CHAPTER III.

CONDITION OF THE GREEKS UNDER THE REIGN OF JUSTINIAN. A. D. 527-565.

 

SECT. I. INFLUENCE OF TIIE IMPERIAL POWER ON TIIE CONDITION OF THE GREEK NATION DURING TIIE REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

 

It happens not unfrequently, that, during long periods of time, national feelings and popular institutions escape the attention of historians; their feeble traces are lost in the importance of events, apparently the effect of accident, destiny, or the special intervention of Provi­dence. In such cases, history becomes a chronicle of facts, or a series of biographical sketches ; and it ceases to yield the instructive lessons which it always affords, as long as it connects events with local habits, national customs, and the general ideas of a people. The his­tory of the Eastern Empire often assumes this form, and is frequently little better than a mere chronicle. a. d. Its historians hardly display national character or popu­lar feeling, and only participate in the superstition and party spirit of their situation in society. In spite of the brilliant events which have given the reign of Jus­tinian a prominent place in the annals of mankind, it is presented to us in a series of isolated and incongruous facts. Its chief interest is derived from the biographical memorials of Belisarius, Theodora, and Justinian ; and i its most instructive lesson has been drawn from the l-i influence which its legislation has exercised on foreign nations. The unerring instinct of mankind has, however, fixed on this period as one of the greatest eras in man’s annals. The actors may have been men of ordinary merit, but the events of which they were the agents effected the mightiest revolutions in society.

The frame of the ancient world was broken to pieces, and men long looked back with wonder and admiration F at the fragments which remained, to prove the existence of a nobler race than their own. The Eastern Empire, though too powerful to fear any external enemy, was withering away from the rapidity with which the State devoured the resources of the people; and this malady or corruption of the Roman government appeared to the wisest men of the age so utterly incurable, that it was supposed to indicate the approaching dissolution of the globe. No dawn of a new social organisation had »yet manifested its advent in any part of the known world. A large portion, perhaps the majority of the i human race, continued to live in a state of slavery ; and { slaves were still regarded as intelligent domestic animals, not as men. Society was destined to be regenerated | by the destruction of predial slavery ; but, to destroy ¹ predial slavery, the free inhabitants of the civilized world were compelled to descend to the state of poverty and ignorance in which they had, for ages, kept the servile population. The field for general improvement could only be opened, and the reorganisation of society could only commence, when slaves and freemen were so closely intermingled in the cares and duties of life as to destroy the prejudices of class ; then, at last, feelings of philanthropy were called into action by the necessities of man’s condition.

The reign of Justinian is more remarkable as a por­tion of the history of mankind, than as a chapter in the annals of the Roman empire or of the Greek nation. The changes of centuries passed in rapid succession be­fore the eyes of one generation. The life of Belisarius, either in its reality or its romantic form, has typified his age. In his early youth, the world was populous and wealthy, the empire rich and powerful. He con­quered extensive realms and mighty nations, and led kings captive to the footstool of Justinian, the lawgiver of civilisation. Old age arrived ; Belisarius sank into the grave suspected and impoverished by his feeble and ungrateful master ; and the world, from the banks of the Euphrates to those of the Tagus, presented the awful spectacle of famine and plague, of ruined cities, and of nations on the brink of extermination. The impres­sion on the hearts of men was profound. Fragments of Gothic poetry, legends of Persian literature, and the fate of Belisarius himself, still indicate the eager atten­tion with which this period was long regarded.

The expectation that Justinian would be able to re­establish the Roman power was entertained by many, and not without reasonable grounds, at the time of his accession to the throne ; but, before his death, the delusion was utterly dissipated. Anastasius, by filling the treasury, and remodelling the army, had prepared the way for reforming the financial administration and improving the condition of the people. Justinian un­fortunately employed the immense wealth and effective army to which he succeeded, in such a manner as to increase the burden of the imperial government, and render hopeless the future reform of the system. Yet it must still be observed that the decay of the internal resources of the empire, which proceeded with such fearful rapidity in the latter days of Justinian’s reign, was interwoven with the frame of society. For six centuries, the Roman government had ruled the East in a state of tranquillity, when compared with the ordinary fortunes of the human race : and during this long period, the people had been moulded into slaves of the imperial treasury. Justinian, by introducing measures of reform, tending to augment the powers and revenues of the State, only accelerated the inevitable catastrophe prepared by centuries of fiscal oppression.

It is impossible to form a correct idea of the position of the Greek population in the East, without taking a general, though cursory view of the nature of the Ro­man administration, and observing the effect which it produced on the whole population of the empire. The contrast presented by the increasing endeavours of the government to centralise every branch of the adminis­tration, and the additional strength which local feelings were gaining in the distant provinces, is a singular though natural consequence of the increasing wants of the sovereign, and the declining civilisation of the people. The civil organisation of the empire attained its highest degree of perfection in the reign of Justinian; the im­perial power secured a practical supremacy over the military officers and beneficed clergy, and placed them under the control of the civil departments of the state ; the absolute authority of the emperor was fully estab­lished, and systematically exercised in the army, the church, and the state. A century of prudent administration had infused new vigour into the government, and Justinian succeeded to the means of rendering himself one of the greatest conquerors in the annals of the Roman empire. The change which time had effected in the position of the emperors, from the reign of Constantine to that of Justinian, was by 110 means inconsiderable. Two hundred years, in any government, must prove productive of great alterations.

It is true that in theory the power of the military emperor was as great as that of the civil monarch ; and, according to the phrases in fashion with their con­temporaries, both Constantine and Justinian were con­stitutional sovereigns, equally restrained, in the exercise of their power, by the laws and usages of the Roman empire.¹ But there is an essential difference between the position of a general and a king ; and all the Roman emperors, until the accession of Arcadius, had been generals. The leader of an army must always, to a certain extent, be the comrade of his soldiers ; he must often participate in their feelings, and make their interests and views coincide with his own. This community of sentiment generally creates so close a connection, that the wishes of the troops exercise great influence over the conduct of their leader, and moderate to them, at least, the arbitrary exercise of despotic power, by confining it within the usages of military discipline, and the habits of military life. When the civil supremacy of the Roman emperors became firmly established by the changes which were introduced into the imperial armies after the time of Theodosius the Great, the emperor ceased to be personally con­nected with the army, and considered himself quite as much the master of the soldiers whom he payed, as ofthe subjects whom he taxed. The sovereign had no longer any notion of public opinion beyond its exist­ence in the church, and its display in the factions of the court or the amphitheatre. The immediate effects of absolute power were not, however, fully revealed in the details of the administration, until the reign of Justinian. Various circumstances have been noticed in the preceding chapter, which tended to connect the policy of several of the emperors who reigned during the fifth century with the interests of their subjects. Justinian found order introduced into every branch of the public administration, immense wealth accumulated in the imperial treasury, discipline re-established in the army, and the church eager to support an orthodox emperor. Unfortunately for mankind, this increase in the power of the emperor rendered him independent of the goodwill of his subjects, whose interests seemed to him subordinate to the exigencies of the public admin­istration ; and his reign proved one of the most in­jurious, in the history of the Roman empire, to the moral and political condition of its subjects. In form­ing an opinion concerning the events of Justinian’s reign, it must be borne in mind that the foundation of its power and glory was laid by Anastasius, while Justinian sowed the seeds of the misfortunes of Maurice ; and, by persecuting the very nationality of ¹ his heterodox subjects, prepared the way for the con­quests of the Mussulmans.

Justinian mounted the throne with the feelings, and in the position, of a hereditary sovereign, prepared, however, by every advantage of circumstance, to hold i out the expectation of a wise and prudent reign. Born and educated in a private station, he had attained the I mature age of forty-five before he ascended the throne.¹

He had received an excellent education. He was a man of honourable intentions, and of a laborious disposi­tion, attentive to business, and well versed in law and theology; but his abilities were moderate, his judg­ment was feeble, and he was deficient in decision of character. Simple in his own habits, he, nevertheless, added to the pomp and ceremonial of the imperial court, and strove to make the isolation of the emperor, as a superior being, visible in the public pageantry of government. Though ambitious of glory, he was in­finitely more attentive to the exhibition of his power than to the adoption of measures for securing the essentials of national strength.

The Eastern Empire was an absolute monarchy, of a regular and systematic form. The emperor was the head of the government, and the master of all those engaged in the public service ; but the administration was an immense establishment, artfully and scienti­fically constructed in its details.¹ The numerous in­dividuals employed in each ministerial department of the State consisted of a body of men appropriated to that special service, which they were compelled to study attentively, to which they devoted their lives, and in which they were sure to rise by talents and industry. Each department of the State formed a separate profession, as completely distinct, and as per­fectly organised in its internal arrangements, as the legal profession - is in modem Europe. A Roman emperor would no more have thought of suddenly

Histories, are too dissimilar to be cited together without explanations. Yet Procopius seems a valuable authority even in his Anecdotes, and he shows him­self often credulous in his Histories. Justinian appears to have been descended from a Sclavonic family. His father’s name was Istok, of which Sabbatios is a translation. His mother and sister were named Wiglenitza. His own native name was Uprawda, corresponding to jus, justitia. Schafarik, Slctvische AUcr- th inner, ii. 1G0 ; and Aleman’s notes to the Ilist. Arcana of Procopius, p. 418, edit. Bonn.

¹ No correct idea of the Roman administration can be formed, without con­sulting the NotitiaDiynitatum ct Administratiomm, in the excellent edition of Dr Blocking, Bonn, 1839, &c.

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I creating a financier, 01* an administrator, than a modern . sovereign would think of making a lawyer. This cir- " 1 cumstance explains at once how education and offi­cial knowledge were so long and so well preserved in the Roman administration, where, as in the law and the church, they flourished for ages after the extinction of literary acquirements in all other classes of the people ;¹ and it affords also an explanation of the singular dura­: tion of the Roman government, and of its inherent prin- i ciple of vitality. If it wanted the energy necessary for its own regeneration, which could only have proceeded 'from the influence of a free people on the sovereign power, it at least escaped the evils of official anarchy 'and vacillating government. Nothing but this sys­tematic composition of the multifarious branches of the Roman administration could have preserved the [empire from dissolution during the period in which it was a prey to internal wars and foreign invasions ; and this supremacy of the system over the will of individuals gave a character of immutability to ad­ministrative procedure, which warranted the boast of ¹ the subjects of Constantine and Justinian that they lived under the protection of the Roman constitu­tion. The greatest imperfection of the government arose from the total want of any popular control over the moral conduct of the public servants. Political morality, like pure taste, cannot live without the atmosphere of public opinion.²

The state of society in the Eastern Empire underwent far greater changes than the imperial administration.

¹ The law of Valentinian, forbidding students to remain in Home after the twentieth year of their age, shows that restrietions were put on education.

—Cod. Tkc.od. xiv. 9, 1.

I ² When we blame the evils of the Roman government, we ought not to over­look the inconvcnienccs which would result in a declining state of society, from the neglect of general interests in large representative assemblies, intent on temporary expedients, and incapable, at such a period, of attending to any­thing but local claim,-;.

A. D.

>27-565.

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240 REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. in. The race of wealthy nobles, whose princely fortunes and independent bearing had excited the fears and the avarice of the early Caesars, had been long extinct. The imperial court and household now included all the higher classes in the capital. The senate was now only a corps of officials, and the people had no position in the State but that of tax-payers. While the officers of the civil, finance, and judicial departments, the clergy and the military, were the servants of the emperor, the people, the Roman people, were his slaves.¹ No con­necting link of common interest or national sympathy united the various classes as one body, and connected them with the emperor. The only bond of union was one of universal oppression, as everything in the im­perial government had become subordinate to the ne­cessity of supplying the treasury with money. The fiscal severity of the Roman government had for cen­turies been gradually absorbing all the accumulated wealth of society, as the possession of large fortunes was almost sure to entail their confiscation. Even if the wealth of the higher classes in the provinces es­caped this fate, it was, by the constitution of the em­pire, rendered responsible for the deficiencies which might occur in the taxes of the districts from which it was obtained ; and thus the rich were everywhere rapidly sinking to the level of the general poverty. The destruction of the higher classes of society had swept away all the independent landed proprietors be­fore Justinian commenced his series of reforms in the provinces.

The effect of these reforms extended to future times, and exercised an important influence 011 the internal

¹     The Homan people now consisted chiefly of Greeks; but Latin seems to have been spoken in lllyricum and Thrace by a very numerous portion of the population. Perhaps the original languages of these countries blended easily with Latin from being cognate tongues, and soon began to form dialects which time has now modified into the Vallachian and Albanian languages of the pre­sent day.

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1 composition of the Greek people. In ancient times, a very large portion of society consisted of slaves. They i formed the great body of the rural population ; and, i as they received 110 moral training, they were inferior,

¹ fin every mental quality, to the barbarians of the north : i t from this very cause they were utterly incapable of if making any exertion to improve their condition ; and

i whether the province which they inhabited belonged to the Romans or Greeks, the Goths or the Huns, they remained equally slaves. The oppressive system of the Roman financial administration, by depressing the higher classes, and impoverishing the rich, found the ' lower orders at last burdened with the great part of r the land-tax. The labourer of the soil became an ob­I ject of great interest to the treasury, and, as the chief ^!i| instrument in furnishing the financial resources of the ' State, obtained almost as important a position in the eyes of the fisc as the landed proprietor himself. The first laws which conferred any rights on the slave, are those which the Roman government enacted to prevent the landed proprietors from transferring their slaves engaged in the cultivation of lands, assessed for the I land-tax, to other employments which, though more Ol profitable to the proprietor of the slave, would have ^e{| yielded a smaller, or less permanent, return to the im­perial treasury.¹ The avarice of the imperial treasury, by reducing the mass of the free population to the same degree of povert}^T as the slaves, had removed one cause of the separation of the two classes. The posi­tion of the slave had lost most of its moral degradation, ^ and occupied precisely the same political position in J society as the poor labourer, from the moment that the J Roman fiscal laws compelled any freeman who had jj)| cultivated lands for the space of thirty years to re­main for ever attached, with his descendants, to the

I

¹ Coil. Theud. xi. tit. 3, 1, '2. Cud. Jutl. xi. tit. 43.

Q

n

242 REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. hi. same estate.¹ The lower orders were from that period                          ?

blended into one class : the slave rose to be a member                                      !]

of this body ; the freeman descended, but his descent ¹ was necessary for the improvement of the great bulk

of the human race, and for the extinction of slavery. ' Such was the progress of civilisation in the Eastern

Empire. The measures of Justinian which, by their                                                    ,

fiscal rapacity, tended to sink the free population to                                                   <

the same state of poverty as the slaves, really prepared                                    ' j

the way for the rise of the slaves as soon as any general                                        j

improvement took place in the condition of the human                                _D race.

Justinian found the central administration still aid-                                                    _t

ed and controlled by the municipal institutions and                                                  j (

the numerous corporate communities throughout the                                            , _tl

empire, as well as by the religious assemblies of the                                                j- _I(

orthodox and heterodox congregations. Many of these                                        ■ j,

bodies possessed large revenues. The fabric of the                                                    j

ancient world still existed. Consuls were still named,                                                 j \

Koine, though subject to the Goths, preserved its senate,                                     b _tj

Constantinople enjoyed all the license of the hippo-                                                ||j

drome; Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and                                           !*j

many other cities, received public distributions of grain,                                           i

Athens and Sparta were still governed as little states,                                       ; \

and a body of Greek provincial militia still guarded                                                 ' j,

the pass of Thermopylae. The Greek cities possessed                                                tj _#

their own revenues, and maintained their roads, schools,                                    ij jj

hospitals, poliee, public buildings, and aqueducts; they                                           >.

paid professors and public physicians, and kept their                                        ,, ^

streets paved, cleaned, and lighted. The people enjoyed                                     ^; ^

their local festivals and games ; and though music had                                             ^

supplanted poetry, the theatres were still open for the                                            j ^

public amusement.                ¹

Justinian defaced these traces of the ancient world                                                    i

far more rapidly in Greece than Theodoric in Italy. He                                             j J

¹ CW. Just. xi. tit. 48, 1, 19; and 1, 23. See page 184.                                  j '!

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243

was a merciless reformer, and his reforms were directed solely by fiscal calculations.¹ The importance of the consulate was abolished, to save the expenses attendant on the installation of the consuls. The Roman senators were exterminated in the Italian wars, during which

⁷                         O

the ancient race of the inhabitants of Rome was nearly destroyed.² Alexandria was deprived of its supplies of grain, and the Greeks in Egypt were reduced in number and consideration. Antioch was sacked by Chosroes, and the position of the Greek population of Syria per­manently weakened.

But it was in Greece itself that the Hellenic race and institutions received the severest blow. Justinian seized the revenues of the free cities, and deprived them of their most valuable privileges, for the loss of their revenues compromised their political existence. Poverty produced barbarism. Roads, streets, and public build­ings could no longer be repaired or constructed unless by the imperial treasury. That want of police which characterises the middle ages, began to be felt in the

o ⁷ ©

East. Public instruction was neglected, but the public charities were liberally supported; the professors and the physicians were robbed of the funds destined for their maintenance. The municipalities themselves continued to exist in an enfeebled state, for Justinian affected to reform, but never attempted to destroy them; and even his libeller, Procopius, only accuses him of plundering, not of destroying them. The poverty of the Greeks rendered it impossible for them to supply their nmnici- I palities with new funds, or even to allow local taxes to be imposed, for maintaining the old establishments, iAt this crisis, the population was saved from utter bar-

¹     Procopius, lllst. rc. p. 74, 70, edit. Par.

²     When Rome was repeopled, a senate seems to have again arisen, but it only perpetuated the name, and a mortal blow was given to the power of the muni- icipality. The Pope assumed the direction of civil afi'airs, and prepared the wa v .for his future temporal sovereignty.—See Ueschichlc dcs Iiochiixchm /icchlx ini ‘ Mittelalte!-. F. C. Von Savigny. Vol. i. p. 3 * J 7.

