alone which was distributed among the people is said to have amounted to 288,000 pieces of gold. Had he not been an excellent financier, his extravagances might have impeded his operations against the enemies of the empire, against whom he was obliged to prosecute the war which had been begun by his predecessor; but lie understood thoroughly the subtle art of emptying those purses again which his liberality had filled; and if his generals were not successful against the Persians, it was not for want of money. The Huns on the northern shores of the Euxine, especially around the Palus Maeotis, or the Sea of Azof, were either subjugated or submitted voluntarily; and the Arabs, who made frequent inroads into Syria as far as Antioch, were likewise, though with more difficulty, compelled to desist from hostilities. The relations between Constantinople and Persia were of an indifferent character, and an open war broke out between the two powers, when Justinian promised to assist Tzathus, the king of the Lazi, between Pontus and the Caucasus, who came to Constantinople to implore the aid of the Romans against the Persians. In the first campaign against these hereditary enemies of Rome, the generals of Justinian, Belisarius, Cyricus, and Petrus, were defeated; but their successor, Petrus Notarius, was successful. The war was chiefly carried on in Armenia, but also on the frontiers of Syria and Mesopotamia, and lasted till 532, when, after as many defeats as victories, but without being compelled by necessity, Justinian made peace with Chosroes, the Persian king, who desisted from further hostilities on receiving an annual tribute of 440,000 pieces of gold. Justinian wished for peace with Persia, because he intended to make war against the Vandals in Africa, and to subdue, if possible, the political factions by which the empire had so often been shaken, and which had created a fearful riot in the very year that the peace was concluded with Persia. In January, 532, Justinian honoured the public feast in the hippodrome with his presence, being surrounded by vast numbers of the "Blue faction" (οἱ Βένετοι), who were adherents of the orthodox Catholic church, and, consequently, partisans of the orthodox emperor. Suddenly some of the "Green faction" (οἱ Πράσινοι), who had already made much noise, rose and complained of several grievances, especially that the emperor patronised the Blue, and showed himself too indulgent towards their riotous and dissolute conduct. They further complained of fiscal oppression and the partial administration of justice. In all these points they were perfectly right. The emperor answered them through a crier (Μανδάτωρ, the Latin Mandator), and a long dialogue ensued, which grew more and more violent on both sides, and which Theophanes gives with apparent fidelity. The Blues took the emperor's part; the quarrel came to blows, and after a short struggle within the hippodrome, the infuriated factions rushed into the streets, and soon Constantinople was filled with murder and bloodshed. The houses of the leaders of the two parties were demolished, others were set on fire; and every body being engaged either in saving their own lives or in attempting the lives of others, the flames spread from street to street, and a general conflagration consumed thousands of houses, the church of St. Sophia, a large part of the imperial palace, the baths of Zeuxippus (Alexander), the great hospital of Sampso, and a vast number of churches and public or private palaces. After five days' murder and plunder, many thousands of dead bodies covered the streets, or lay roasting among burning ruins. These riots are known by the name of the ϝίκα riots, the word ϝίκα, "be victorious," having been the war-cry of both the Blue and the Green. Unfortunately for the emperor, the two factions, after fighting against each other, perceived that the victory of neither would remove those abuses against which the Green had first risen, and they consequently formed an union, and turned their fury against such of the imperial officers as were most suspected of peculation and oppression. The chief objects of their hatred were the quaestor Tribonian, the jurist, and the praefect John, of Cappadocia; Justinian deposed them both, in order to appease the popular fury, but in vain. Hypatius and Pompeius, two nephews of the late emperor Anastasius, who were removed from the court because they were suspected of being engaged in the riots, were, apparently against their will, chosen by the populace to act as their leaders; Hypatius was proclaimed emperor, and Justinian, despairing of quelling the rebellion, prepared to fly with his treasures to Heracleia, in Thrace, none of his ministers, not even Belisarius, having succeeded in discovering any means of saving their master in this critical moment. He would have been lost but for his wife Theodora,

who exercised an extraordinary influence over him. Being present at the privy council, where the emperor declared his resolution of leaving the city, she rose, and with impressive words, sometimes reproaching and sometimes encouraging, produced a happy change in the minds of Justinian and his councillors. Narses bribed the chiefs of the Blue, and soon rekindled those hostilities between the two factions which only an extraordinary event had appeased for a moment; and, sure of the assistance of the Blue, Belisarius led a body of 3000 veterans against the hippodrome, where the Green had fortified themselves. In a dreadful carnage 30,000 of the Green were massacred within the space of one day; and IIypatius and Pompeius having been made prisoners, were led to death, with eighteen other leaders of patrician or consular rank. Thus ended one of the most terrible riots that had ever happened at Constantinople; but the power of the Green was far from being broken, and the two factions continued to make the hippodrome an occasional scene of bloodshed during the whole reign of Justinian.