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REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. in. barism by the close connection which existed between the clergy and the people, and the powerful influence of the church. The clergy and the people being united by a community of language, feelings, and prejudices, the clergy, as the most powerful class of the community, henceforth took the lead in all public business in the provinces. They lent their aid to support the charitable institutions, to replace the means of instruction, and to maintain the knowledge of the healing art; they sup­ported the communal and municipal organisation of the people; but, while preserving the local feelings of the Greeks, they strengthened the foundations of a national organisation. History supplies few materials to illus­trate the precise period at which the clergy in Greece formed their alliance with the municipal organisation of the people, independent of the central authority; but the alliance became of great national importance, and began to exercise permanent effects on the social ex­istence of the Greeks, after the municipalities had been impoverished by Justinian’s reforms.

SECT. II.       MILITARY FORCES OF THE EMPIRE.

The history of the wars and conquests of Justinian is narrated by Procopius, the secretary of Belisarius, who was often an eyewitness of the events which he records with a minuteness which supplies much valuable information on the military system of the age. The expeditions of the Roman armies were so widely ex­tended, that most of the nations of the world were brought into direct communication with the empire. During the time Justinian’s generals were changing the state of Europe, and destroying some of the nations ( which had dismembered the Western Empire, circum-,

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stances beyond the control of that international system a. d._ of policy, of which the sovereigns of Constantinople and Persia were the arbiters, produced a general move­ment in the population of central Asia. The whole human race was thrown into a state of convulsive agitation, from the frontiers of China to the shores of the Atlantic. This agitation destroyed many of the ex­isting governments, and exterminated several powerful nations, while, at the same time, it laid the foundation of the power of new states and nations, some of which have maintained their existence to the present times.

The Eastern Empire bore no inconsiderable part in raising this mighty storm in the West, and in quelling its violence in the East; in exterminating the Goths and Vandals, and in arresting the progress of the Avars and Turks. Yet the number and composition of the Roman armies have often been treated by historians as weak and contemptible. It is impossible, in this sketch, to attempt any examination of the whole mili­tary establishment of the Roman empire during Justi­nian’s reign ; but in noticing the influence exercised by the military system 011 the Greek population, it is necessary to make a few general observations.¹ The army consisted of two distinct classes, — the regular troops, and the mercenaries. The regular troops were composed both of native subjects of the Roman empire, raised by conscription, and of barbarians, who had been allowed to occupy lands within the emperor’s dominions, and to retain their own usages 011 the con­dition of furnishing a fixed number of recruits for the army. The Roman government still clung to the great law of the empire, that the portion of its subjects which paid the land-tax could not be allowed to escape that

¹     Lord Mahon, in his Life of Belisarius (chap. i.), gives a sketch of the Homan armies in Justinian’s reign.

RETGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. in. burden by entering the army.¹ The proprietors of the

       land were responsible for the tribute ; the cultivators

of the soil, both slaves and serfs, secured the amount of the public revenues; neither could be permitted to forego their fiscal obligations for their military duties.² For some centuries it had been more economical to purchase the service of the barbarians than to employ native troops; and perhaps, if the oppressive system of the im­perial administration had not impaired the resources of the State, and diminished the population by consum­ing the capital of the people, this might have long con­tinued to be the case. Native troops were always drawn from the mountainous districts, which paid a scanty tribute, and in which the population found difficulty in procuring subsistence. The invasions of the barbarians, likewise, threw numbers of the peasantry of the pro­vinces to the south of the Danube out of employment, and many of these entered the army. A supply of recruits was likewise obtained from the idle and needy population of the towns.³ The most active and intel­ligent soldiers were placed in the cavalry,—a force that was drilled with the greatest care, subjected to the most exact discipline, and sustained the glory of the Roman arms in the field of battle,⁴ As the higher and middle

¹     Co*!. Just. x. 32, 17 ; xii. 32, 2. 4. lie who quitted his civil position as servant of the fisc was to be sent back to his duty. Citizens were not allowed to possess arms, except for hunting and travelling.

²     The exemption of the military from taxation was used as an argument for conceding a similar privilege to the clergy, who were members of the militia warring against the legions of Satan.

³     Slaves were, of course, excluded from military service by the Roman laws.— Cod. Just. xii. 33, G, 7. Yet, in the decline of the empire, they were sometimes enfranchised in order to be admitted as recruits; and Justinian declares the slave free who had served in the army with his master's consent. The enact­ment proves that slaves were rapidly attaining the level to which the free population had sunk.—Novell. !!1. Colons were also excluded from military service.—Cod. Just. xi. 48, 18.

⁴     The cavalry was carefully trained to act on foot, and its steady behaviour on dismounting, when surrounded by superior numbers, proves the perfection of the Roman discipline, even in the time of Justinian. Procopius mentions this trait in his description of the battle of Callinieum.—JJe Bell. Peru. i. 18. Salomon made use of the same formation of the cavalry on foot against the African Moord.— l^aitd. book. ii. c. 12. It was again employed at the battle of Solacon, in

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classes in the provinces hacl, for ages, been excluded from the military profession, and the army had been at last composed chiefly of the rudest and most ignorant peasants, of enfranchised slaves, and naturalised barba­rians, military service was viewed with aversion; and the greatest repugnance arose among the civilians to become soldiers. In the mean time, the depopulation of the empire daily increased the difficulty of raising the number of recruits required for a service which embraced an immense extent of territory, and entailed a great destruction of human life.

The troops of the line, particularly the infantry, had deteriorated considerably in Justinian’s time ; but the artillery and engineer departments were not much in­ferior, in science and efficiency, to what they had been in the best days of the empire. Military resources, not military knowledge, had diminished. The same arsenals continued to exist; mere mechanical skill had been uninterruptedly exercised ; and the constant demand which had existed for military mechanicians, armourers, and engineers, had never allowed the theoretical in­struction of this class to be neglected, nor their practi­cal skill to decline from want of employment. This fact requires to be borne in mind.¹

The mercenaries formed the most valued and brilliant portion of the army ; and it was the fashion of the day to copy and admire the dress and manners of the bar­barian cavalry. The empire was now surrounded by numbers of petty princes, who, though they had seized

the reign of the emperor Maurice.—Theophylaetus, Simoc. ii. 4. Hannibal ridiculed the conduct of ^Einilius Panins in ordering the Roman cavalry to dismount at the battle of Canute, lint there is no invariable rule in war.

¹ The engineers of Theodoric the Oreat could not be superior to those of Justi­nian, for Theodoric had often been obliged to obtain artists from the East ; yet the tomb of Theodoric, near Ravenna, rivals the remains of the anti-Homeric times at Myeenrc. The circular stone of the dome is 3/5 feet in diameter, and weighs 940,000 lbs ; yet it is supposed to have been brought from the quarries in Istria.—See the plates in the Histniro del'Art pur les Monument, depitis m Decadence an I Ve Siecle, par Seroux D’Agincourt, tom. i. pi. xviii.

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REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

ii. possession of provinces once belonging to the Romans, by force, and had often engaged in war with the em­peror, still acknowledged a certain degree of dependence on the Roman power. Some of them, as the kings of the Heruls and the Gepids, and the king of Colchis, held their regal rank, by a regular investiture, from Justinian. These princes, and the kings of the Lombards, Huns, Saracens, and Moors, all received regular subsidies. Some of them furnished a number of their best warriors, who entered the Roman service, and served in separate bands, under their own leaders, and with their national weapons, but subjected to the regular organisation and discipline of the Roman armies, though not to the Roman system of military exercises and manoeuvres. Some of these corps of barbarians were also formed of volunteers, who were attracted by the high pay which they received, and the license with which they were allowed to behave.

The superiority of these troops arose from natural causes. The northern nations who invaded the empire consisted of a population trained from infancy to war­like exercises, and following no profession but that of arms. Their lands were cultivated by the labour of their slaves, or by that of the Roman subjects who still survived in the provinces they had occupied ; but their only pecuniary resources arose from the plunder of their neighbours, or the subsidies of the Roman emperors. Their habits of life, the celerity of their movements, and the excellence of their armour, rendered them the choicest troops of the age ; and their most active war­riors were generally engaged to serve in the imperial forces. The emperors preferred armies composed of a number of motley bands of mercenary foreigners, at­tached to their own persons by high pay, and com­manded by chiefs who could never pretend to political rank, and who had much to lose and little to gain by

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rebellion ; for experience proved that they perilled their throne by intrusting the command of a national army to a native general, who, from a popular soldier, might become a dangerous rival.¹ Though the barbarian

o             o

mercenaries in the service of Rome generally proved far more efficient troops than their free countrymen, yet they were on the whole unequal to the native Ro­man cavalry of Justinian’s army, the Cataphracti, sheathed in complete steel on the Persian model, and armed with the Grecian spear, who were still the best troops in a field of battle, and were the real type of the chivalry of the middle ages.

Justinian weakened the Roman army in several ways by his measures of reform. His anxiety to reduce its expenditure induced him to diminish the establishment of camels, horses, and chariots, which attended the troops for transporting the military machines and bag­gage. This train had been previously very large, as it was calculated to save the peasantry from any danger of having their labours interrupted, or their cattle seized, under the pretext of being required for transport. Numerous abuses were introduced by diminishing the pay of the troops, and by neglecting to pay them with regularity and to furnish them with proper food and clothing. At the same time, the efficiency of the army in the field was more seriously injured, by con­tinuing the policy adopted by Anastasius, of restricting the power of the generals ; a policy, however, which, it must be confessed, was not unnecessary in order to avoid greater evils. This is evident from the numerous rebel­lions in Justinian’s reign, and the absolute want of any national or patriotic feeling in the majority of the Roman officers. Large armies were at times composed of a number of corps, each commanded by its own

¹     Justinian, however, sometimes united the civil and military power.— iVort//. 24-31.

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chap. hi. officer, over whom the nominal commander-in-chief had little or no authority ; and it is to this circumstance that the unfortunate results of some of the Gothic and Persian campaigns are to be attributed, and not to any inferiority of the Roman troops. Even Belisarius himself, though he gave many proofs of attachment to Justinian s throne, was watched with the greatest jealousy. He was treated with constant distrust, and his officers were at times encouraged to dispute his measures, and never punished for disobeying his orders.¹ The fact is, that Belisarius might, if so disposed, have assumed the purple, and perhaps dethroned his master. Narses was the only general who was implicitly trusted and steadily sup­ported ; but Narses was an aged eunuch, and could never have become emperor.

The imperial military forces consisted of one hundred and fifty thousand men ; and though the extent of the frontier which these troops were compelled to guard was very great, and lay open to the incursions of many active hostile tribes, still Justinian was able to assemble some admirably appointed armies for his foreign expeditions.² The armament which accompanied Belisarius to Africa consisted of ten thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry,

¹     Narses had evidently been sent to Italy by Justinian before the conquest of Witiges, expressly to watch Belisarius, and guard against his acquiring too much personal influence over the troops. The circumstance of officers of rank being allowed to maintain a large body-guard of cavalry, the members of which swore fidelity to their chief, as well as allegiance to the emperor, is a singular fact when contrasted with the imperial jealousy. The guards of Belisarius amounted to seven thousand horsemen after his return from the conquest of Italy.—Pro­copius, Gotth. iii. c. 1, vol. iii. p. 283, edit. Bonn. Crassus is reported to have said that he only could be called a rich man who could maintain an army. The households of Piso and his wife Plancina were so numerous, that when Piso re­sisted the orders of Germanicus, he armed several thousand slaves and formed a corps equal to a Roman legion.—Tacitus, Ann. ii. 80.

²     Agathias states that the military establishment of the empire once consisted of 645,000 men. The statement seems to have rested on official documents, as it is repeated by another writer. It probably included the local militia and the garrisons, as well as the regular army. — Agathias. v. 157, edit. Par. Joannes Antiochenus, Frag. Ilistoricorum Grcvc. iv. 622, edit. Didot. Seethe note to the Anecdotes of Procopius, p. 164, edit. Par., and vol. iii. p. 454, of the edition of Bonn. Gibbon (i. 27) states the Roman forces, in the time of Ha­drian, at 375,000, a number which seems too small for anything but the regular army.

MILITARY FORCE.

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and twenty thousand sailors. Belisarius must have ^A-^D- liad about thirty thousand troops under his command ° in Italy before the taking of Ravenna, Germanus, when he arrived in Africa, found that only one-third of the Roman troops about Carthage had remained faithful, and the rebels under Stozas amounted to eight thousand men. As there were still troops in Numidia which had not joined the deserters, the whole Roman force in Africa cannot have been less than fifteen thousand. Narses, in the year 551, when the empire began to show evident proofs of the bad effects of Justinian’s govern­ment, could assemble thirty thousand chosen troops, an army which defeated the veterans of Totila, and de­stroyed the fierce bands of Franks and Alemanns which hoped to wrest Italy from the Romans. The character of the Roman troops, in spite of all that modern writers have said to depreciate them, still stood so high that Totila, the warlike monarch of the Goths, strove to in­duce them to join his standard by offers of high pay.

No army had yet proved itself equal to the Roman on the field of battle ; and their exploits in Spain, Africa, Colchis, and Mesopotamia, prove their excellence ; though the defeats which they sustained, both from the Persians and on the Danube, reveal the fact that their enemies were improving in military science, and watch­ing every opportunity of availing themselves of any neglect of the Roman government in maintaining the efficiency of the army.

Numerous examples could be cited of almost in­credible disorder in the armies,—originating generally in the misconduct of the imperial government. Beli­sarius attempted, but found it impossible, to enforce I strict discipline,¹ when the soldiers were unpaid, and

l ¹ At the commencement of his African expedition he executed two Huns

_ for killing one of their companions in a drunken quarrel.—Procopius, Wind. i.

_> c. 12. lielisarius, in addressing his troops, told them that the Persians did nut

' surpass them in valour, but excelled them in discipline.— Procopius, / Ws.i. c. 1 t.

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chap hi. the officers authorised to act independently of his orders. Two thousand Heruls ventured to quit his standard in Italy, and, after inarching round the Adriatic, were pardoned by Justinian, and again engaged in the im­perial service. Procopius mentions repeatedly that the conduct of the unpaid and unpunished troops ruined the provinces ; and in Africa, 110 less than three Roman officers, Stozas, Maximin, and Gontharis, attempted to render themselves independent, and were supported by large bodies of troops.¹ The Greeks were the only por­tion of the population who were considered as sincerely attached to the imperial government, or, at least, who would readily defend it against every enemy ; and ac­cordingly, Gontharis, when he wished to secure Car­thage, ordered all the Greeks to be murdered without distinction. The Greeks were, however, from their position and rank in society as burgesses or tax-payers, almost entirely excluded from the army, and, though they furnished the greater part of the sailors for the fleet, they were generally an unwarlike population. Witiges, the Gothic king, calls the Roman army of Belisarius an army of Greeks, a band of pirates, actors, and mountebanks.²

One of the most unfortunate measures of Justinian was the disbanding all the provincial militia. This is incidentally mentioned in the Secret History of Proco­pius, who informs us that. Thermopylae had been pre­viously guarded by two thousand of this militia ; but that this corps was dissolved, and a garrison of regular troops placed in Greece.³ As a general measure it was probably dictated by a plan of financial reform, and

¹     Constantine, one of the officers of the army in Italy, attempted to assassi­nate Belisarius, who had ordered him to restore property which he had plun­dered. The African army rebelled against Jolm the patrician.—Corippus, vii. SO. The garrison of Petra entered the service of Chosroes.—Procopius, Pers. ii. 17. That of Spoleto joined Totila.— Gotlh. iii. 12; iv. 26.

²     Procopius, Golth. i. c. 1!?, 29.

³     Procopius, Ilist. An. 26; vol. iii. 147, edit. Bonn. Gotth. iv. 26.

MILITARY FORCE.

not by any fear of popular insurrection ; but its effects were extremely injurious to the empire in the declining state of society, and in the increasing disorganisation of the central power; and though it may possibly have prevented some provinces from recovering their independence by their own arms, it prepared the way for the easy conquests of the Avars and Arabs. Justi­nian was desirous of centralising all power, and render­ing all public burdens uniform and systematic ; and had adopted the opinion that it was cheaper to defend the empire by Avails and fortresses than by a movable army. The practice of moving the troops with great celerity to defend the frontiers, had induced the offi­cers to abandon the ancient practice of fortifying a regular camp; and at last, even the art of encamping was neglected.¹ The barbarians, however, could always move with greater rapidity than the regular troops of the empire.

To secure the frontiers, Justinian adopted a plan of constructing extensive lines supported by innumerable forts and castles, in which he placed garrisons, in order that they might be ready to sally out on the invad­ing bands. These lines extended from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, and were farther strengthened by the long wall of Anastasius, which covered Constantinople by walls protecting the Thracian Chersonesus and the Peninsula of Pallene, and by fortifications at Thermo­pylae, and at the Isthmus of Corinth, which were all carefully repaired. At all these posts permanent gar­risons were maintained. The eulogy of Procopius on the public edifices of Justinian seems almost irrecon­cilable with the events of the latter years of his reign ; for Zabergan, king of the Huns, penetrated through breaches he found unrepaired in the long wall, and advanced almost to the very suburbs of Constantinople.²

¹ Mimmdri l'rrtq. p. 140. c<lit. Bonn     ² Sco ////>'/, pago o07.

254

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

Another instance of the declining state of military tactics may be mentioned, as it must have originated in the army itself, and not in consequence of any ar­rangements of the government. The combined man­oeuvres of the divisions of the regiments had been so neglected that the bugle-calls once used had fallen into desuetude, and were unknown to the soldiers. The motley recruits, of dissimilar habits, could not acquire, with the requisite rapidity, a perception of the delicacy of the ancient music, and the Roman infantry no longer moved

111 perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood,

Of flutes and soft recorders.