Immediately after these troubles Justinian made serious preparations for a war against the Vandals. His pretext was to avenge the deposition of the aged Hilderic, the lawful king of the Vandals, and a great favourite of Justinian, on account of his orthodoxy, who had been deprived of his throne by the warrior Gelimer; but his design upon Carthage was blamed by the people, who had in mind the unhappy campaign of Basiliscus against the Vandals in A. D. 468, and still more so by most of his ministers, especially John of Cappadocia, who, however, acted from very selfish motives. [JOANNES of CAPPADOCIA.] Nor does it appear that Justinian originated the plan, which seems to have been suggested to him by Theodora and Antonina, the wife of Belisarius, and to which he was finally persuaded by this great general. This was the last contest between Rome and Carthage, but on neither side was it carried on by Romans or Carthaginians, those who boasted of the former name being Greeks and Scythian or Gothic barbarians, while the defenders of Carthage were a mixture of Germans and Slavonians, commanded by Germanic chiefs. An army of 35,000 soldiers, commanded by Belisarius, left the Bosporus in June, 533, in a fleet of 500 ships, manned by 20,000 mariners, and among the troops were several thousand archers with coats of mail, who fought on horseback, and of which Procopius gives a description which strongly resembles that of the brave Caucasians in our time. From the Bosporus the fleet made for Methone (Modon), in Messenia, where the troops were landed, and remained a short time on the shore to refresh themselves; thence they sailed round the Peloponnesus, reached Zante, and cast anchor at Caucana, about 50 miles from Syracuse, where they were well treated by the Goths--a great act of imprudence on their part -- and they finally landed on the African shore, near the promontory of Caput Vada, now Capaudia, at five days' journey south of Carthage. Gelimer, having dispatched part of his army and fleet for the conquest of Sardinia, was unable to offer any effective resistance: moreover, the aborigines of the country, and the descendants of the former Roman settlers, received the Romans as Catholic brethren, and Belisarius advanced as far as the palace of Grasse, only 50 miles from Carthage, meeting only with friends, and not with enemies. At 10 miles distance from Carthage the Romans encountered the main army of the Vandals, who were routed, and so completely dispersed, that Gelimer despaired of defending his capital with success, and fled into the interior, in order to collect a new army. A few days afterwards, on the 15th of September, 533, the inhabitants of Carthage opened their gates to the victor, hot only without resistance, but with manifestations of joy. While Belisarius employed his time in repairing the fortifications of Carthage, Gelimer succeeded in raising a considerable number of troops, and his brother Zano, who had meanwhile conquered Sardinia, returned in haste with his army, which, however, was only 5000 men strong, and joined Gelimer in his camp at Balla, five days' journey from the capital. They marched upon Carthage, and their forces increased daily; so that when they arrived at Tricameron, 20 miles from Carthage, they commanded an army ten times more numerous than that of Belisarius. But the Vandals who defended Africa were no longer the same who had conquered it: they were enervated by the climate and the luxuries of the South; and in a pitched battle at Tricameron they were entirely defeated. Gelimer fled into the mountains in the South, but was pursued by the Roman Pharas, who kept him besieged in a castle on Mount Papua, where he was reduced to such extremity that he at last surrendered, and after having been presented to Belisarius at Carthage, was sent to Constantinople, where he was treated by Justinian with great generosity. [GELIMER.] After the conquest of Carthage, Belisarius reduced the whole tract of Africa along the shore of the Mediterranean, as far as the columns of Hercules, and brought likewise the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, as well as the Baleares, under the authority of Justinian.