It happened, during the siege of Auximum in Italy, that Belisarius was placed in difficulty from the want * of an instantaneous means of communicating orders to the troops engaged in skirmishing with the Goths. On this occasion it was suggested to him by Procopius, his secretary and the historian of his wars, to replace the forgotten bugle-calls by making use of the brazen trumpet of the cavalry to sound a charge, and of the J infantry bugle to summon a retreat.¹   {

Foreigners were preferred by the emperors as the j occupants of the highest military commands; and I the confidence with which the barbarian chiefs were i honoured by the court enabled many to reach the j highest rank in the army. Narscs, the most distin- j guished military leader after Belisarius, was a Pers- Armenian captive. Peter, who commanded against j the Persians in the campaign of 528, was also a Pers- , Armenian. Pharas, who besieged Gelimer in Mount \¹ Pappua, was a Herul. Mundus, who commanded in ■ Illyria and Dalmatia, was a Gepid prince.² Chilbud, who, after several victories, perished with his army in j

¹ Procopius, O'utt/i. ii. 24. The bugle of the infantry was composed of wood and leather.

MILITARY FORCE.

255

defending the frontiers against the Sclavonians, was of northern descent, as may be inferred from his name. Salomon, who governed Africa with great courage and ability, was a eunuch from Dara. Artaban was an Armenian prince. John Troglita, the patrician, the hero of the poem of Corippus, called the Johannid, is also supposed to have been an Armenian.¹ Yet the empire might still have furnished excellent officers, as well as valiant troops; for the Isaurians and Thracians continued to distinguish themselves in every field of battle, and were equal in courage to the fiercest of the barbarians.

It became the fashion in the army to imitate the manners and habits of the barbarians ; their headlong- personal courage became the most admired quality, even in the highest rank; and nothin2; tended more to hasten the decay of the military art. The officers in the Roman armies became more intent 011 distinguishing themselves

O                   O

for personal exploits than for exact order and strict dis­cipline in their corps. Even Belisarius himself appears at times to have forgotten the duties of a general in his eagerness to exhibit his personal valour 011 his bay charger; though he may, 011 such occasions, have con­sidered that the necessity of keeping up the spirits of his army was a sufficient apology for his rashness. Un­questionably the army, as a military establishment, had declined in excellence ere Justinian ascended the

■    throne, and his reign tended to sink it much lower ; yet it is probable that it was never more remarkable for the enterprising valour of its officers, or for their personal skill in the use of their weapons. The death

I ¹ Lebeau, Jfistoire (hi JUts-I'mpire, tom. ix. 9], 93. Xutes <!<’■ Saint Martin. Many more might be added. John, the Armenian, was killed in the pursuit of Gelimer. Akoum, a Hun, commanded the troops in Illyria.—Theoph. p. 18J. Peran, son of a king of Iberia; Bessas, a Gotli, but subject of the empire; Isak, an Armenian; Philcmuth, a llun, were all generals. Seethe Index to Procopius.

256

liEIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. in. of numbers of the highest rank in battles and skirmishes                         |

in which they rashly engaged, proves this fact. There i was, however, one important feature of ancient tactics

still preserved in the Roman armies, which gave them                                 )

a decided superiority over their enemies. They had                                         j

still the confidence in their discipline and skill to form                                  ^;

their ranks, and encounter their opponents in line; the                                    ;

bravest of their enemies, whether ,011 the banks of the ! Danube or the Tigris, only ventured to charge them, or receive their attack, in close masses.¹

SECT. III.—INFLUENCE OF JUSTINIANS LEGISLATION ON THE     'I

GREEK POPULATION.        '

The Greeks long remained strangers to the Roman . law. The free cities continued to be governed by their i own legal systems and local usages, and the Greek lawyers did not consider it necessary to study the • civil law of their masters. But this state of things underwent a great modification, after Constantine f transformed the Greek town of Byzantium into the 1 Roman city of Constantinople. The imperial adminis­tration, after that period, came into more immediate (U connection with its eastern subjects ; the legislative ! j power of the emperors was more frequently exercised ’ in the regulation of provincial business ; and the ; Christian church, by uniting the whole Greek pojmla- j tion into one body, often called forth general measures of legislation. While the confusion arising from the incongruity of old laws to the new exigencies of society ’ was generally felt, the increasing poverty, depopulation, ⁵ and want of education in the Greek cities, rendered it f, difficult to maintain the ancient tribunals. The Greeks ¹ were often compelled to study at the universities where , ... » ¹ Even the rebel troops in Africa fought in bands, like barbarians, and not i in regular ranks, like Romans.                                    ; -

LEGISLATION.

2 57

Roman jurisprudence alone was cultivated, and thus the municipal law-courts were at last guided in their decisions by the rules of Roman law. As the number of the native tribunals decreased, their duties were performed by judges named by the imperial adminis­tration ; and thus Roman law, silently, and without any violent change or direct legislative enactment, was generally introduced into Greece.

Justinian, from the moment of his accession to the throne, devoted his attention to the improvement of every department of government, and carried his favourite plan, of centralising the direction of the com­plicated machine of the Roman administration in his own person, as far as possible. The necessity of con­densing the various authorities of Roman jurisprudence, and of reducing the mass of legal opinions of eminent lawyers into a system of legislative enactments, possess­ing unity of form and facility of reference, was deeply felt. Such a system of legislation is useful in every country ; but it becomes peculiarly necessary, after a long period of civilisation, in an absolute monarchy, in order to restrain the decisions of legal tribunals by published law, and prevent the judges from assuming arbitrary power, under the pretext of interpreting obsolete edicts and conflicting decisions. A code of laws, to a certain degree, serves as a barrier against , despotism, for it supplies the people with the means of t calmly confuting the acts of their government and the \ decisions of their judges by recognised principles of justice; and at the same time it is a useful ally to the _k absolute sovereign, as it supplies him with increased facilities for detecting legal injustice committed by his j oflicial agents.

The faults or merits of Justinian’s system of laws . belong to the lawyers intrusted with the execution of his project, but the honour of having commanded this

258

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. in. work may be ascribed to the emperor alone. It is to be regretted that the position of an absolute sovereign is so liable to temptation from passing events, that Justinian himself could not refrain from injuring the surest monument of his fame, by later enactments, which mark too clearly that they emanated either from his own increasing avarice, or from weakness in yield­ing to the passions of his wife or courtiers.¹ It could not be expected that his political sagacity should have devised the means of securing the rights of his subjects against the arbitrary exercise of his own power ; but he might have consecrated the great principle of equity, that legislation can never act as a retrospective decision; and he might have ordered his magistrates to adopt the oath of the Egyptian judges, who swore, when they entered an office, that they would never depart from the principles of equity (law), and that if the sovereign ordered them to do wrong, they would not obey. Justinian, however, was too much of a despot, and too little of a statesman, to proclaim the law, even while > retaining the legislative power in his person, to be superior to the executive branch of the government. But in maintaining that the laws of Justinian might have been rendered more perfect, and have been framed to confer greater benefits on mankind, it is not to be , denied that the work is one of the most remarkable ' monuments of human wisdom; and we should re- j member with gratitude, that for thirteen hundred years i the Pandects served as the magazine or source of legal lore, and constitution of civil rights, to the Christian it world, both in the East and in the West; and if it has • now become an instrument of administrative tyranny in the continental monarchies of Europe, the fault is ’ in the nations who refuse to follow out the principles j of equity logically in regulating the dispensation of j

¹ Justinian indicates that he wae sensible of this.- Cud. Just. xii. 24, 7. \

I

LEGISLATION.

justice, and do not raise the law above the sovereign, nor render every minister and public servant amenable to the regular tribunals for every act he may commit in the exercise of his official duty, like the humblest citizen.¹

The government of Justinian’s empire was Roman, its official language was Latin. Oriental habits and usages, as well as time and despotic power, had indeed introduced modifications in the old forms ; but it , would be an error to consider the imperial adminis­tration as having assumed a Greek character. The accident of the Greek language having become the ordinary dialect in use at court, and of the church in the Eastern Empire being deeply tinctured with Greek feelings, is apt to create an impression that the Eastern j Empire had lost something of its Roman pride, in order | to adopt a Greek character. The circumstance that its enemies often reproached it with being Greek, is a proof that the imputation was viewed as an insult. As the administration was entirely Roman, the laws of | Justinian—the Code, the Pandects, and the Institutions —were published in Latin, though many of the latter ¹ edicts (novells) were published in Greek. Nothing 1 can illustrate in a stronger manner the artificial and ^,e : anti-national position of the eastern Roman empire 1® than this fact, that the Latin language was used in the fr promulgation of a system of laws for an empire, the ® language of whose church and literature was Greek.

I '     .      .           .       .

^ Latin was preserved in official business, and in public

^ ¹ In Continental constitutions there is generally an article declaring that all jjjS - citizens arc equal before the law, and yet this is followed by others which allow the sovereign to establish exceptional tribunals for judging the conduct of IDj government officials, according to a system of privileges and immunities called i, j. • administrative law. Where true liberty exists, every agent of the administni- ^ I tion, from the gendarme to the finance minister, must be rendered personally Jg ■ responsible to the citizen whom his act atlccts for the legality of every act lie 1 ₍ | carries into execution. This is the real foundation of English liberty, and the flt I great legal principle which distinguishes the law of England from the laws of tho continental nations of Europe and that of Home, from which they are j ", derived.

260

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

ceremonials, from feelings of pride connected with the ancient renown of the Romans, and the dignity of the Roman empire. So strong is the hold which anti­quated custom maintains over the minds of men, that even a professed reformer, like Justinian, could not break through so irrational an usage as the publication of his laws in a language incomprehensible to most of those for whose use they were framed.

The laws and legislation of Justinian throw only an indistinct and vague light on the state of the Greek population. They were drawn entirely from Roman sources, calculated for a Roman state of society, and occupied with Roman forms and institutions. Justinian was so anxious to preserve them in all their purity, that he adopted two measures to secure them from altera­tion. The copyists were commanded to refrain from any abridgment, and the commentators were ordered to follow the literal sense of the laws. All schools of law were likewise forbidden, except those of Constanti­nople, Rome, and Berytus, a regulation which must have been adopted to guard the Roman law from being corrupted, by falling into the hands of Greek teachers, and becoming confounded Avith the customary laAv of the various Greek provinces.¹ This restriction, and the importance attached to it by the emperor, prove that the Roman law was noAv the universal rule of conduct in the empire. Justinian took every measure Avliich prudence could dictate to secure the best and purest legal instruction and administration for the Roman tribunals ; but only a small number of students could study in the licensed schools, and Rome, one of these schools, Avas, at the time of the publication of the law, in the hands of the Goths. It is therefore not surpris­

¹ Const, ad Antccessores, and De Confirm. Diyestorum. Cod. Just. i. 17, 3. Joan. Malalas (p. 63, edit. Ven.) says that Justinian sent a copy of his laws to Athens as well as to Berytus.

LEGISLATION.

2G1

ing that a rapid decline in the knowledge of Roman law commenced very shortly after the promulgation of Jus­tinian’s legislation.

Justinian’s laws were soon translated into Greek with­out the emperor’s requiring that these paraphrases should be literal; and Greek commentaries of an ex­planatory nature were published. His novells were sub­sequently published in Greek when the case required it; but it is evident that any remains of Greek laws and customs were rapidly yielding to the superior sys­tem of Roman legislation, perfected as this was by the judicious labours of Justinian’s councillors. Some modifications were made in the jurisdiction of the judges and municipal magistrates at this time ; and we must admit the testimony of Procopius as a proof that Justinian sold judicial offices, though the vagueness of the accusation does not afford us the means of ascer­taining under what pretext the change in the earlier system was adopted. It is perhaps impossible to de­termine what share of authority the Greek municipal magistrates retained in the administration of justice and police, after the reforms effected by Justinian in their financial affairs, and the seizure of a large part of their local revenues. The existence of Greek corpora­tions in Italy shows that they possessed an acknow­ledged existence in the Roman empire.

SECT. IV.—INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION, AS IT AFFECTED TIIE CREEKS.

The internal administration of Justinian was remark­able for religious intolerance and financial rapacity.¹ Both assisted in increasing the deep-rooted hatred of the imperial power throughout the provinces, and his successors soon experienced the bitter effects of his

¹ Evagrius, iv. 29. Procopius, A need. 11.

A. D.

527-5G5.

262

11EIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. hi. policy. Even the commencement of his own reign - gave some alarming manifestations of the general feel­ing. The celebrated sedition of the Nika, though it broke out among the factions of the amphitheatre, ac- j quired its importance in consequence of popular dis- , satisfaction with the fiscal measures of the emperor, i This sedition possesses an unfortunate celebrity in the / annals of the empire, from the destruction of many J public buildings and numerous works of ancient art, . occasioned by the conflagrations raised by the rebels. ; Belisarius succeeded in suppressing it with considerable difficulty after much bloodshed, and not until Justinian , had felt his throne in imminent danger. The alarm j produced a lasting impression on his mind ; and more ; than one instance occurred during his reign to remind him that popular sedition puts a limit to despotic power. At a subsequent period, an insurrection of the j people compelled him to abandon a project for recruiting the imperial finances, according to a common resource ¹ of arbitrary sovereigns, by debasing the value of the ^ coin.¹ '

We possess only scanty materials for describing the condition of the Greek population during the reign of Justinian. The relations of the Greek provinces and cities with the central administration had endured for ages, slowly undergoing the changes produced by time, but without the occurrence of any general measure of \ reform, until the decree of Caracalla conferred on all the ' Greeks the rights and privileges of Roman citizens. That decree, by converting all Greeks into Romans, must have greatly modified the constitution of the free and autonomous cities ; but history furnishes 110 means of determining with precision its effect on the inhabi- ! tants of Greece. Justinian made another great change by confiscating the local revenues of the municipalities; J

¹ Jla/ahi' Ch. pars. ii. p. 80, edit. Yen.   j

INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION.

but in the six centuries which had elapsed from the fall a. d. of the Roman republic to the extinction of municipal freedom in the Greek cities, the prominent feature of the Roman administration had been invariably the same —fiscal rapacity, which gradually depopulated the coun­try, and prepared the way for its colonisation by foreign races.

The colossal fabric of the Roman government em­braced not only a numerous imperial court and house­hold, a host of administrators, finance agents, and judges, a powerful army and navy, and a splendid church establishment; it also conferred the privilege of titular nobility 011 a large portion of the higher classes, both on those who were selected to fill local offices in connection with the public administration, and on those who had held public employments during some period of their lives. The titles of this nobility were official; its members were the creatures of government, attached to the imperial throne by ties of interest; they were exempted from particular taxes, separated from the body of the people by various privileges, and formed, from their great numbers, rather a distinct na­tion than a privileged class. They were scattered over all the provinces of Justinian’s empire, from the Atlan­tic to the Euphrates, and constituted, at this period, the real nucleus of civil society in the Roman world. Of their influence, many distinct traces may be found, even after the extinction of the Roman power, both in the East and in the West.¹

The population of the provinces, and more especially the proprietors and cultivators of the soil, stood com-

_ ¹ Notitia Dignilatum, edit. Boeeking. Lydus, I)c Magistratibus Jteipuf,.

, Jlomancv, ii. II}. (J. T. vi. tit. />. C. J. xii. fi. “ Ut dignitatum ordo scrvetur.”

| The prefect of Africa was allowed by Justinian to have three hundred and ninety-six officers and clerks, and each of his lieutenants and deputies, fifty.

Cod. Just. i. 27, 3. Arcadius had forbidden tho Conics of the Orient, who was under the orders of the prefect of the Hast, to have inoro than six hundred.

Just. C. xii. />7. Compare Lactantius, De Mart. Vers. 7, 1. Manso, Lcben

_i      Constantins, p. 13'J.

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

ciiap. iii. pletely apart from these representatives of the Roman supremacy, and almost in a state of direct opposition to the government. The weight of the Roman yoke had now pressed down all the provincials to nearly the same level. As a general rule, they wereexcludecl from the profession of arms ;¹ their poverty caused them to ne­glect the cultivation of arts, sciences, and literature, and their whole attention was absorbed in watching the increasing rapacity of the imperial treasury, and in find­ing means to evade the oppression which they saw no possibility of resisting. The land and capitation taxes formed the source of this oppression. No taxes were, perhaps, more equitable in their general principle, and few appear ever to have been administered, for so long a period, with such unfeeling prudence. Their severity had been so gradually increased, that but a very small annual encroachment had been made on the savings of the people, and centuries elapsed before its whole accu­mulated capital was consumed; but at last the whole wealth of the empire was drawn into the imperial trea­sury ; fruit-trees were cut down, and free men were sold to pay taxes; vineyards were rooted out, and buildings were destroyed to escape taxation.

The manner of collecting the land and capitation taxes displays singular ingenuity in the mode of esti­mating the value of the property to be taxed, and an in­human sagacity in framing a system capable of extract­ing the last farthing which that property could yield. The registers underwent a public revision every fif­teenth year, but the indictio, or amount of taxation to be paid, was annually fixed by an imperial ordinance. The whole empire was divided into capita, or hides of land.²

¹     The states of Greece had preserved their local militia even to Justinian’s time, as appears from the existence of the provincial guard for the defence of Thermopylae, which he disbanded.—Procopius, Hist. Arc. c. 26.

²     The capita were not only assessed at different amounts in the different pro­vinces, according to circumstances, but even in the same provinces, where they were assessed at the same amount, their size would differ according to the

INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION.

2G5

The proprietors of these capita were grouped together in communities, the wealthier members of which were formed into a permanent magistracy, and rendered liable for the amount of the taxes due by their com­munity. The same law of responsibility was applied to the senates and magistrates of cities and free states. Confiscation of private property had, from the earliest days of the empire, been regarded as an important financial resource. In the days of Tiberius, the nobles of Rome, whose power, influence, and character alarmed the jealous tyrant, were swept away. Nero attacked the wealthy to fill his exhausted treasury ; and from that time to the days of Justinian, the richest indivi­duals in the capital and the provinces had been system­atically punished for every offence by the confiscation of their fortunes. The pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, of Zosimus and Procopius, attest the extent and dura­tion of this war against private wealth. Now, in the eyes of the Roman government, the greatest political offence was the failure to perform a public duty; and the most important duty of a Roman subject had long been to furnish the amount of taxes required by the State. The increase of the public burdens at last pro­ceeded so far, that every year brought with it a failure in the taxes of some province, and consequently the confiscation of the private property of the wealthiest , citizens of the insolvent district, until at last all the j rich proprietors were ruined, and the law became nuga- I tory. The poor and ignorant inhabitants of the rural districts in Greece forgot the literature and arts of their | ancestors; and as they had no longer anything to sell, nor the means of purchasing foreign commodities, money j ceased to circulate.

' But though the proud aristocracy and the wealthy

fertility of the district. They corresponded to the modern ^tvyd^ix. In rich lands where a part is irrigable, a zevgari is sometimes not more than thirty acres, but in sterile Attiea there are zevgaria of more than one hundred acres.

2GG                               REIGN OF JUSTINIAN. >

. votaries of art, literature, and philosophy, disappeared, and though independent citizens and proprietors now ■ stood scattered over the provinces as isolated indivi­duals, without exercising any direct influence on the character of the age, still the external framework of < ancient society displayed something of its pomp and > greatness. The decay of its majesty and strength was ,, felt; mankind perceived the approach of a mighty > change, but the revolution had not yet arrived ; the i past glory of Greece shed its colouring on the unknown future, and the dark shadow which that future now ¹ throws back, when we contemplate Justinian’s reign, j was then imperceptible.

Many of the habits, and some of the institutions of ancient civilisation, still continued to exist among the i Greek population. Property, though crumbling away ^r \ under a system of slow corrosion, was regarded b}^r - public opinion as secure against lawless violence or ; indiscriminate confiscation ; and it really was so, when I a comparison is made between the condition of a sub- 1 ject of the Roman empire and a proprietor of the soil J in any other country of the then known world. If I there was much evil in the state of society, there was , i also some good ; and, when contemplating it from our modern social position, we must never forget that the ’ same causes which destroyed the wealth, arts, literature, and civilisation of the Romans and Greeks, began to \ eradicate from among mankind the greatest degrada- I tion of our species—the existence of slavery.

In the reign of Justinian, the Greeks as a people had I lost much of their superiority over the other sub- I¹ jects of the empire. The schools of philosophy, which had afforded the last refuge for the ancient literature of the country, had long fallen into neglect, and were on the very eve of extinction, when Justinian closed them by a public edict. The poverty and ignorance f

INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION.

2 07

of the inhabitants of Greece had totally separated the philosophers from the people. The town population had everywhere embraced Christianity. The country population, composed now in great part of the offspring of freedmen and slaves, was removed from all instruc­tion, and paganism continued to exist in the retired mountains of the Peloponnesus. Those principles of separation which originated in non-communication of ideas and interests, and which began to give the Roman empire the aspect of an agglomeration of nations, rather than the appearance of a single State, operated as pow­erfully on the Greek people as on the Egyptian, Syrian, and Armenian population. The needy cultivators of the soil—the artisans in the towns—and the servile dependents on the imperial administration,—formed three distinct classes of society. A strong line of dis­tinction was created between the Greeks in the service of the empire and the body of the people, both in the towns and country. The mass of the Greeks naturally participated in the general hostility to the Roman ad­ministration ; yet the immense numbers who were employed in the State, and in the highest dignities of the Church, neutralised the popular opposition, and pre- ¹ vented the Greek nation from aspiring at national in­dependence.

It has been already observed that Justinian restricted the powers and diminished the revenues of the Greek imunicipalities, but that- these corporations continued to exist, though shorn of their former power and in­fluence. Splendid monuments of Grecian architecture, ‘and beautiful works of Grecian art, still adorned the Agora and the Acropolis of many cities in Greece. jWhere the ancient walls Avere falling into decay, and die untenanted buildings presented an aspect of ruin,

|'.hey were cleared away to construct the new fortifica­tions, the churches, and the monasteries, with which

I

2G8

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. hi. Justinian covered the empire. The hasty construction ' of these buildings, rapidly erected from the materials '' furnished by the ancient structures around, accounts ’ both for their number and for the facility with which j time has effaced almost every trace of their existence. Still, even in architecture, the Roman empire displayed ^; some traces of its greatness ; the church of St Sophia, and the aqueduct of Constantinople, attest the supe- ; riority of Justinian’s age over subsequent periods, both _i in the East and in the West.                                    ,

The superiority of the Greek population must at this _f time have been most remarkable in their regulations of 3 internal government and police administration.¹ Pub- _; lie roads were still maintained in a serviceable state, j though not equal in appearance or solidity of construc- * tion to the Appian Way in Italy, which excited the ¹ admiration of Procopius.2 Streets were kept in repair by the proprietors of the houses forming them.³ The ** astynomoi and the agorcinomoi were still elected, but 'J their number often indicated the former greatness of n a diminished population. The post-houses, post-man- U sions, and every means of transport, were maintained in good order, but they had long been rendered a j¹ means of oppressing the people; and, though laws had ■ often been passed to prevent the provincials from suffer- , ing from the exactions of imperial officers when travel- ₍ ling, the extent of the abuses was beginning to ruin j the establishment.⁴ The Roman empire, to the latest ' period of its existence, paid considerable attention to ^ the police of the public roads, and it was indebted to

¹                   Procopius, in the Secret History, accuses Justinian of neglecting the public ( aqueducts, but we have no data for ascertaining the precise changes he | effected in the water police and administration. The names of the modern j officers charged with the distribution of the water of the Cephissus for irriga­tion, and of the water of the ancient subterraneous aqueduct which supplies ' Athens, and which supplied it before the days of Pericles, are ■xera.pazx.ris and t. vscsxgdmf.         ² De Bello Gotth. i. 14.      i '

³                                         Big. xliii. 10, 11. j '

⁴                                         Cod. Theod. viii. tit. 5, “De Cursu rublico.”                   f

i   hj -i-

INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION.

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this care for the preservation of its military superiority over its enemies, and of its lucrative commerce.

The activity of the government in clearing the country of robbers and banditti, and the singular severity of the laws on this subject, show that the slightest danger of a diminution of the imperial revenues inspired the Roman government with energy and vigour.¹ Nor were other means of advancing the

O                           O

commercial interests of the people neglected. The ports were carefully cleaned, and their entry indicated by lighthouses, as in earlier times;² and, in short, only that portion of ancient civilisation which was too ex­pensive for the diminished resources of the age had fallen into neglect. Utility and convenience were universally sought, both in private and public life ; but solidity, taste, and the durability which aspires at immortality, were no longer regarded as objects of attainable ambition. The basilica, or the monastery, constructed by breaking to pieces the solid blocks of a neglected temple, and cemented together by lime burnt from the marble of the desecrated shrine, or from some heathen tomb, was intended to contain a certain number of persons ; and the cost of the build- I ing, and its temporary sufficiency for the required i purpose, were just as much the general object of the architect’s attention in the time of Justinian as in our own.

The worst feature of Justinian’s administration was , its venality. This vice, it is true, generally prevails in every administration uninlluenced by public opinion,

¹ and based on an organised bureaucracy; for whenever the corps of administrators becomes too numerous for

■    the moral character of individuals to be under the

i

¹     Cod. Just. i. 55,0, “ De Defensoribus Civitatum ; ” 10, 75, “Do Iren- arcliis ; ” ix. 47, 18, “De Poems.”

²     Pliny [Hist. Nat. xxxv. 12,) shows that the provincial towns of Odtia and Kavenna had borrowed this Greek invention.

270

REKIN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. iii. direct control of tlieir superiors, usage secures to them a permanent official position, unless they grossly neglect their duties. Justinian, however, countenanced the venality of his subordinates by an open sale of offices; and the violent complaints of Procopius are confirmed by the legislative measures of the emperor.¹ When shame prevented the emperor himself from selling an official appointment, he did not blush to order the pay­ment of a stated sum to be made to the empress Theodora.² This conduct opened a door to abuses 011 the part of the imperial ministers and provincial governors, and contributed, in 110 small degree, to the misfortunes of Justin II. It diminished the influence of the Roman administration in the distant provinces, and neutralised the benefits which Justinian had con­ferred on the empire by his legislative compilations. A strong proof of the declining condition of the Greek nation is to be found in the care with which every misfortune of this period is recorded in history. It is only when little hope is felt of repairing the ravages of disease, fire, and earthquakes, that these evils perma­nently affect the prosperity of nations. In an improv­ing state of society, great as their ravages may prove, they are only personal misfortunes and temporary evils ; the void which they create in the population is quickly replaced, and the property which they may destroy rises from its ruins with increased solidity and beauty. When it happens that a pestilence leaves a country depopulated for many generations, and that conflagrations and earthquakes ruin cities, which are never again reconstructed of their former size—these evils are apt to be mistaken by the people as the primary cause of the national decline, and acquire an

¹ Procopius, JHsl. Arc. c. 14, 21. Cud. Just. i. ‘27, 1, 2, “ De Officio Prscfecti

Pnetorio Africa;.” Nov. 8. Nov. 1.

³     Xw. 30. c. 6.

INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION.

271

undue historical importance in the popular mind. The age of Justinian was remarkable for a terrible pestilence which ravaged every province of the empire in succes­sion, for many famines which swept away 110 incon­siderable portion of the population, and for earth­quakes which laid waste 110 small number of the most flourishing and populous cities of the empire.¹

Greece had suffered very little from hostile attacks after the departure of Alaric ; for the piratical incur­sions of Genseric were neither very extensive nor very successful; and after the time of these barbarians, the ravages of earthquakes begin to figure in history, as an important cause of the impoverished and declining con­dition of the country. The Huns, it is true, extended their plundering expeditions, in the year 540, as far as the Isthmus of Corinth, but they do not appear to have succeeded in capturing a single town of any note.² The fleet of Totila plundered Corcyra, and the coast of Epirus, from Nicopolis up to Dodona ; but these mis­fortunes were temporary and partial, and could have caused 110 irreparable loss, either of life or property. The fact appears to be, that Greece was in a declining condition; but that the means of subsistence were abundant, and the population had but an incorrect and , vague conception of the means by which the govern- ij mcnt was consuming their substance, and depopulating their country. In this state of things, several earth- ¹ quakes, of singular violence, and attended by unusual phenomena, made a deep impression 011 men’s minds, by producing a degree of desolation which a declining state of society rendered irreparable. Corinth, which I was still a populous city, Patras, Naupactus, Chceronca,

^ ¹ Gibbon (rli. xliii.) gives an account of the earthquakes and of the great

I pestilence.—See notes MS, GO, So and 'J5. Procopius ((fotth■ ii. c. 17) gives a

i fearful picture of the famine in Italy, and says that millions perished in Afric;>,

i which suffered less than Italy.— 11 ht. Am. c. 18.

272 EEIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

:

ciiap. hi. and Coronea, were all laid in ruins. An immense assembly of Greeks was collected at the time to cele­brate a public festival; the whole population was swallowed up in the midst of their ceremonies. The j | waters of the Maliac Gulf retired suddenly, and left the 1 shores of Thermopylae dry ; but the sea, suddenly re- j turning with violence, swept up the valley of the Sperchius, and carried away the inhabitants. In an age of ignorance and superstition, when the prospects of mankind were despondent, and at the moment when the emperor was effacing the last relics of the religion of their ancestors—a religion which had filled the sea j and the land with guardian deities—these awful occur- _: rences could not fail to produce an alarming effect on i men’s minds, and were not unnaturally regarded as a ? supernatural confirmation of the despair which led I many to imagine that the ruin of our globe was | approaching. It is not wonderful that many pagans j believed with Procopius that Justinian was the demon I destined to complete the catastrophe of the human ?■ race.¹                                         '

The condition of the Greek population in Achaia ■ seems to have been as little understood by the courtiers 11 of Justinian as that of the newly-established Greek | kingdom by its Bavarian masters and the protecting | powers. The splendid appearance which the ancient ¹ monuments, shining in the clear sky with the freshness f ' of recent constructions, gave to the Greek cities, induced a ¹ the Constantinopolitans and other strangers who visited ¹ the country, to suppose that the aspect of elegance and ■ { ‘ delicacy of finish, everywhere apparent, were the result |⁽ of constant municipal expenditure. The buildings of i Constantine and Theodosius in the capital were pro- \ Ii bably begrimed with dust and smoke, so that it was | j:. natural to conceive that those of Pericles and Epam- *

¹ Procopius, Hist. Arc. c. 18.  j

INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION.

inonclas could retain a perpetual youth only by a liberal n. expenditure for their preservation. The celebrity of the '^V27"^{50 )}' city of Athens, the privileges which it still enjoyed, the society by which it was frequented, as an agreeable residence, as a school for study, or as a place of retire­ment for the wealthy literary men of the age, gave the people of the capital a for too exalted idea of the well­being of Greece. The cotemporaries of Justinian judged the Greeks of their age by placing them in too close a relation with the inhabitants of the free states of anti­quity ; we, 011 the contrary, are too apt to confound them with the rude inhabitants who dwelt in the Pelo­ponnesus after it was filled with Sclavonian and Al­banian colonies. Had Procopius rightly estimated the condition of the rural population, and reflected 011 the extreme difficulty which the agriculturist always en­counters in quitting his actual employment in order to seek any distant occupation, and the impossibility of finding money in a country where there are 110 pur­chasers for extra produce, he would not have signalised the penurious disposition of the Greeks as their national characteristic.¹ The population which spoke the Greek language in the capital and in the Roman administra­tion was now influenced by a very different spirit from that of the inhabitants of the true Hellenic lands; and this separation of feeling became more and more con­spicuous as the empire declined in power. The central administration soon ceased to pay any particular atten­tion to Greece, which was sure to. furnish its tribute, as it hated the Romans less than it feared the barbarians.

| From henceforward, therefore, the inhabitants of Hellas

I ¹ fJe     iv. 11. “ T«yr>i ts t? jfxtx^oXoyi'f.” The historical works of

| Procopius were written for tho literary classcs, the Secret 11 iatory for the people.

I It is probable that many works like the Seen I J/istort/, circulated in the Lower Empire, were particularly addressed to (!reek readers. Compare the unwill­ingness to blame the Greeks in c. 21 with the above passage iu the- ylidificlix.

“ 'E'rixocXotjvri; rot; /aiv u; Vqu.ix.ii) inv, uano ovx, i%ov twv ol^o Tns to     r/w

yivvxiw yi/iaDai."

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REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

ciiap. iii. become almost lost to the historians of the empire ; and    the motley and expatriated population of Constanti­nople, Asia Minor, Syria, and Alexandria, is represented to the literary world as forming the real body of the Greek nation—an error which has concealed the history of a nation from our study, and replaced it by the annals of a court and the records of a government.

SECT. V.        INFLUENCE OF JUSTINIAN’S CONQUESTS ON THE GREEK ■

POPULATION, AND THE CHANGE EFFECTED BY TIIE CONQUEST OF TIIE VANDAL KINGDOM OF AFRICA.

The attention of Justinian’s immediate predecessors had been devoted to improving the internal condition , of the empire, and that portion of the population of the ' Eastern Empire which spoke Greek forming the most important body of the emperor’s subjects, it had parti- ^! cipated in the greatest degree in this improvement. The Greeks were 011 the eve of securing a national pre­ponderance in the Roman state, when Justinian forced j them back into their former secondary condition, by ^! directing the influence of the public administration to i arms and law, the two departments of the Roman * government from which the Greeks were in a great 1 measure excluded. The conquests of Justinian, how- m ever, tended to improve the condition of the mercantile and manufacturing portion of the Greek population, by i extending its commercial relations with the West; and f the trading population of the East began to acquire an influence in public affairs, which tended to support the central government at Constantinople, when the frame­work of the Roman imperial administration began to give way in the provinces. With the exception of » Sicily, and the southern portion of Italy, the whole of Justinian’s conquests in the West were peopled by the Latin race; and the inhabitants, though attached to i

1

CONQUEST OF AFRICA.

275

the imperial government of Constantinople as the poli­tical head of the orthodox church, were already opposed to the Greek nation.

When the Goths, Sueves, and Vandals had completed their establishments in Spain, Africa, and Italy, and their armies were spread over these countries as landed proprietors, the smallness of their number became ap­parent to the mass of the conquered population ; and the barbarians soon lost in individual intercourse as citizens the superiority which they had enjoyed while united in armed bands. The Romans, in spite of the confiscation of a portion of their estates to enrich their conquerors, and in spite of the oppression with which they were treated, still formed the majority of the middle classes ; the administration of the greater part of the landed property, the commerce of the countrv, the municipal and judicial organisation, all centred in the hands of the Roman population. In addition to this political existence, they were separated from their conquerors by religion. The northern invaders of the Western Empire were Arians, the Roman population was orthodox. This religious feeling was so strong,

O  O       O’

that the Catholic king of the Franks, Clovis, was often able to avail himself of the assistance of the orthodox subjects of the Arian Goths, in his wars with the Gothic kings.¹ As soon, however, as Justinian proved that the Eastern Empire had recovered some portion of the ancient Roman vigour, the eyes of all the Roman popu­lation in Spain, Gaul, Africa, and Italy, were directed to the imperial court; and there can be no doubt that the government of Justinian maintained extensive rela- I tions with the Roman population and the orthodox I clergy over all Europe, to prepare for assisting his ' military operations.

Justinian had succeeded to the empire while it was

¹ Gregory of Tour», 1. ii. c. 7.

27G

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

oi i a iv hi. embroiled in war with Persia, but he was fortunate enough to conclude a peace with Chosroes the Great, who ascended the Persian throne in the fourth year of his reign. In the East the emperor could never expect to make any permanent conquests ; while in the West a large portion of the population of the countries which he proposed attacking was ready to receive his troops with open arms ; and, in case of success, they were sure to form submissive and probably attached sub­jects. Both policy and religion induced Justinian to commence his attacks 011 the invaders of the Roman empire in Africa. The conquest of the northern coast of Africa by the Vandals, like the conquest of the other great provinces of the Western Empire by the Goths, the Burgundians, and the Franks, was gradually effected; for the number of Genseric’s troops was too small to subdue and garrison the whole country in a series of consecutive campaigns. The Vandals, who quitted ►Spain in 428, could not arm more than 80,000 men. In the year 431, Genseric, having defeated Boniface, took Hippo ; but it was not until 439 that he gained possession of Carthage ; and the conquest of the whole African coast to the frontier of the Greek settlements in Cyrenaica was not completed until after the death of Valentinian III., and the sack of Rome in 455. The Vandals were bigoted Arians, and their government

©             ⁷            O

was peculiarly tyrannical ; they always treated the Roman inhabitants of Africa as political enemies, and persecuted them as religious opponents. The Visigoths in Spain had occupied two-thirds of the subjugated lands, the Ostrogoths in Italy had been satisfied with one-third ; and both these people had acknowledged the civil rights of the Romans as citizens and Chris­tians. The Vandals adopted a different policy. Gen­seric reserved immense domains to himself and to his sons. He divided the densely peopled and rich dis-

CONQUEST OF AFRICA.