The overthrow of the Vandal kingdom in Africa was followed by a war with the East Goths in Italy, which arose out of the following circumstances, in which the cunning and artfulness of Justinian were no less conspicuous than the frank heroism of Belisarius. Shortly after the accession of Justinian, the young king of the East Goths, athalaric, died, and his mother Amalasuntha, a highly gifted woman, who was the youngest daughter of the great Theodoric, succeeded her son, and, in order to establish her power the better, married her cousin Theodat. It happened, however, that Justinian contemplated a marriage with that queen, although he was already married to Theodora; and we cannot doubt that, in order to obtain his ends, he would have sacrificed both his wife and king Theodat. Suspecting his designs, Theodora secretly negotiated with Theodat, and made him great promises, if he would put Amalasuntha to death. Theodat saw his danger, and lost no time in seizing his unfortunate queen, and confining her in a castle, where she was found strangled some time after her imprisonment (534). The anger of Justinian was extreme, and as the Gothic kingdom was shaken by political factions, while his own power had much increased through his conquest of Africa, he prepared for an invasion of Italy. The pretext he alleged was to avenge the murder of Amalasuntha. He began his hostile demonstrations by demanding the fortress of Lilybaeum, in Sicily, from the Goths: this town had been given to Thrasimond, king of the Vandals, by Theodoric the Great, but after the overthrow of

the Vandals in 534, the Goths occupied the town, and refused to surrender it to Justinian, when he claimed it as an appendage of the Vandal kingdom. Thus the war broke out, the chief events of which, till the final recal of Belisarius in 548, are related in the life of BELISARIUS. When Belisarius was recalled, the Roman army was in a critical position, because the brave Gothic king, Totilas, had gained great advantages over Belisarius, and after his recal the Goths made such progress as to reduce the Roman power in Italy to a shadow. Totilas took Rome by a stratagem, restored the senate, and made it once more the seat of the Gothic empire. Thence he sailed to Calabria, took Tarentum and Rhegium, conquered Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, and despatched a fleet of 300 gallies, which were probably manned by Greek natives of Southern Italy, for the Goths were no mariners, to the coast of Greece, where the Gothic warriors landed, and spread terror among the inhabitants. They pushed as far as Nicopolis and Dodona, and Totilas sent envoys to Justinian, offering him peace, and promising to assist him against any enemy, if he would desist from his designs upon Italy. Justinian would perhaps have accepted his offers but for the circumstance that the Goths being Arians, the orthodox church in Italy was in danger of being overthrown by schismatics. Fresh troops were consequently sent to Italy, and Germanus, the nephew of Justinian, who was renowned by many victories over the Bulgarians, the Persians, and the Mauritanians, was destined to command them, but died at Sardica, in Illyricum, on his march to Italy. [GERMANUS, No. 2.] The choice of Germanus proves the danger in which the empire was placed by the victories of Totilas. This prince was dear to the Goths through his marriage with Mathasuntha, daughter of Amalasuntha, and grand-daughter of Theodoric the Great; and as he was also one of the best Roman generals, a suspicious man like Justinian must have had urgent motives for sending him into Italy, where, in case of success, he had still greater chances of becoming king of the Goths than Belisarius could have had in making himself independent in Africa. But Germanus was a man of so excellent a character as to be above the suspicions even of a Justinian. The mere fact of his being appointed to the command roused the spirit of the Roman army, and ere the eunuch Narses was chosen to succeed him, the Gothic fleet had been defeated, and Sicily reconquered by Artabanus. Narses led the Roman army round the Adriatic into Italy, while a fleet followed him along the shore, and in a dreadful battle at Tagina (July, 552) slew 6000 Goths, and dispersed the rest. Totilas fell in the conflict, and his bloody dress was sent as the most acceptable trophy to Justinian. The successor of Totilas, Teias, continued the war, but he likewise was killed in a pitched battle on the river Sarnus, near Naples, and his death was the downfal of the Gothic kingdom in Italy. A host of Franks and Alemanni descended from the Alps to dispute the possession of Italy with Narses, and their first inroad was so irresistible that they penetrated as far as the straits of Sicily. But in a battle on the river Volturnus, near the bridge of Casilinum, they were routed with great slaughter by Narses, who drove their scattered remnants beyond the Alps (554). Narses was appointed exarch, or viceroy, of Italy, and took up his residence at Ravenna, and he united his efforts with those of his master in settling the domestic state of Italy, which was nearly ruined through the protracted war, while millions of her inhabitants had perished by the sword and famine.