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trict of Africa proper among the Vandal warriors, ex- a. p._ empting them from taxation, and binding them to V military service. Eighty thousand lots were appor­tioned, clustered round the large possessions of the highest officers. They seized all the richest lands, and the most valuable estates, and exterminated the higher class of the Romans. Only the poorer proprietors were permitted to preserve the arid and distant parts of the country. Still the number of Romans excited the fears of the Vandals, who destroyed the walls of the provin­cial towns in order to prevent the people from receiving succours from the Eastern Empire, which might have supported a rebellion. The Roman population was enfeebled by these measures, .but its hatred of the Vandal government was increased; and when Gelimer assumed the royal authority in the year 531, the people of Tripolis rebelled, and solicited assistance from Jus­tinian.

Justinian could not overlook the Great wealth of

O

Africa at the time of its conquest by Genserie ; the distributions of grain which it had furnished for Rome,

' and the immense tribute which it had once paid. Only a century had elapsed, so that he could hardly have supposed it possible that the wealth and population of ¹ the country had suffered to the extent of their actual diminution, from the oppressive government of the Vandal kings. On the other hand, he was doubtless perfectly aware of the neglected state of military dis­cipline among the Vandals. 'The conquest of a civil- ¹ ised population by rude warriors must always be at­tended by the ruin, and often by the extermination, of the numerous classes which are supported by the profits i of those manufactures which are destined lor the con­sumption of the refined. The first conquerors despise ¹ the appearance and manners of the conquered, and . never adopt immediately their costly dress, which is

278

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. III. naturally considered as a sign of effeminacy and cowardice, nor do they adorn their dwellings with the same taste and refinement. The vanquished being deprived of the wealth necessary to procure these luxuries, the ruin of a numerous class of manufac­turers, and of a great portion of the industrious popu­lation, is an inevitable consequence of this cessation of demand. Thousands of artisans, tradesmen, and labourers, must either emigrate or perish by starva­tion ; and the annihilation of a large commercial capital employed in supporting human life takes place with wonderful rapidity. Yet the conquerors may long live in wealth and luxury; the accumulated riches of the country will for many years be found amply sufficient to gratify all the desires of the victors, and the whole of this wealth will generally be consumed, and even the power of reproducing it be greatly dimin­ished, before any signs of poverty are perceived by the conquerors. These facts are illustrated in the clearest manner by the history of the Vandal domination in Africa. The emigration of Vandal families from Spain did not consist of more than eighty thousand males of warlike age ; and when Genseric conquered Carthage, his whole army amounted only to fifty thousand war­riors ; yet this small horde devoured all the wealth of Africa in the course of a single century, and, from an army of hardy soldiers, it was converted into a caste of luxurious nobles living in splendid villas round Carthage.¹ In order fully to understand the influence of the Vandals on the state of the country which they occupied, it must be observed that their oppressive government had already so far lowered the condition, and reduced the numbers of the Roman pro­vincials, that the native Moors began to reoccupy the country from which Roman industry and Roman capi-

¹ Procopius, Vaml. i. c. 5.

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279

tal had excluded them. The Moorish population being a. d.

in a lower state of civilisation than the lowest grade of I________________________ 1'

the Romans, could exist in districts abandoned as un­inhabitable after the destruction of buildings and plan­tations which the oppressed farmer had no means of replacing; and thus, from the time of the Vandal in­vasion, we find the Moors continually gaining ground on the Latin colonists, gradually covering an increased -extent of country, and augmenting in numbers and power. As the property of the province was destroyed, its Roman inhabitants perished.

When Justinian attacked the Vandals they had be­come one of the most luxurious nations in the world ; but as they continued to affect the character of soldiers, they were admirably armed, and ready to take the field with their whole male population. The neglect of mili­tary discipline and science rendered their armies very inefficient in spite of their splendid equipments, llil- deric, the fifth monarch of the Vandal kingdom, the grandson of Genseric, and son of Eudocia, the daughter of the Emperor Valentinian 1TL, showed himself in­clined to protect his orthodox and Roman subjects.¹ This disposition, and his Roman descent, excited the suspicion of his Vandal and Arian countrymen, with­out attaching the orthodox provincials to his hated race. Gelimer, the great-grandson of Genseric, availed himself of the general discontent to dethrone llilderic, but the revolution was not effected without manifesta­tions of dissatisfaction. The Roman inhabitants of the province of Tripolis availed themselves of the oppor-

¹ The succession of the Vandal monarchy was as follows :—

They invaded Africa,     . Genseric ascended the throne, .

Ilunncric, . .   .

Gundaimind, . ,     .

Thorismuml, .        .

Hilderic, . .    .

Gelimer seized the crown,     .

a. n. 428 . 4 •_?!>

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REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

tunity to throw off the Vandal yoke, and solicit assist­ance from Justinian ; and a Gothic officer who com­manded in Sardinia rebelled against the usurper.

The treason of Gelimer afforded Justinian an ex­cellent pretext for invading the Vandal kingdom. Belisarius, a general already distinguished by his con­duct in the Persian war, was selected to command an expedition of considerable magnitude, though by no means equal to the great expedition which Leo 1. had sent to attack Genseric.¹ Ten thousand infantry, and five thousand cavalry, were embarked in a fleet of five hundred transports, which was protected and escorted by ninety-two light galleys of war. The troops were all veterans, inured to discipline, and the cavalry was composed of the choicest soldiers in the imperial service. After a long navigation, and some delay at Methone and in Sicily, they reached Africa. The Van­dals, who, in the time of Genseric, had been redoubted pirates, and as such were national enemies of the com­mercial Greeks, were now too wealthy to court danger, and were ignorant of the approach of the Roman arma­ment, until they received the news that Belisarius was marching towards Carthage. They were numerous, and doubtless brave, but they were no longer trained to war, or accustomed to regular discipline, and their behaviour in the field of battle was contemptible. Two engagements of cavalry, in the bloodiest of which the Vandals lost only eight hundred men, decided the fate of Africa, and enabled Belisarius to subjugate the Van­dal kingdom. The brothers of Gelimer fell gallantly in the field. His own behaviour renders even his per­sonal courage doubtful,—he fled to the Moors of the mountainous districts ; but the misery of barbarous warfare, and the privations of a besieged camp, soon

¹ See page 214.

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281

extinguished his feelings of pride, and his love of inde­pendence. Belisarins led him prisoner to Constantinople, where lie appeared in the pageantry of a triumphal procession. A conquering general, a captive monarch, and a Roman triumph, offered strong temptations to romantic fancies; but we are informed by Procopius that Gelimer received from Justinian large estates in Galatia, to which he retired with his relations. Justinian offered him the rank of patrician, and a seat in the senate; but he was attached to his Arian principles, and believing that his personal dignity would be best maintained by avoiding to appear in a crowd of servile senators, he refused to join the orthodox church.¹

The Vandals displayed as little patriotism and forti­tude as their king. Some were slain in the war, the rest were incorporated in the Roman armies, or escaped to the Moors. The provincials were allowed to reclaim the lands from which they had been expelled at the conquest ; the Arian heresy was proscribed, and the race of these remarkable conquerors was in a short time exterminated. A single generation sufficed to confound their women and children in the mass of the Roman inhabitants of the province, and their very name was totally forgotten. There are few instances in history of a nation disappearing so rapidly and so completely I as the Vandals of Africa. After their conquest by J >eli- , sarius, they vanish from the facc of the earth as com­pletely as the Carthaginians after the taking of Carthage i by Scipio. Their first monarch, Ccnscric, had been | powerful enough to plunder both Rome and Greece, yet his army hardly exceeded fifty thousand men. J1 is successors, who held the absolute sovereignty of Africa I for one hundred and seven years, do not appear to have commanded a larger force. The whole Vandals seem

¹ Procopius, Vand. ii. c. !».

282 REIGN'OF JUSTINIAN.

. .        .4

never to liave multiplied beyond the oligarchical posi- j

tion in which their sudden acquisition of immense ^,J wealth had placed them.¹

Belisarius soon established the Roman authority so _] firmly round Carthage, that he was able to despatch troops in every direction, in order to secure and extend his conquests. The western coast w^Tas subjected as far \ as the Straits of Hercules: a garrison was placed in j Septum, and a body of troops stationed in Tripolis, to secure the eastern part of this extensive province from _: the incursions of the Moors. Sardinia, Corsica, Majorca, , Minorca, and Iviga, were added to the empire, merely by sending officers to take the command of these islands, , and troops to form the garrisons. The commercial re- * lations of the Greeks, and the civil institutions of the .] Romans, still exercised a very powerful influence over the populations of these islands.

Justinian determined to re-establish the Roman ij government on precisely the same basis as it existed ■ before the Vandal invasion; but as the registers of the \ land-tax and capitation, and the official admeasurement | of the estates, no longer existed, officers were sent from i Constantinople for the assessment of the taxes; and the <. old principle of extorting as much of the surplus pro- J! duce of the land as possible, was adopted as the rule i for apportioning the tribute. Yet, in the opinion of the j provincials, the financial rapacity of the imperial govern- j ; ment was a more tolerable evil than the tyranny of the j Vandals, and they remained long sincerely attached to f the Roman power. Unfortunately, the rebellion of ( the barbarian mercenaries, who formed the flower of f Justinian’s army in Africa, the despair of the persecuted f Arians, the seductions of the Vandal women, and the * _: hostile incursions of the Moorish tribes, aided the f

¹ The Vandal domination in Spain has left a permanent memorial in the name of Andalusia from Vindelieia.                         ¹

CONQUEST OF AFRICA.

2 S3

severity of the taxes in desolating this flourishing pro- _A. n. vinee. The exclusion of the Roman population from the right of bearing arms, and forming themselves into a local militia, even for the protection of their property against the plundering expeditions of the neighbouring barbarians, prevented the African provincials from aspir­ing after independence, and rendered them incapable of defending their property without the aid of the experi­enced though disorderly soldiery of the imperial armies. Religious persecution, financial oppression, the seditions of unpaid troops, and the incursions of barbarous tribes, though they failed to cause a general insurrection of the inhabitants, mined their wealth, and lessened their numbers. Procopius records the commencement of the desolation of Africa in his time; and subsequently, as the imperial government grew weaker, more negligent, and , more corrupt, it pressed more heavily on the industry and well-being of the provincials, and enabled the barbarous Moors to extend their encroachments on Roman civili­sation.¹

The glory of JBelisarius deserves to be contrasted with the oblivion which has covered the exploits of John the Patrician, one of the ablest generals of Jus­tinian. This experienced general assumed the command |in Africa when the province had fallen into a state of great disorder; the inhabitants were exposed to a dangerous coalition of the Moors, and the Roman army (was in such a state of destitution that their leader was I compelled to import the necessary provisions for his 1 troops.² Though John defeated the Moors, and re- jstored prosperity to the province, his name is almost •forgotten. His actions and talents only affected the interests of the Byzantine empire, and prolonged the ‘existence of the Roman province of Africa ; they ex-

¹ Procopius, Jje IkUo Vand. ii. 14-'?S. Hist Arc. 18. C'orippus, JoIkhiiiiuis. * Corippua, Johannldes, v. 384.

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

erted no influence on the fate of any of the European nations whose history has been the object of study in modern times, so that they were utterly forgotten, when the recently discovered poetry of Corippus. one of the last and worst of the Roman poets, rescued them }i from complete oblivion.

SECT. VI.      CAUSES OP TIIE EASY CONQUEST OF THE OSTROGOTIIIC

KINGDOM OF ITALY BY BELISARIUS.

The empire of the Ostrogoths, though established 011 principles of a just administration by the wisdom of the great Theodoric, soon began to suffer as complete a national demoralisation as that of the Vandals, though the Goths themselves, from being more civilised, and living more directly under the restraint of laws which protected the property of their Roman subjects, had not become individually so corrupted by the possession of wealth. The conquest of Italy had not produced any very great revolution in the state of the country. The Romans had long been accustomed to be defended in name, but, in fact, to be ruled, by the commanders of the mercenary troops in the emperor’s service. The Goths, even after the conquest, allowed them to retain two-thirds of their landed estates, with all their mov­able property ; and as they had really been as com­pletely excluded from military service under their own emperors, their social condition underwent but little change.¹ Policy induced Theodoric to treat the inhabi-

¹ Odoacer and Theodoric divided amongst their followers one-third of the Roman estates in Italy.—Procopius, De Hello Goltk. i. c. 1. For an account of the Ostrogothic government of Italy, see Essai sur I'etat, civil el 'politique, des Peuples d’ltalie sous le gourernement des Goths, par Sartorius, Paris 1811 ; and Gescluchte des Ost - Gothischen Reichs in Italien, Yon Manso : Breslau, 1S‘24. It is remarkable that the barbarians, on establishing themselves in Italy, adopted the ancient Roman usage of appropriating a third of the conquered lands. This resemblance to the old Roman colonies cannot have been ac­cidental in a people who imitated so much of the laws of Rome in their terri­torial administration. The Goths constituted themselves the military de-

tiv:

CONQUEST OF ITALY.        285

r tants of Italy with mildness. The permanent main- ¹ tenance of his conquests required a considerable revenue, and that revenue could only be supplied by the industry and civilisation of his Italian subjects. His sagacity told him, that it was wiser to tax the Romans than to plunder them, and that it was necessary, in order to secure the fruits of a regular system of taxation, to leave them in the possession of those laws and privi- ! leges which enabled them to defend their civilisation. It is singular that the empire of Theodoric, the most extensive and most celebrated of those which were formed by the conquerors of the Roman provinces, should have proved the least durable. The justice of Theodoric, and the barbarity of Genseric, were equally ineffectual in consolidating a permanent dominion. The civilisation of the Romans was more powerful than the mightiest of the barbarian monarchs; and until that civilisation had sunk nearly to the level of their con­querors, the institutions of the Romans were always victorious over the national strength of the barbarians. Under Theodoric, Italy was still Roman. The senate of Rome, the municipal councils of the other cities, the old courts of law, the parties of the circus, the factions in the church, and even the titles and the pensions attached to nominal offices in the State, all still ex­isted unchanged ; men still fought with wild beasts in the Coliseum.¹ The orthodox Roman lived under his own law, with his own clergy, and the Arian Goth only enjoyed equal liberty. The powerful and the wealthy, whether they were Romans or Goths, were equally sure

fenders of the unarmed tax-paycrs, and both a.s such, and as the con<pierors of the country, they could claim under the Roman laws all the privileges which Augustus hud bestowed 011 his colonies of veterans. The Romans at last suffered the evils they had inflicted 011 others. That Romans served in the Gothic armies, though the case may have been rare, appears from the passages pointed out by Hartorius.— I’. 2415.

¹ Procopius, Jlist. A rc. c. 24,20. Manso (p. ] 10) observes that Tlieodoriu only tolerated the shows of the amphitheatre, of which he disapproved. Cassia- dorus, Vurkr, v. 4 2.

A. P.

G27-M5.

Ii

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niAP. in. of obtaining justice ; the poor, whether Goths or Ro­mans, were in equal danger of being oppressed.¹

The kingdom which the great Theodoric left to his grandson Athalaric, under the guardianship of his daughter Amalasonta, embraced not only Italy, Sicily, and a portion of the south of France ; it also included Dalmatia, a part of Illyricum, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rhoetia. In these extensive dominions, the Gothic race formed but a small part of the population; and yet the Goths, from the privileges which they enjoyed, were everywhere regarded with jealousy by the bulk of the inhabitants. Dissensions arose in the royal family ; Athalaric died young ; Amalasonta was mur­dered by Theodatus, his successor ; and as she had been in constant communication with the court of Constanti­nople, this crime afforded Justinian a decent pretext for interfering in the affairs of the Goths. To prepare the way for the reconquest of Italy, Belisarius was sent to attack Sicily, which he invaded with an army of seven thousand five hundred men, in the year 535, and subjected without difficulty. During the same cam­paign, Dalmatia was conquered by the imperial arms, recovered by the Goths, but again reconquered by Justinian’s troops. A rebellion of the troops in Africa ! arrested, for a while, the progress of Belisarius, and ; compelled him to visit Carthage ; but he returned to * Sicily in a short time, and crossing over to Rhegium, marched directly to Naples. As he proceeded, he was

• ¹ Theodoric says, in his edict, “ Quod si forsitan persona potentior, aut ejua procurator, vel vicedominus ipsius, aut certe conductor seu barbari, seu Ro­mani, in aliquo genere causao prseseutia non permiscrint edicta servari,” &c. Sartorius, 284. A great improvement took place in the condition of the rnr.il population of Italy during the thirty years' reign of Theodoric. A considerable part of the land previously in pasturage was restored to agriculture, in con- sequencc of the grain trade being left free by the cessation of distributions | and maximum of market prices. Italy again began to produce enough for its | own consumption. This change led to the formation of a free class of cnlti- i vators of the soil—Homans, who farmed the landed estates of the Gothic

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287

everywhere welcomed by the inhabitants, who were a. n. then almost universally Greeks; even the Gothic com- ^J*' mander in the south of Italy favoured the progress of the Roman general.¹

The city of Naples made a vigorous defence ; but after a siege of three weeks it was taken by introducing into the place a body of troops through the passage of an ancient aqueduct. The conduct of Belisarius, after the capture of the city, was dictated by policy, and displayed very little humanity. As the inhabitants had shown some disposition to assist the Gothic garrison in defending the city, and as such conduct would have greatly increased the difficulty of his campaign in Italy, in order to intimidate the population of other cities he appears to have winked at the pillage of the town, to have tolerated the massacre of many of the citizens in the churches, where they had sought an asylum, and to have overlooked a sedition of the lowest popu­lace, in which the leaders of the Gothic party were assassinated. From Naples, Belisarius marched forward , to Rome.

Only sixty years had elapsed since Rome had been conquered by Odoacer; and during this period its population, the ecclesiastical and civil authority of its | bishop, who was the highest dignitary in the Christian world, and the influence of its senate, which still con­tinued to be in the eyes of mankind the most honour­able political body in existence, enabled it to preserve , a species of independent civic constitution. Theodoric I had availed himself of this municipal government to

¹ Evermor, or Eurimond (for Jornandes gives him one name in his History of the Goths, and another in his Chronicle), was the son-in-law of the King l Theodatus, yet ho joined lielisarius. The Romans had a party among tin)

[Goths; and, after the conquest, many Goths were converted from Arians to Catholics. Jornandes speaks of himself : “ Ego item, quamvis agrammatus,

' Jornandes, ante conversioncm meam notarius fui.” This, however, implies | perhaps that he had embraced the clerical life. IIis Homan attachments are ■ strongly shown in his works.— l)e Rebus Gctlcis, p. 382.

288

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cn.u\ in. smooth away many of the difficulties which presented j themselves in the administration of Italy. The Goths, { however, in leaving the Romans in possession of their own civil laws and institutions, had not diminished their aversion to a foreign yoke; yet as they possessed

110 distinct feelings of nationality apart from their con- ¹ nection with the imperial domination and their reli­gious orthodoxy, they never aspired to independence, and were content to turn their eyes towards the empe­ror of the East as their legitimate sovereign. Belisarius, therefore, entered the “Eternal City” rather as a friend than as a conqueror; but lie had hardly entered it before he perceivcd that it would be necessary to take . every precaution to defend his conquest against the new Gothic king Witiges. He immediately repaired the walls of Rome, strengthened them with a breast- , work, collected large stores of provisions, and prepared to sustain a siege.

The Gothic war forms an important epoch in the history of the city of Rome; for, within the space of j sixteen years, it changed masters five times, and suffered I three severe sieges.¹ Its population was almost de- ; stroyed; its public buildings and its walls must have j| undergone many changes, according to the exigencies * of the various measures required for its defence. It [ has, consequently, been too generally assumed that the j existing walls indicate the exact position of those of Aurelian. This period is also memorable for the ruin : of many monuments of ancient art, which the generals ! of Justinian destroyed without compunction. With | the conquest of Rome by Belisarius the history of the

¹             Home was taken by Belisarius, . Besieged by Witiges, .  .

Besieged and taken by Totila, . Retaken by Belisarius, . .

Again besieged and retaken by Totila, Taken by Narses,   .     .

a. D. 530 . 537 . 546 . 547 . 549 . 552

— Clinton, Fasti llvmuni.

CONQUEST OF ITALY.        280

ancient city may be considered as terminating ; and with his defence against AVitiges commences the his­tory of the middle ages,—of the times of destruction and of change.¹

AVitiges laid siege to Rome with an army said by Procopius to have amounted to 150,000 men, yet this army was insufficient to invest the whole circuit of the city.² The Gothic king distributed his troops in seven fortified camps ; six were formed to surround the city, and the seventh was placed to protect the Milvian bridge. Five camps covered the space from the Pre- nestine to the Flaminian gates, and the remaining camp was formed beyond the Tiber, in the plain below the Vatican. By these arrangements the Goths only commanded about half the circuit of Rome, and the roads to Naples and to the ports at the mouth of the Tiber remained open. The Roman infantry was now the weakest part of a Roman army. Even in the de­fence of a fortified city it was subordinate to the cavalry, and the military superiority of the Roman arms was sustained by mercenary horsemen. It is strange to find the tactics of the middle ages described by Procopius in classic Greek. The Goths displayed an utter ignorance of the art of war; they had no skill in the use of military engines, and they could not even

¹     llonorius made changes and repairs in the walls. Theodorie repaired them. Cassiodorus, Var. 1, ep. ‘25, 11 ; ep. ol. I’elisarius found them in a ruinous state, tiie diteli liiled up in some places. In general the sieges during the Gothic War required the reduction of the size of the place, where this was practicable. The feebleness of the outer wall of the Vivarium indicates that this was not tiie original external wall. Totila destroyed about one-third of tiie wall of Rome. Procop. Gotlh. iii. 22. Marcell. ('/iron. a/>. tiermond. ii. o?!f>. llelisarius must have made changes in repairing this destruction ; and Uiogenes, who defended Home against Totila in .54!!, could hardly fail to do so. Totila added to the walls near the Mole of Adrian, l’roeop. Gutlh. iii. ; iv. 3o. The whole defences must have been remodelled by Narses, as they then con­sisted in great part of temporary works and hasty repairs.—De Juiiikc rttrrls Muris atque Pvilis. Seripsit G. A. Uecker, Prof. Lips.; Leipsie, 1812. Pop.- Gregory II. began to repair the walls from the gate of St Lawrence.—Alias- tasius, Jlibl., “ L)e Vitis Pont. Homan.” <37 ; edit. Veil.

²     De Ikllu Gullh. i. 11.

T

a. n.

>27-51)5.

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ii. render their numerical superiority available in assaults.

The leading operations of the attack and defence of j Rome consisted in a series of cavalry engagements fought under its walls ; and in these the superior dis­cipline and skill of the mercenaries of Belisarius gene­rally secured them the victory. The Roman cavalry,— for so the mixture of Huns, Heruls, and Armenians which formed the elite of the army must be termed,— trusted chiefly to the bow; while the Goths placed their reliance 011 the lance and sword, which the able manoeuvres of their enemies seldom allowed them to use with effect. The infantry of both armies usually I remained idle spectators of the combat. Belisarius ¹ himself considered it of little use in a field of battle ; , and when lie once reluctantly admitted it, at the press­ing solicitation of its commanders, to share in one of his engagements, its defeat, after the exhibition of great bravery 011 the part both of the officers and men, con- ' firmed him in his preference of the cavalry.        '

In spite of the prudent arrangements adopted by ! Belisarius to insure supplies of provisions from his re- : cent conquests in Sicily and Africa, Rome suffered very severely from famine during the siege; but the Gothic army was compelled to undergo equal hardships, and suffered far greater losses from disease. The communi- < cations of the garrison with the coast were for a time : interrupted, but at last a body of five thousand fresh j troops, and an abundant supply of provisions, des- J patched by Justinian to the assistance of Belisarius, j entered Rome. Shortly after the arrival of this rein- j forcement, the Goths found themselves constrained to | abandon the siege, in which they had persevered for a | year. Justinian again augmented his army in Italy, |l by sending over seven thousand troops under the 4 command of the eunuch Narses, a man whose military talents were in 110 way inferior to those of Belisarius, • ‘

CONQUEST OF ITALY.

291

and whose name occupies an equally important place in the history of Italy. The emperor, guided by the prudent jealousy which dictated the strictest control over all the powerful generals of the empire, had conferred 011 Narses an independent authority over his own division, and that general, presuming too far on his knowledge of Justinian’s feelings, ventured to throw serious obstacles in the way of Belisarius. The dissensions of the two 1 generals delayed the progress of the Roman arms. The i Goths availed themselves of the opportunity to continue the war with vigour; they succeeded in reconquering Milan, which had admitted a Roman garrison, and

1 sacked the city, which was second only to Rome in wealth and population. They massacred the whole _; male population, and behaved with such cruelty that three hundred thousand persons were said to have

■    perished—a number which probably only indicates the I whole population of Milan at this period.¹ j A state of warfare soon disorganised the ill-cemented | government of the Gothic kingdom; and the ravages » caused by the wide-extended military operations of the ¹ armies, which degenerated into a succession of sieges

Iand skirmishes, created a dreadful famine in the north of Italy. Whole provinces remained uncultivated; great numbers of the industrious natives perished by ! actual starvation, and the ranks of the Goths were thinned by misery and disease. Society advanced one I step towards barbarism. Procopius, who was himself in Italy at the time, records a horrible story of two women who lived 011 human flesh, and were discovered to have ' murdered seventeen persons, in order to devour their bodies.² This famine assisted the progress of the Roman Harms, as the imperial troops drew their supplies of pro­f visions from the East, while the measures of their ! i enemies were paralysed by the general want.

' ^{1 1} Procopius, ])c Hello Gulth. ii. 21. a. i>. 539. ² I>c /AHo O'ottlt. ii C".

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chap. hi. AVitiges, finding his resources inadequate to check the conquests of Belisarius, solicited the aid of the Franks, and despatched an embassy to Chosroes to excite the jealousy of the Persian monarch. The Franks, under Theodebert, entered Italy, but they were soon compelled to retire; and Belisarius, being placed at the head of the whole army by the recall of Narses, soon terminated the war. Ravenna, the Gothic capital, was invested; but the siege was more remark­able for the negotiations which were carried on during its progress than for the military operations. The Goths, with the consent of AVitiges, made Belisarius the singular offer of acknowledging him as the Emperor of the West, on condition of his joining his forces to theirs, permitting them to retain their position and property in Italy, and thus insuring them the pos- . session of their nationality and their peculiar laws. Perhaps neither the state of the mercenary army which he commanded, nor the condition of the Gothic nation, rendered the project very feasible. It is certain that Belisarius only listened to it, in order to hasten the j| surrender of Eavenna, and secure the person of AVitiges J without farther bloodshed. Italy submitted to Justinian, < and the few Goths who still maintained their indepen­dence beyond the Po pressed Belisarius in vain to de- , clare himself emperor. But even without these solicita- ,■ tions, his power had awakened the fears of his sovereign, j and he was recalled, though with honour, from his , command in Italy. He returned to Constantinople i leading AVitiges captive, as he had formerly appeared \ conducting Gelimer.                   ’

Great as the talents of Belisarius really were, and , sound as his judgment appears to have been, still it j must be confessed that his name occupies a more pro- , , minent place in history than his merits are entitled to , claim. The accident that his conquests put an end to '

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203

two powerful monarchies, of his having led captive to Constantinople the representatives of the dreaded Genseric and the great Theodoric, joined with the cir­cumstance that he enjoyed the singular good fortune of having his exploits recorded in the classic language of Procopius, the last historian of the Greeks, have ren­dered a brilliant career more brilliant from the medium through which it is seen. At the same time the tale of his blindness and poverty has extended a sympathy with his misfortunes into circles which would have remained indifferent to the real events of his history, and made his name an expression for heroic greatness , reduced to abject misery by royal ingratitude. But Belisarius, though he refused the Gothic throne and the empire of the West, did not despise nor neglect wealth; he accumulated riches which could not have : been acquired by any commander-in-chief amidst the wars and famines of the period, without rendering the military and civil administration subservient to his pecuniary profit. On his return from Italy he lived at ¹ Constantinople in almost regal splendour, and main­tained a body of seven thousand cavalry attached to his household.¹ In an empire where confiscation was an ordinary financial resource, and under a sovereign ( whose situation rendered jealousy only common pru­dence, it is not surprising that the wealth of Belisarius excited the imperial cupidity, .and induced Justinian to seize great part of it. ITis fortune was twice reduced by confiscations. The behaviour of the general under his misfortunes, and the lamentable picture of his de­pression which Procopius has drawn, when he lost a portion of his wealth 011 his first disgrace, does not tend to elevate his character. At a later period, his wealth was acain confiscated on an accusation of treason, and

O

on this occasion it is said that he was deprived of his

¹ l’rocopiu*, J>e Jkllo Golth. iii. 1.

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

i'ii a p. iii. sight, and reduced to such a state of destitution that he begged his bread in a public square, soliciting charity with the exclamation, “ Give Belisarius an obolus!” But ancient historians were ignorant of this fable, which has been rejected by every modern authority in Byzantine history. Justinian, on calm reflection, disbelieved the treason imputed to a man who, in his younger days, had refused to ascend a throne; or else he pardoned what he supposed to be the error of a general to whose services he was so deeply indebted; and Belisarius, re­instated in some part of his fortune, died in possession of wealth and honour.¹

Belisarius had hardly quitted Italy when the Goths reassembled their forces. They were accustomed to rule, and nourished in the profession of arms. Justinian sent a civilian, Alexander the logothete, to govern Italy, hoping that his financial arrangements would render the new conquest a source of revenue to the imperial treasury. The fiscal administration of the new governor soon excited great discontent. He diminished the number of the Roman troops, and put a stop to those profits which a state of war usually affords the military ; while, at the same time, he abolished the pensions and privileges which formed no inconsiderable portion of the revenue of the higher classes, and which had never been entirely suppressed during the Gothic domination. Alexander may have acted in some cases with undue severity in enforcing these measures ; but it is evident, from their nature, that he must have received express orders to put au end to what Justinian considered the lavish expenditure of Belisarius.

A part of the Goths in the north of Italy retained their independence after the surrender of Witiges. They raised Hildibald to the throne, 'which he occupied about a year, when he was murdered by one of his own guards.

¹     See Appendix, No. 1. On the Blindness of Beliyarius.

CONQUEST OF ITALY.

295

The tribe of Rugians then raised Erarich tlieir leader to a. p. the throne ; but 011 his entering into negotiations with the Romans he was murdered, after a reign of only five months. Totila was then elected kinc; of the Goths,

O                                  ⁷

and had he not been opposed to the greatest men whom the declining age of the Roman empire produced, he would probably have succeeded in restoring the Gothic monarchy in Italy.¹ His successes endeared him to his countrymen, while the justice of his administration contrasted with the rapacity of Justinian’s government, and gained him the respect and submission of the na­tive provincials. He was 011 the point of commencing the siege of Rome, when Belisarius, who, after his de­parture from Ravenna, had been employed in the Persian war, was sent back to Italy to recover the ground already lost. The imperial forces were completely des­titute of that unity and military organisation which constitute a number of different corps into one army.

The various bodies of troops were commanded by officers completely independent of one another, and obedient

¹     only to Belisarius as commander-in-chief. Justinian, acting 011 his usual maxims of jealousy, and distrust- i ing Belisarius more than formerly, had retained the greater part of his body-guard, and all his veteran [ followers, at Constantinople ; so that he now appeared ill Italy unaccompanied by a staff of scientific officers and a body of veteran troops 011 whose experience and discipline he could rely for implicit obedience to his orders. The heterogeneous elements of which his army was composed made all combined operations imprac-

¹     CmtoN'oi.oov of Tiirc Kings of the Ostiioootiis.

A. D.

Thcortoric, .   .

Athalario, .    . Amala.soiitha.

Thoodatus, .   .

Witiyes, . .     .

. -103-5:20 Ilildihald,     .

. r>‘2<>-5l51 Erarich, .  .

Totila,¹ . .

. .^r)31-5"(J ThcTas, .      . . fi'JG-SlO

. /Mo-/; II

Totila ih li'xiiicd U.uluil:i on his cuius.

29G

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

i in a p. hi. ticable, and his position was rendered still more disad-

       vantageous by the change that had taken place in that

of his enemy. Totila was now able to command every sacrifice on the part of his followers, for the Goths, taught by their misfortunes, and deprived of their wealth, felt the inportance of union and discipline, and paid the strictest attention to the orders of their sove­reign. The Gothic king laid siege to Rome, and Beli­sarius established himself in Porto, at the mouth of the Tiber; but all his endeavours to relieve the besieged city proved unsuccessful, and Totila compelled it to surrender under his eye, and in spite of all his exer­tions.

The national and religious feelings of the orthodox

o                    o

Romans rendered them the irreconcilable enemies of the Arian Goths. Totila soon perceived that it would not be in his power to defend Rome against a scientific enemy and a hostile population, in consequence of the great extent of the fortifications, and the impossibility of dislodging the imperial troops from the forts at the mouth of the Tiber. But he also perceived that the East­ern emperors would be unable to maintain a footing in central Italy without the support of the Roman popula­tion, whose industrial, commercial, aristocratic, and eccle­siastical influence was concentrated in the city popu­lation of Rome. He therefore determined to destroy the “Eternal City,” and if policy authorise kings on great occasions to trample on the precepts of huma­nity, the king of the Goths might claim a right to de­stroy the race of the Romans. Even the statesman may still doubt whether the decision of Totila, if it had been carried into execution in the most merciless manner, would not have purified the moral atmosphere of Italian society. He commenced the destruction of the walls; but either the difficulty of completing his project, or the feelings of humanity which were inseparable from his enlightened ambition, induced him to listen to

F.ELISARIUS.

the representations of Belisarius, who conjured him to abandon his barbarous scheme of devastation.¹ Totila, nevertheless, did everything in his power to depopulate Rome ; he compelled the inhabitants to retire into the [ Campania, and forced the senators to abandon their native city. It is to this emigration that the utter ex­tinction of the old Roman race and civic government must be attributed; for when Belisarius, and, at a later period, Totila himself, attempted to repeople Rome, they laid the foundations of a new society, which connects itself rather with the historv of the middle a^es than with that of preceding times.

Belisarius entered the city after the departure of the Goths ; and as he found it deserted, he had the greatest difficulty in putting it in a state of defence. But though Belisarius was enabled, by his military skill, to defend ‘ Rome against the attacks of Totila, he was unable to make any head against the Gothic army in the open field; and after vainly endeavouring to bring back victory to the ^! Roman standards in Italy, he received permission to resign the command and return to Constantinople. His want of success must be attributed solely to the inade­quacy of the means placed at his disposal for encoun- terino; an active and able sovereign like Totila. The

i             O      O

unpopularity of his second administration in Italy arose from the neglect of Justinian in paying the troops, and the necessity which that irregularity imposed on their commander, of levying heavy contributions on the Italians, while it rendered the task of enforcing strict discipline, and of protecting the property of the people

i     from the ill paid soldiery, quite impracticable. Justice,

■    however, requires that we should not omit to mention that Belisarius, though he returned to Constantinople with diminished glory, did not neglect his pecuniary interesls, and came back without any diminution of his wealth.