To these conquests the lieutenants of Justinian in Africa added a considerable tract in Spain, along the shores of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, from the south-western extremity of Algarve in the west to the confines of the modern kingdom of Murcia in the east, which the West Goths were obliged to cede to the victorious Romans; and the fortunate Justinian now reigned over the whole extent of the Roman empire as it existed under the earlier emperors, except the greater part of Spain, Gaul, and Britain, where the most warlike of all the barbarians of those times exercised an authority unchecked by either Romans or Greeks. The strength of Justinian's empire, however, did not correspond with its dimensions. Both the Romans and Greeks were enervated, and little disposed to serve in the field, when they could buy foreigners to defend Rome and Constantinople; and the practice of enlisting barbarians proved very dangerous, since so many veterans, who returned into their native forests or steppes, informed their brethren of the internal weakness of the Roman empire. We thus see that, notwithstanding the fear which the victories of Belisarius, Narses, Germanus, and so many other great generals, necessarily caused among the immediate neighbours of the Romans, many barbarian nations, that lived at greater distances from the Roman frontiers, pushed slowly towards Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, in order to be ready to invade the empire at the first opportunity. From the extreme north of Germany, the Longobards, of Saxon origin, advanced towards the Danube, and settled in Moravia and Northern Hungary, whence, but a few years after the death of Justinian, they broke forth for the conquest of Italy. Their neighbourhood appeared so dangerous to Justinian, that he tried to gain them to his interests, and to use them as a barrier against other enemies, by ceding to them Pannonia and Noricum. The latter province was, however, soon taken from the Longobards by the Franks. The neighbours of the Longobards, the Gepidae, had founded a kingdom in Eastern Hungary and Transylvania as early as the middle of the fifth century; and since they were always annoying the Romans in Illyricum, Justinian availed himself of their feuds with the Longobards, and assisted the latter. In consequence of this, the power of the Gepidae was weakened, but that of the Longobards increased in proportion; and had Justinian lived but two years longer, he would have seen that the final overthrow of the Gepidae had, as its immediate consequence, the destruction of the Roman power in Italy by the Longobards. Still farther in the East, on the river Don, appeared in 557 the Avars, a nation of Turkish origin. In accordance with his usual policy of turning the feuds of the barbarians to his own profit, Justinian lavished his money upon the Avars, and employed them together with his own forces against some barbarian tribes which annoyed the Roman possessions in the Chersonnesus Taurica (the Crimea). This was in 558. Only four years afterwards the whole of the nations north of the Danube, as far west as modern Bavaria, was subjugated by the Avars, and Justinian II. paid dearly for the timid and wavering conduct of Justinian I.

Among the nations subdued by the Avars were the Bulgarians, between the Don and the Volga, who, in 559, passed the frozen Danube, and under their chief, Zabergan, ravaged Thrace and Macedonia, and appeared under the walls of Constantinople. The capital was saved by Belisarius, whom Justinian rewarded with a dry compliment.