' As fnr as a feeling for ancient art was concerned, it may he doubled whether 'Belisarius had more taste than Totila for classic purity.

298

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chap. in. As soon as Totila was freed from the restraint im­posed on his movements by the fear of Belisarius, he quickly recovered Rome; and the loss of Italy appeared inevitable, when Justinian decided on making a new effort to retain it. As it was necessary to send a large army against the Goths, and invest the commander-in- chief with great powers, it is not probable than Justi­nian would have trusted any other of his generals more than Belisarius had he not fortunately possessed an able officer, the eunuch Narses, who could never rebel with the hope of placing the imperial crown on his own head. The assurance of his fidelity gave Narses great influence in the interior of the palace, and secured him a support which would never have been conceded to any other general. His military talents, and his free­dom from the reproach of avarice or peculation, aug­mented his personal influence, and his diligence and liberality soon assembled a powerful army. The choicest mercenary troops—Huns, Heruls, Armenians, and Lom­bards—marched under his standard with the veteran Roman soldiers. The first object of Narses after his arrival in Italy was to force the Goths to risk a general engagement, trusting to the excellence of his troops, and to his own skill in the employment of their supe­rior discipline. The rival armies met at Tagina, near Nocera, and the victory of Narses was complete.¹ Totila and six thousand Goths perished, and Rome a2;ain fell under the dominion of Justinian. At the solicitation of the Goths, an army of Franks and Ger­mans was permitted by Theobald, king of Austrasia, to enter Italy for the purpose of making a diversion in their favour.² Bucelin, the leader of this army, was met by Narses on the banks of the Casilinus, near Capua. The forces of the Franks consisted of thirty

¹     Gibbon’s Jficclinc and Fall of the Roman Empire, oh. xliii. note 34.

²     Theobald reigned from a. n. 54S to 555.

CONQUESTS IN SPAIN.

290

thousand men, those of the Romans did not exceed _A. i>. eighteen thousand, but the victory of Narses was so ^:r2‘~^r,Ux complete that but few of the former escaped. The remaining Cloths elected another king, Thei'as, who perished with his army near the banks of the Sarno.

His death put an end to the kingdom of the Ostro- I gotlis, and allowed Narses to turn his whole attention to the civil government of his conquests, and to estab- < lisli security of property and a strict administration i of justice. He appears to have been a man singularly well adapted to his situation—possessing the highest ' military talents, combined with a perfect knowledge | of the civil and financial administration; and he was

11   consequently able to estimate with exactness the sum

■    which he could levy on the province, and remit to Con- I stantinople, without arresting the gradual improvement I. of the country. llis fiscal government was, neverthe- tl less, regarded by the Italians as extremely severe, and • he was unpopular with the inhabitants of Rome.

1 | The existence of a numerous Roman population in if Spain, connected with the Eastern Empire by the i memory of ancient ties, by active commercial relations, and by a strong orthodox feeling against the Arian !■ Visigoths, enabled Justinian to avail himself of these

ii    ; advantages in the same manner as he had done in Africa and Italy. The king Theudes had attempted

t to make a diversion in Africa by besieging Ceuta, in !t order to call off the attention of Justinian from Italy. f.| His attack was unsuccessful, but the circumstances

iii   were not favourable at the time for Justinian’s at- ji .tempting to revenge the injury.¹ Dissensions in the f 'country soon after enabled the emperor to take part j in a civil war, and he seized the pretext of sending a- t[ fleet and troops to support the claims of a rebel chief,

in order to secure the possession of a large portion of

’      ¹ a. r>. .^r)K>. Procop. 7h Pnllo G<tih. ii. <•. <‘U).

i

300

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

criAP. in. the south of Spain.¹ The rebel Athanagild having been elected king of the Visigoths, vainly endeavoured to drive the Romans out of the provinces which they had occupied. Subsequent victories extended the con­quests of Justinian from the mouth of the Tagus, Ebora, and Corduva, along the coast of the ocean, and of the Mediterranean, almost as far as Valentia; and at times the relations of the Romans with the Catholic popula­tion of the interior enabled them to carry their arms almost into the centre of Spain.² The Eastern Empire retained possession of these distant conquests for about sixty years.

SECT. VII.     RELATIONS OF THE NORTHERN NATIONS WITH THE

ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE GREEK NATION.

The reign of Justinian witnessed the total decline of the power of the Gothic race on the banks of the Danube, where a void was created in the population which neither the Huns nor the Sclavonians could fill. The consequence was that new races of barbarians ! from the East poured into the countries between the ! Black Sea and the Carinthian Alps ; and the military j aristocracy of the Goths, whose social arrangements conformed to the system of the ancient world, was suc­ceeded by the ruder domination of nomade tribes. The ’ causes of this change are to be found in the same great' principle which was modifying the position of the van-' ous races of mankind in every region of the earth; and by the destruction of all the elements of civilisation in the country immediately to the south of the Danube, > in consequence of the repeated ravages to which it had ¹ been exposed ; and in the impossibility of any agricul- f tural population, not sunk very low in the scale of civil *

¹                                          Agila was elected king a. d. 549; he was murdered, and the rebel Athana- gild elected in 554.                            ■

²                                           Aschbacli, Geschichte der Wcstgothen, ]>. 192. Lebeau, Ilistuire du Bus-Em- . [J jiire, ix. 306,—Saint Martin’s notes.        ‘

NORTHERN NATIONS.

301

society, finding the means of subsistence where villages, farm-houses, and barns were in rnins ; where the fruit trees were cut down ; where the vineyards were de­stroyed, and the cattle required for cultivating the land were carried off. The Goths, who had once ruled all the country from the Lake Mseotis to the Adriatic, and who were the most civilised of all the invaders of the Roman empire, were the first to disappear. Only a single tribe, called the Tetraxits, continued to inhabit their old seats in the Tanric Chersonese, where some of their descendants survived until the sixteenth century.¹ The Gepids, a kindred people, had defeated the Huns, and established their independence after the death of Attila.² They obtained from Marcian the cession of a considerable district on the banks of the Danube, and an annual subsidy in order to secure their alliance in defending the frontier of the empire against other in­vaders. In the reign of Justinian their possessions were reduced to the territories lying between the Save and the Drave, but the alliance with the Roman em­pire continued in force, and they still received their subsidy.

The Heruls, a people whose connection with Scandi­navia is mentioned by Procopius,³ and who took part in some of the earliest incursions of the Gothic tribes into the empire, had, after many vicissitudes, obtained from the emperor Anastasias a fixed settlement; and in the time of Justinian they possessed the country to , the south of the Save, and occupied the city of Singi- dunum (Belgrade). The Lombards, a Germanic people, | who had once been subject to the Heruls, but who had subsequently defeated their masters, and driven them within the bounds of the empire for protection, were

¹ llusbuquius, Epist. iv. p. 321 ; edit. Elz. ICO'J. Gibbon, ch. xl. note I —

Joniandets, I><• llcbus Grticis, xvii.

³ I’rocopius, De Jlctlo Guttli. ii. 15.

302 IIEIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. hi. induced by Justinian to invade the Ostrogothic king­dom, and establish themselves in Pannonia, to the north of the Drave. They occupied the country be­tween the Danube and the Teisse, and, like their neighbours, received an annual subsidy from the Eastern Empire.¹ These Gothic nations never formed the bulk of the population in the lands which they occupied ; they were only the lords of the soil, who knew no occupations but those of war and hunting. But their successes in war, and the subsidies by which they had been enriched, had accustomed them to a degree of rude magnificence which became constantly of more difficult attainment, as their own oppressive government, and the ravages of their more barbarous neighbours, depopulated all the regions around their settlements. When they became, like the other north­ern conquerors, a territorial aristocracy, they suffered the fate of all privileged classes which are separated from the mass of the people. Their luxury increased, and their numbers diminished. At the same time, in­cessant wars and ravages of territory swept away the unarmed population, so that the conquerors were at last compelled to abandon these possessions to seek richer seats, as the Indians of the American continent quit the lands where they have destroyed the wild game, and plunge into new forests.

Beyond the territory of the Lombards, the country to the south and east was inhabited by various tribes of Sclavonians, who occupied the country between the Adriatic and the Danube, including a part of Hungary and Yallachia, where they mingled their settlements with the Dacian tribes who had dwelt in these regions from an earlier period.² The independent Sclavonians

¹ The Lombards are mentioned by Strabo, lib. vii. Velleius Paterculus, ii. 10(3. Tacitus, De M. G. o. 40 ; Annul, ii. 45. Procopius, De Bello Golth. iii. 33.

³     Scliafarik, Slavtscltc Altcrtliumcr, Deutseh. Von Mosig Von Aehrenfeld, herausgegeben Von H. Wuttke. For the Sclavonians, see vol. i. pp. 44, 68,

BULGARIANS.

308

were, at this time, a nation of savage robbers, in the lowest condition of social civilisation, whose ravages and incursions were rapidly tending to reduce all their neighbours to the same state of barbarism. Their plundering expeditions were chiefly directed against the rural population of the empire, and were often pushed many days’journey to the south of the Danube. Their cruelty was dreadful ; but neither their numbers nor their military power excited, at this time, any alarm that they would be able to effect permanent conquests within the bounds of the empire.¹ j The Bulgarians, a nation of Hunnish or Turkish ;race, occupied the eastern parts of ancient Dacia, from |the Carpathian mountains to the Dniester. Beyond ;them, as far as the plains to the east of the Tanais, the .country was still ruled by the Huns, who had now separated into two independent kingdoms : that to the west was called the Kutigur ; and the other, to the east, the Utugur. The Huns had conquered the whole jTauric Chersonese except the city of Clierson. The iimportance of the commercial relations which Clierson (kept up between the northern and southern nations |was so advantageous to all parties, that while the icarrying trade of the Black Sea secured wealth and [power to these distant Greek colonists, it also main­tained them in possession of their political indepen­dence.²

| In the early part of -Justinian’s reign (a.d. 528) the I 'city of" Bosporus was taken and plundered by the

•jlj (159, 199,252; for the Dacians, pp. 31, 292, ii. 199. Thumnann, Untcrsiiih- ¹ ' ungen ilher die Geschichte der ustlicha Enropuisvlicn l iilkcr, Leipzig 1771, where* 4- the authorities are always cited with care.

. . | Procopius, Gotth. iii. c. 14, iv. c. 25.

[01* [ ² Procopius, ]>e Hello Gotth. iv. l!!. l'or proofs that the lluns at one time jjjjj possessed all the Crimea, De sEdijieiis, iii. 7 ; !>e .Hello Pers. i. 12. That

¹     "Roman garrisons occupied Clierson and Bosporus in the time of Justin, Pox. i.

12, and of Justinian, Theoplianes, C/iron. p. 15.0. Procopius (De Ikllo /’ir«. i. f' 12) speaks of Clierson, the last city of the Uoman empire, as twenty days’ ^J1;!' "journey from the city of Bosporus. To what Clierson does he allude? There was a city of this name near the modern Warna. Theoplianes, Chrou. 153.

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. m. Huns. It was soon recovered by an expedition fitted out by the emperor at Odyssopolis (Varna) ; but these repeated conquests of a mercantile emporium, and an agricultural colony, by pastoral nomades like the Huns, and by mercenary soldiers like the imperial army, must have had a very depressing effect 011 the remains of Greek civilisation in the Tauric Chersone- sus.¹ The increasing barbarism of the inhabitants of these regions diminished the commerce which had once flourished in the neighbouring lands, and which was now almost entirely centred in Cherson. The hordes of plundering nomades, who never remained long in one spot, had little to sell, and did not possess the means of purchasing foreign luxuries ; and the language and manners of the Greeks, which had once been prevalent all around the shores of the Euxine, ₍ began from this time to fall into neglect.² The various Greek cities which still maintained some portion of their ancient social and municipal institutions received< many severe blows during the reign of Justinian. The; towns of Kepoi and Phanagoris, situated near the Cim- j merian Bosphorus, was taken by the Huns.³ Sebasto-, polis, or Diospolis, and Pityontis, distant two days J j ourney from one another, 011 the eastern shores of the j Euxine, were abandoned by their garrisons during the i Colchian war ; and the conquests of the Avars at last s confined the influence of the Roman empire, and the | trade and civilisation of the Greeks, to the cities off. Bosporus and Cherson.⁴                                 I¹

It is necessary to record a few incidents which mark f the progress of barbarism, poverty, and depopulation,^

¹     Theophanes, 150, edit. Par. Lebcau, viii. 105.

²     Procopius, De Bello Gutth. iv. 7. ‘EXXW^avrs; ol clvfyuoroi. Agathias (1. iv. ( j). 103) mentions that tlie chiefs of the Lazes understood Greek.

³     Procopius, De Bello Gotth. iv. 5.

¹ In the reign of Justin 11. (a.d. 575) a Turkish army besieged and took ¹ Bosporus, and established itself for some time in the Chersouesus.— Menander, f i 404, edit. Bona.                       [

SCLAVONIANS.

SOo

in the lands to the south of the Danube, and explain the causes which compelled the Roman and Greek races to abandon their settlements in these countries. Though the commencement of Justinian’s reign was illustrated by a signal defeat of the Antes, a powerful Sclavonian tribe, still the invasions of that people were soon renewed with all their former vigour. In the year 533 they defeated and slew Chilbudius, a Roman

■    general of great reputation, whose name indicates his [ northern origin. In 538 a band of Bulgarians de- 1 feated the Romaii army charged with the defence of the country, captured the general Constantiolus, and compelled him to purchase his liberty by the payment I of one thousand pounds of gold,—a sum which was , considered sufficient for the ransom of the flourishing city of Antioch by the Persian monarch Chosroes.¹ In 539 the Gepids ravaged Illyria, and the Huns laid waste the whole country from the Adriatic to the long wall which protected Constantinople. Cassandra was taken, and the peninsula of Pallene plundered; the fortifications of the Thracian Chersonese were forced, 1 and a body of the Huns crossed over the Dardanelles Sinto Asia, while another, after ravaging Thessaly, »turned Thermopylae, and plundered Greece as far as l^i'the Isthmus of Corinth. In this expedition, the Huns j- are said to have collected and carried away one hun- l|jdred and twenty thousand prisoners, chiefly belonging - to the rural population of the Greek provinces.² The I fortifications erected by Justinian, and the attention u! which the misfortunes of his arms compelled him to jr-bay to the efficiency of his troops on the northern ^?rontier, restrained the incursions of the barbarians for j. some years after this fearful foray; but in 548, the

_t i ¹ A. I). 510. Chosroes offered to leave Antioch un;itt;icked for 10(H) ]h. of ^ old; his oiler was refused, and ho took the city. See infra, page 310.

^{1        2} Procopius, De Bello Pcrs. ii. 4.

A. D.

527-565.

U

306 REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

c11 a p. in. Sclavonians again ravaged Illyria to tlie very walls of Dyrrachium, murdering the inhabitants, and carrying them away as slaves in face of a Roman army of fifteen thousand men, which was unable to arrest their pro­gress.¹ In 550 fresh incursions desolated Illyria and Thrace. Topirus, a flourishing city 011 the iEgean Sea, was taken by assault. Fifteen thousand of the inhabi­tants were massacred, while an immense number of women and children were carried away into captivity. In 551 an eunuch named Scholasticus, who was in­trusted with the defence of Thrace, was defeated by the barbarians near Adrianople. Next year, the Scla­vonians again entered Illyria and Thrace, and these pro­vinces were reduced to such a state of disorder, that an exiled Lombard prince, who was dissatisfied with the rank and treatment which he had received from Jus­tinian, taking advantage of the confusion, fled from Constantinople with a company of the imperial guards and a few of his own countrymen, and, after traversing , all Thrace and Illyria, plundering the country as he ' passed, and evading the imperial troops, at last reached I the country of the Gepids in safety. Even Greece, | though usually secure from its distance and its moun- 1 tain passes against the incursions of the northern 1 nations, did not escape the general destruction. It has j been mentioned that Totila despatched a fleet of three ; hundred vessels from Italy to ravage Corfou and the i coast of Epirus, and this expedition plundered Nicopolis ? and Dodona.² Repeated ravages at last reduced the great plains of Mcesia to such a state of desolation that * Justinian allowed even the savage Huns to form settle-1 ments to the south of the Danube.       .

Thus the Roman government began to replace the agri-^! cultural population by hordes of nomade herdsmen, and

¹     Procopius, De Bello Gotth. iii. 29.

²     Ibid. De Bello Gollh. iv. 22. See above, page 271.

!

HUNS.

307

abandoned the defence of civilisation as a vain struggle ^A »■

against the increasing strength of barbarism.¹

The most celebrated invasion of the empire at this period, though by no means the most destructive, was that of Zabergan, the king of the Ivutigur Huns, who crossed the Danube in the year 559. Its historical fame is derived from its success in approaching the walls of Constantinople, and because its defeat was the last military exploit of Belisarius. Zabergan had formed his army into three divisions, and he found the country everywhere so destitute of defence, that he ventured to j: advance on the capital with one division, amounting | to only seven thousand men. After all the lavish and injudicious expenditure of Justinian in building forts and erecting fortifications, he had allowed the long wall of Anastasius to fall into such a state of dilapidation, B that Zabergan passed it without difficulty, and advanced to within seventeen miles of Constantinople, before he encountered any serious resistance. The modern his­torian must be afraid of conveying a false impression of the weakness of the empire, and of magnifying the neglect of the government, if he venture to transcribe the ancient accounts of this expedition. Yet the miserable picture which ancient writers have drawn of the close of Justinian’s reign is authenticated by the calamities of his successors. As soon as the wars with the Persians and Goths ceased, Justinian dismissed the greater part of those chosen mercenaries who had proved themselves the best troops of the age, and he la neglected to fill up the vacancies in the native legions 'Of the empire by enrolling new conscripts. His im- jmense expenditure in fortifications, civil and religious of [buildings, and court pageants, forced him at times to be 35 las economical and rapacious as he was at others careless 'and lavish. The army which had achieved so man)'

¹     I’rocuphw, I>e Hello (lulth. iv. 27.