If we turn our eyes from the West to the East, we find that the treaty of peace had scarcely been concluded between Constantinople and Persia, before the Persian king Chosroes or Nushirwan, with his accustomed faithlessness, violated its conditions, and a new and terrible war broke out in 540. According to Procopius, however, Justinian purposely excited the Persian king to take up arms, and, at any rate, wished for a new war, which is the more likely, as he was then at the pinnacle of his power. In the year mentioned Nushirwán invaded Syria, and the Roman army being too weak to arrest his progress, he spoiled the principal towns of their riches, and laid siege to Antioch, which was defended by Germanus. This general thought his forces insufficient for an effective resistance, and consequently withdrew, a step for which he has been charged with cowardice, although on many other occasions he had shown himself a brave and fearless man. The "queen of the East" soon became a prey to the Persians, and after having been plundered, was destroyed by fire. The Asiatic provinces of Justinian would have been lost but for the timely arrival of Belisarius (541), who through a well calculated invasion of Mesopotamia and Assyria, compelled Nushirwán to leave the province of Pontus which he was ravaging, and to hasten to the defence of his hereditary dominions. Suddenly Belisarius was recalled to Constantinople, and during his absence Nushirwán collected his forces, and set out for a new invasion of Syria and Palestine. In this emergency Belisarius was again put at the head of the Roman armies in those quarters; and the mere fact of his presence was sufficient to induce Nushirwán to repass the Euphrates. Every body now expected that Belisarius would march forthwith upon Ctesiphon, when the unfavourable turn of the Gothie war required his presence in Italy (543). No sooner was he gone than 30,000 Romans suffered a severe defeat from 4000 Persians ; but the differences between the two empires were nevertheless settled to the satisfaction of Justinian, and a sort of truce was made, in consequence of which that part of the East was no longer disturbed by the Persians. It happened, however, that the Lazians and Colchians became tired of their dependence upon Constantinople, and implored the protection of Nushirwán, who accepted the offer, and placed garrisons in the principal towns of those nations. A few years were sufficient to show them that the rapacity of the king was still greater than that of the emperor, and they accordingly entreated Justinian to receive them again among his subjects, and to deliver them from their Persian oppressors. Justinian despatched Dagisteus with 7000 Romans and 1000 Zani into Lazica; and Petra, the strongest fortress of the country, was taken from the Persians by storm, after a memorable and protracted siege (549-551). This war lasted, with various success, till 561, when, tired of eternal bloodshed, the two monarchs came at last to an agreement. Through the peace of 561 the tranquillity of the East was finally restored, but Justinian bought it on the dishonourable condition of an annual payment of 30,000 pieces of gold. Yet the profit of this negotiation was on the side of Justinian, because Nushirwán renounced his claims upon Colchis and Lazica, both of which countries were then renowned for their gold mines; and the restoration of peace in all his Eastern dominions was a sufficient consideration to induce Justinian to expend so small a sum as 30,000 pieces of gold. In the beginning of the Persian war Justinian concluded a singular alliance. At that time there was a Christian kingdom in Southern Arabia, which extended over the provinces of Yemen and Hadhramaút, and was then commonly called the kingdom of the Homeritae. Dunaan having seized the supreme power, persecuted the Christians, who found assistance in the person of Eleesbam, the Negus or Christian king of Abyssinia, who came over to Arabia, and made himself master of the Homeritic kingdom. With this Eleesbam Justinian entered into negotiations, and in 533 despatched Nonnosus as ambassador to him, to induce him to unite his forces with the Romans against the Persians, and to protect the trade between Egypt and India, especially that of silk, which Justinian wished to establish by sea, through the assistance of the inhabitants of Abyssinia and Arabia. Nonnosus ascended the Nile, and was received by Eleesbam at Axum, but he did not attain his objects. Soon afterwards the Homeritae freed themselves from the Abyssinian supremacy; but the rise of Mohammedanism proved the ruin of the Christians in Arabia, for the power of the Abyssinian kings in Africa was weakened through internal discord and revolutions. Gibbon remarks with great justness, that " these obscure and remote events are not foreign to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. If a Christian power had been maintained in Arabia, Mohammed must have been crushed in his cradle, and Abyssinia would have prevented a revolution which has changed the civil and religious state of the world."

The final overthrow of the Gothic power in Italy, the peace with Persia, the reconquest of Lazica, and the last victories of Belisarius over the Bulgarians in 559, followed each other so closely, and were of such importance in their consequences, that Justinian was allowed during the last years of his life to enjoy in peace the extraordinary power which his ambition made him wish for, but which he owed entirely to the skill and heroism of Belisarius, Narses, and Germanus, and many other generals, as well as to the valour and discipline of the troops formed by those eminent officers. Nino months after Belisarius, the victim of his base ingratitude, had sunk into the grave, the emperor Justinian died, on the 14th of November, 565, at the age of eighty-three, and left an empire, colossal in size, threatening in its appearance, but rotten in its foundations, to the imbecile son of his sister Vigilantia, Justinus II.

After this sketch of the principal political events of the reign of Justinian, it remains to say a few words on the manner in which he guarded his empire against so many enemies which surrounded it, and on the system of his government at home.

The ancient Roman system of fortifying the frontiers of the empire was carried by Justinian to an extent which plainly shows the great danger to which his subjects were constantly exposed; for not only were the outer frontiers secured by an

immense number of forts and towers, interspersed with larger regular fortresses, but even most of the towns in the very heart of Greece, Thrace, and Asia were provided with walls and towers, to protect the inhabitants against the irresistible inroads of the barbarians. Thence Montesquieu observes, that the Roman empire at the time of Justinian resembled the Frankish kingdom in the time of the Norman inroads, when, in spite of every village being a fortress, the kingdom was weaker than at any other period. The entire course of the Danube was defended by about eighty forts, of different dimensions, all of which were guarded by numerous garrisons; other fortresses were erected beyond the river, in the middle of the countries of the barbarians. But these detached forts were utterly unable to protect Thrace against an enemy who used to appear suddenly with overwhelming forces, leaving no alternative to the Roman garrisons than of shutting themselves up within their walls, and of beholding as inactive spectators the Bulgarians swimming over the Danube with 20,000 horses at once, or crossing it in the winter on the solid ice. Similar forts were built, too, from the junction of the Save with the Danube north, towards Pannonia, and they proved quite as ineffective against the Avars as the forts along the Danube against the Bulgarians. Italy was fortified by nature, yet the Franks crossed the Alps with impunity. Thence the necessity of creating a system of inland fortifications. The ancient Greek wall across the Thracian Chersonnese, near Constantinople, was carefully restored, and brought to a degree of strength which caused the admiration of Procopius; the Bulgarians nevertheless crossed it, and fed their horses in the gardens round Constantinople. Similar walls, with towers, were constructed across Thessaly (beginning with the defiles of Thermopylae) and across the isthmus of Corinth; yet Bulgarians, Slavonians, and other barbarians, kept the inhabitants of Greece in constant fear of being carried off as slaves. At whatever point these savage warriors appeared, they were always the strongest, and the poor Romans had no other chance of safety left than of taking refuge within the larger towns, the solid fortifications of which were sufficient to keep the enemy at a distance. In the north-east the isthmus of the Chersonnesus Taurica, the present Crimea, was fortified in the same way as the isthmus of Corinth, by a long wall. The Roman possessions along the eastern shores of the Euxine and in the Caucasus were covered with forts and military stations; and from the corner of Colchis to the sources of the Euphrates, and along the river as far as Syria, and thence along the edge of the Syro Arabic desert, there was scarcely a town or a defile but was surrounded by walls and ditches, or shut up by massive barriers of stone, against the inroads of the Persians. Syria was thought to be sufficiently guarded by the great desert between the Euphrates and the Lebanon, and the fortifications of the Syrian towns were allowed to fall into decay, till the repeated invasions of Nushirwán and the sack of Antioch directed the attention of Justinian to that quarter also. Dara, not far fron Nisibis, was the strongest bulwark of the empire on the side of Mesopotamia, and constantly prooked the jealousy of the Persians.

The enormous sums which the defence of the empire required, together with the gold which Justinian lavished upon the barbarians, involuntarily led to the system of his administration. Procopius, in his Secret History or Anecdota, gives an awful description of it but however vicious that administration was, the colours of Procopius are too dark, and his motives in writing that work were not fair. There was decided order and regularity in the administration, but the leading principles of it were suspicion and avarice. The taxes were so heavy, their assessment so unequal, that Gibbon compares them to a hail-storm that fell upon the land, and to a devouring pestilence with regard to its inhabitants. In cases of necessity, the inhabitants of whole districts were compelled to bring their stores of corn to Constantinople, or other places where the troops might be in want of it, and they were either not paid at all, or received such bad prices that they were often completely ruined. In all the provinces the officers of the crown took much more from the people than the law allowed, because the venality of places was carried on openly as a means of filling the emperor's treasury, and the purses of his prime minister; and those who purchased places, which were, after all, badly paid, could not keep their engagements with the sellers, nor enrich themselves, without carrying on that system of robbery, which is at the present day the general practice in Turkey and most of the other countries in the East. Justinian certainly tried to check peculation and venality (Novella, viii.), but this thundering edict was soon forgotten, and it would seem that the emperor himself lent his endeavours to throw it into oblivion. Another great abuse which the principal officers made of their power was that of prevailing upon wealthy persons to make wills in their favour, to the disadvantage of the natural heirs. A great source of revenue for the imperial treasury consisted in the numberless duties, entry fees, andothercharges, mostly arbitrary, laid upon trade and manufactures, and we may fairly presume that the tradespeople were as much oppressed as the land-owners. Some branches of trade, as for instance silk, were made monopolies of the crown, and, in short, there were no means left untried to fill his treasury. However, he never tampered with the coinage, nor gave it an artificial value. The millions thus obtained by Justinian were not only sufficient to cover the expenses occasioned by the army, the fortifications, the wars, and the bribery of barbarians, but enough remained to enable him to indulge his passion of perpetuating his name by public festivals, and especially by those beautiful buildings and monuments which were erected by his order, and render his time conspicuous in the history of art. Procopius describes them in his work "De Aedificiis Justiniani." The church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, that splendid edifice, which, though now transformed into a Turkish mosque, still excites the admiration of the spectator, was the most magnificent building erected by Justinian. Besides this Church of St. Sophia, there were twenty-five other churches constructed in Constantinople and its suburbs, among which were the beautiful churches of St. John the Apostle and St. Mary the Virgin, near the Blachernae, the latter of which he perhaps only repaired. The imperial palace at Constantinople was embellished with unparalleled splendour and taste; and his new palace with the gardens at Heraeum, near Chalcedon, was praised as the most beautiful residence in the world. The "Antiquities of Constantinople," by

Petrus Gyllius (English translation by John Ball, London, 1729), give a description of the most remarkable buildings of Justinian, in Constantinople. Justinian paid 45 centenaries of gold (nearly 200,000 l.), towards the rebuilding and embellishment of Antioch, after it had been destroyed by an earthquake; his native village he transformed into a large and splendid city, to which he gave his name; and, in short, there was not a town of consequence in his vast dominions, from the Columns of Hercules to the shores of the Caspian, but could show some beautiful monument of the emperor's splendour and taste. Asia Minor still contains a great number of edifices erected by Justinian, and our modern travellers have discovered many which were formerly unknown. Indeed his love of splendour and his munificence in matters of taste, show, or luxury, no less than his extraordinary power, made his name known over the world, whence he received embassies from the remotest nations of Asia. In his reign the silk-worm was brought to Constantinople, by some Nestorian monks, who had visited their fellow-Christians in China.

In 541 Justinian abolished the consulship, or, more correctly, discontinued the old-established custom of choosing consuls. The consulate being a mere title, it was but reasonable to do away with it, although the name was still dear to the people ; but it was not abolished by law until the reign of the emperor Leo Philosophus (886-911.) Justinian likewise shut up the schools at Athens and Alexandria, where the Neo-Platonists still professed dogmas which the orthodox emperor thought dangerous to Christianity. In the time of Justinian, however, those schools were only a shadow of what they had been in the first centuries of our era. Christian orthodoxy was one of the most important objects which Justinian endeavoured to establish in his empire, and many of his laws testify his zeal on behalf of the church and the clergy. But his piety was exaggerated, and toleration was a thing unknown to him. He persecuted Christian sectaries, Jews, and pagans, in an equally heartless manner, and actually endeavoured to drive them all out of his dominions. Towards the end of his life, however, Justinian changed his religious opinions so much that he was considered a complete heretic. Nestorianism, which he was so active in condemning at the fifth General Council, the second of Constantinople, in 553, was the doctrine which he embraced.

The character of Justinian presented a strange mixture of virtues and vices, but he was neither so depraved as Procopius depicts him, nor so accomplished as the modern jurists of Germany and France represent him in their admiration for his legislation. His private life was exemplary. He was frugal, laborious, affable, and generous, but his mean suspicions and unreasonable jealousy never allowed him to gain the love of his friends or the esteem of his subjects. His conduct towards Belisarius was execrable. Another of his vices was rapacity, and it would seem that he considered men created to work, not for themselves, but for him alone. Thence the little regard he paid to the complaints of his subjects with reference to his perpetual wars; and although he assisted them with great liberality when they were suffering from the consequences of those plagues and earthquakes which signalized his time, his motive was vanity as much as humanity. If we look at his endless and glorious wars, we should think that he was a great warrior himself, or possessed at least great military talents : but however great his talents were, they were not in that line; he never showed himself in the field, and his subjects called him a bigoted and cowardly tyrant. As a statesman he was crafty rather than wise; yet his legislation is a lasting monument of his administrative genius, and has given him a place in the opinion of the world far beyond that which he really deserves. (Procopius, with special reference to his Anecdota and De Aedificiis ; Agathias, Hist. ; Paulus Silentiarius ; Cedrenus, p. 366, &c.; Zonaras, xiv. p. 60, &c. ; Joannes Malala, vol. ii. p. 138, &c.; Marcellinus, Chron. ad an. 520, &c., p. 50, &c.; Theophanes, p. 300, &c.; Evagrius, 4.8, &c. in the Paris editions ; Jornandes, De Regn. Succ. p. 62, &c., De Reb. Goth. p. 143, &c. ed. Lindenbrog; Paulus Diaconus, De Gest. Longobard. 1.25, &c., 2.4, &c. ; Ludewig, Vita Justiniani, &c., Halle, 1731, is rather too flattering; the best description of the reign and character of Justinian is given in Gibbon's Decline and Fall.) [W.P]