5‘27-5<v>.

308

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

•    foreign conquests was now so reduced, and the garrison of Constantinople, where Belisarius had appeared with | seven thousand horsemen, was so neglected, that the ! great wall was left unguarded. Zabergan established ¹ his camp at the village of Melantias, on the river ; Athyras, which flows into the lake now called Buyuk Tchekmedjee, or the great bridge.

At this crisis the fate of the Roman empire depended 011 the ill-paid and neglected troops of the line, who formed the ordinary garrison of the capital, and on the veterans and pensioners who happened to reside at Constantinople, and who immediately resumed their arms. The corps of imperial guards called Silentiarioi, Protectores, and Domestikoi, shared with the chosen mercenaries the duty of mounting guard on the fortifi­cations of the imperial palace, and of protecting the person of Justinian, not only against the barbarian enemy, but also against any attempt which a rebellious general or a seditious subject might make, to profit by the general confusion. After the walls of Constanti- i nople were properly manned, Belisarius marched out; of the city with his army. The principal body of his, troops, from the regularity of its organisation and the' ¹ splendour of its equipments, was the legion of Schola- ¹ rians. Their ordinary duty was to guard the outer ¹ court and the avenues of the emperor’s residence, and ^ their number amounted to 3500. They may be con-;< ® sidered as the representatives of the praetorian guards! * of an earlier period of Roman history, and the manner k in which their discipline was ruined by Justinian affords N a curious parallel to many similar bodies in other des- #1 potic states. The scliolarians received higher pay than the troops of the line. Previous to the reign of Zeno, 4a they had been composed of veteran soldiers, who were Jai appointed to vacancies in the corps as a reward for good service. Armenians were generally preferred by} %

SCHOLARTANS.

300

Zeno’s immediate predecessors, because the volunteers of this warlike nation were considered more likely to remain firmly attached to the emperor’s person in case of any rebellious movement in the empire, than native sub­jects who might participate in the exasperation caused by the measures of the government. The instability of Zeno’s throne induced him to change the organisation of the scholarians. His object was to form a body of troops whose interests secured their fidelity to his person. Instead of veteran soldiers who brought their military habits and prejudices into the corps, he filled its ranks with his own countrymen, from the mountains of Isauria. These men were valiant, and accustomed to the use of arms. Though they were ignorant of tactics and impatient of discipline, their obedience to their officers was secured by their attachment to Zeno as their countryman and benefactor, and by their ab­solute dependence on his power as emperor for the enjoyment of their enviable position. The jealousy with which these rude mountaineers were regarded by the whole army, and the hatred felt to them by the people of Constantinople, kept them separate from the rest of the world, secluded in their barracks and steady to their duty in the palace. Anastasius and Justin I. introduced the practice of appointing the scholarians by favour, without reference to their military services; and Justinian is accused of establishing the abuse of selling places in their ranks to wealthy citizens, and householders of the capital who had 110 intention of following a military life, but who purchased their en­rolment in the scholarians to enjoy the privilege of the military class in the Roman empire. It is remarkable that absolute princes, whose power is so seriously en­dangered by the inefficiency of their army, should be so often themselves the corrupters of its discipline. The abuses which render chosen troops useless as

310

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. in. soldiers are generally introduced by the sovereign, as , in this example of the scholarians of Justinian, but j they are sometimes caused by the power of the soldiers, who convert their corps into a hereditary corporation, as in the case of the janissaries of the Othoman empire.¹

On such troops Belisarius was forced to depend for the defence of the country round Constantinople, and for the more difficult task of conserving his own mili­tary reputation unsullied in his declining years. While the federates remained to guard Justinian, his general marched to encounter the Huns at the head of a motley army, composed of the neglected troops of the line, and of the sleek scholarians, who, though they formed the most imposing and brilliant portion of his force in ap­pearance, were in reality the worst-trained and least courageous troops under his orders. A crowd of volun­teers also joined his standard, and from these he was able to select upwards of 300 of those veteran horse- smards who had been so often victorious over the Goths

O

and the Persians. Belisarius established his camp at . Chettoukome, a position which enabled him to circum- , scribe the ravages of the Huns, and stop their advance to the villages and country houses in the immediate vicinity of Constantinople. The peasants who had fled ' from the enemy assembled round his army, and their labour enabled him to cover his position with strong . works and a deep ditch, before the Huns could prepare ^; to attack his troops.

There can be no doubt that the historians of this ■ campaign misrepresent the facts when they state that ; the Roman army was inferior in number to the division

¹     Agathias, lib. v. p. 159, edit. Par. Procopius, Hist. Arc. c. 24. Compare f what Tacitus (Hist. 1. 46) says of the abuses in the pnctorian guards, caused ' by the officers selling leave of absence to the soldiers. Corruption would have appeared to him natural in Greek prretorians. “ Mox donati civitate Romana, .signa armaque in nostrum moduli), desidiam licentiamque Gnecorum reti- r nebant.”

LAST VICTORY OF BELISARIUS.

311

of the Huns which Zabergan led against Constantinople. This inferiority could only exist in the cavalry; but we know that Belisarius had no confidence in the Roman infantry, and the ill-disciplined troops then under his orders must have excited his contempt. They, on the other hand, were confident in their numbers, and their general was fearful lest their rashness should compro­mise his plan of operations. He therefore addressed them in a speech, which modified their precipitation by assuring them of success after a little delay. A cavalry engagement, in which Zabergan led 2000 Huns in person to beat up the quarters of the Romans, was completely defeated. Belisarius allowed the enemy to approach without opposition, but before they could extend their line to charge, they were assailed in flank by the unex­pected attack of a body of two hundred chosen cavalry, which issued suddenly from a woody glen, and at the same moment Belisarius charged them in front. The shock was irresistible. The Huns fled instantly, but their retreat was embarrassed by their position, and they left four hundred men dead on the field. This trifling affair finished the campaign. The Huns, finding that they could no longer collect supplies, were anxious to save the booty in their possession. They broke up their camp at Melantias, retired to St Stratonikos, and hastened to escape beyond the long wall. Belisarius had no body of cavalry with which he could venture to pursue an active and experienced enemy. An un­successful skirmish might still compromise the safety of many districts, and the jealousy of Justinian was per­haps as dangerous as the army of Zabergan. The victor returned to Constantinople, and there heard himself reproached by courtiers and sycophants for not bringing back the king of the Kutigurs a prisoner, as in other days he had presented the kings of the Vandals and of the Ostrogoths captives before Justinian’s throne. Beli-

312

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. iii. sarins was ungratefully treated by Justinian, suspected of resenting the imperial ingratitude, accused of treason, plundered, and pardoned.

The division of the Huns sent against the Thracian Chersonese was as unsuccessful as the main body of the army. But while the Huns were incapable of forcing the wall which defended the isthmus, they so utterly despised the Roman garrison, that six hundred em­barked on rafts, in order to paddle round the fortifica­tions. The Byzantine general possessed twenty galleys, and with this naval force he easily destroyed all who had ventured to sea. A well-timed sally on the barbarians who had witnessed the destruction of their comrades, routed the remainder, and showed them that their con­tempt of the Roman soldiery had been carried too far. The third division of the Huns had been ordered to advance through Macedonia and Thessaly. It pene­trated as far as Thermopylce, but was not very suc­cessful in collecting plunder, and retreated with as little glory as the other two.

Justinian, who had seen a barbarian at the head of an army of twenty thousand men ravage a consider­able portion of his empire, instead of pursuing and crushing the invader, engaged the king of the Utugur Huns, by promises and money, to attack Zabergan. These intrigues were successful, and the dissensions of the two monarchs prevented the Huns from again attacking the empire. A few years after this incursion the Avars invaded Europe, and, by subduing both the Hunnish kingdoms, gave the Roman emperor a far more dangerous and powerful neighbour than had lately threatened his northern frontier.

The Turks and the Avars become politically known to the Greeks, for the first time, towards the end of Justinian’s reign. Since that period the Turks have always continued to occupy a memorable place in the

TURKS AND AVARS.

313

history of mankind, as the destroyers of ancient civilisation. In their progress towards the West, they were preceded by the Avars, a people whose arrival in I Europe produced the greatest alarm, whose dominion was soon widely extended, but whose complete ex­termination, or amalgamation with their subjects, leaves the history of their race a problem never likely to receive a very satisfactory solution. The Avars are supposed to have been a portion of the inhabitants of a powerful Asiatic empire which figures in the annals of China as ruling a great part of the centre of Asia, and extending to the Gulf of Corea. The great empire of the Avars was overthrown by a rebellion of their Turkish subjects, and the noblest caste soon became lost to history amidst the revolutions of the Chinese empire.

The original seats of the Turks were in the country round the great chain of Mount Altai. As subjects of the Avars, they had been distinguished by their skill in working and tempering iron ; their industry had procured them wealth, and wealth had inspired them with the desire for independence. After throwing off the yoke of the Avars, they waged war with that people, and compelled the military strength of the nation to fly before them in two separate bodies. One of these divisions fell back 011 China ; the other ad­vanced into western Asia, and at last entered Europe. The Turks engaged in a career of conquest, and in a few years their dominions extended from the Wolga , and the Caspian Sea to the shores of the ocean, or the Sea of Japan, and from the banks of the Oxus (Gilioun) to the deserts of Siberia. The western army of the Avars, increased by many tribes who feared the Turkish 'government, advanced into Europe as a nation of conquerors, and not as a band of fugitives. The mass of this army is supposed to have been composed of ’people of the Turkish race, because those who after-

A. D.

527-565.

314

REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. iii. wards bore tiie Avar name in Europe seem to have belonged to that family. It must not, however, be forgotten, that the mighty army of Avar emigrants might easily, in a few generations, lose all national peculiarities, and forget its native language, amidst the greater number of its Hunnish subjects, even if we should suppose the two races to have been originally derived from different stocks. The Avars, however, are sometimes styled Turks, even by the earliest his­torians. The use of the appellation Turk, in an ex­tended sense, including the Mongol race, is found in Theopliylactus Simocatta, a writer possessing consider­able knowledge of the affairs of eastern Asia, and who speaks of the inhabitants of the flourishing kingdom of Taugus as Turks.¹ This application of the term appears to have arisen from the circumstance, that the part of China to which he alluded was subject at the time to a foreign, or, in his phrase, a Turkish dynasty.

The Avars soon conquered all the countries as far ; as the banks of the Danube, and before Justinian’s j death they were firmly established on the borders of_; Pannonia. Their pursuers, the Turks, did not visit! Europe until a later period; but they extended their' conquests in central Asia, where they destroyed the . kingdom of the Ephthalite Huns to the east of Persia, a part of which Chosroes had already subdued.² They ; engaged in long wars with the Persians; but it is sufficient to pass over the history of the first Turkish I empire with this slight notice, as it exercised but a

¹                                          Theoph. Sim. vii. 7. ’’E#v/>s a\!tifAOj<ra.Tov scat To).vavfyuvr!>Tan>v xa) roi{ f xcc<ra rvv iixovftivxv IDviiri, to fiiytdos, aTagaWriXov. He calls the Avars Seythians, vii. c. 8. Menander (29S, edit. Bonn) mentions that the Turks used f the Scythian character (?) in the letter they addressed to Justin II. What alphabet was called Scythian in the sixth century is a question. >

²                                          Vivien de Saint Martin, Les Huns Blanc ou Ephthalites des ITistorietis j Byznntins, p. 77. This work shows the uncertainty of modem inquiries eon- j cerning the ethnological history of the Huns.                              f

t

PERSIAN WAKS.

very trifling direct influence on the fortunes of the Greek nation. The wars of the Turks and Persians tended, however, greatly to weaken the Persian empire, to reduce its resources, and increase the oppression of the internal administration, by the call for extraordinary exertions, and thus prepared the way for the easier con­quest of the country by the followers of Mahomet.

The sudden appearance of the Avars and Turks in i history, marks the singular void which a long period

■    of vicious government and successive conquests had created in the population of regions which were once flourishing. Both these nations took a prominent part _; in the destruction of the frame of ancient society in | Europe and Asia; but neither of them contributed \ anything to the reorganisation of the political, social, ij or religious condition of the modern world. Their I empires soon fell to decay, and the very nations were ! again almost lost to history. The Avars, after having

! attempted the conquest of Constantinople, became at last extinct; and the Turks, after having been long for­gotten, slowly rose to a high degree of power, and at length achieved the conquest of Constantinople, which their ancient rivals had vainly attempted.

SECT. VIII.—RELATIONS OF TIIE ROMAN EMPIRE WITII TERSIA.

| The Asiatic frontier of the Roman empire was less favourable for attack than defence. The range of the if Caucasus was occupied, as it still is, by a cluster of small

*     nations of various languages, strongly attached to i I their independence, which the nature of their country | ;enabled them to maintain amidst the wars and conflict­^s Jing negotiations of the Romans, Persians, and Huns, by ( Kvhom they were surrounded. The kingdom of Col- jchis (Mingrelia) was in permanent alliance with the

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ciiap. hi. Romans, and the sovereign received a regular investi­ture from the emperor. The Tzans, who inhabited the mountains about the sources of the Phasis, enjoyed a subsidiary alliance with Justinian until their plunder- mg expeditions within the precincts of the empire in­duced him to garrison their country. Iberia, to the east of Colchis, the modern Georgia, formed an inde­pendent kingdom under the protection of Persia.

Armenia, as an independent kingdom, had long formed a slight counterpoise between the Roman and Persian empires. In the reign of Theodosius II. it had been partitioned by its powerful neighbours ; and about the year 429, it had lost the shadow of independence which it had been allowed to retain. The greater part of Armenia had fallen to the share of the Persians ; but as the people were Christians, and possessed their I own church and literature, they had maintained their ^; nationality uninjured after the loss of their political I government. The western, or Roman part of Armenia, was bounded by the mountains in which the Araxes, • the Boas, and the Euphrates take their rise; and it was : defended against Persia by the fortress of Theodosio- ■ polis (Erzeroum), situated on the very frontier of Pers-' Armenia.¹ From Theodosiopolis the empire was bounded - by ranges of mountains which cross the Euphrates and extend to the River Nymphseus, and here the city of , Martyropolis, the capital of Roman Armenia, east of. the Euphrates, was situated.² From the junction of' ₍ the Nympliseus with the Tigris the frontier again ₍ followed the mountains to Dara, and from thence it [ proceeded to the Chaboras and the fortress of Kir- kesium. , j

The Arabs or Saracens who inhabited the district , between Kirkesinm and Idumrea, were divided into .

¹     Saint Martin, Memoires llistoriques et Geograplaques sur I’Armenia, i. 67. j •

²                              This was ealled the Fourth Armenia.—Justiniani Nor. xxxi.  !'

PERSIAN WARS.

317

two kingdoms : that of Ghassan, towards Syria, main­tained an alliance with the Romans; and that of Hira, to the east, enjoyed the protection of Persia. Palmyra, which had fallen into ruins after the time of Theo­dosius II., was repaired and garrisoned ;^l and the coun­try between the Gulfs of Ailatli and Suez, forming a province called the Third Palestine, was protected by a fortress constructed at the foot of Mount Sinai, and occupied by a strong body of troops.²

Such a frontier, though it presented great difficulties in the way of invading Persia, afforded admirable means for protecting the empire; and, accordingly, it had very rarely indeed happened that a Persian army had ever penetrated into a Roman province. It was reserved for Justinian’s reign to behold the Persians break through the defensive line, and contribute to the ruin of the wealth, and the destruction of the civilisation, of some of the most flourishing and enlightened por­tions of the Eastern Empire. The wars which Justi­nian carried 011 with Persia reflect little glory 011 his reign ; but the celebrated name of his rival, the great Chosroes Nushirvan, has rendered his misfortunes and misconduct venial in the eyes of historians. The Per­sian and Roman empires were at this time nearly equal in power and civilisation : both were ruled by princes whose reigns form national cpoclis ; yet history affords ample evidence that the brilliant exploits of both these sovereigns were effected by a wasteful expenditure of the national resources, and by a consumption of the lives and capital of their subjects which proved irre­parable. Neither empire was ever able to regain its former state of prosperity, nor could society recover ! the shock which it had received. The governments f were too demoralised to venture oil political reforms,

¹                            Malalw Ch. pr. ii. p. 53, edit. Vcnet.                          _

²     Procopius, Aldijk. v. 8. Lcbeau, llistoirc du Has- Empire, viii. 115.

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and the people too ignorant and too feeble to attempt a national revolution.

The governments of declining countries often give but slight signs of their weakness and approaching dis­solution as long as the ordinary relations of war and peace require to be maintained only with habitual - friends or enemies, though the slightest exertion, created by extraordinary circumstances, may cause the political fabric to fall to pieces. The armies of the Eastern Empire and of Persia had, by long ac­quaintance with the military force of one another, found the means of balancing any peculiar advantage -i of their enemy, by a modification of tactics, or by an , improvement in military discipline, which neutralised its effect. War between the two states was conse- „ quently carried on according to a regular routine of , service, and was continued during a succession of cam­paigns in which much blood and treasure were ex- . pended, and much glory gained, with very little change in the relative military power, and none in the _}] frontiers, of the two empires.                             ‘

The avarice of Justinian, or his inconstant plans, often induced him to leave the eastern frontier of the f empire very inadequately garrisoned; and this frontier * presented an extent of country against which a Persian army, concentrated behind the Tigris, could choose its point of attack. The option of carrying the war into e Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, or Colchis, generally lay with the Persians ; and Chosroes attempted to pene­trate into the empire by every portion of this frontier i during his long wars. The Roman army, in spite of ¹ the change which had taken place in its arms and organisation, still retained its superiority.

The war in which Justinian found the empire engaged 011 his succession, was terminated by a peace which the Romans purchased by the payment of eleven thousand

PERSIAN WARS.

319

pounds of gold to Chosroes. The Persian monarch re­quired peace to regulate the affairs of his own kingdom; and the calculation of Justinian, that the sum which he paid to Persia was much less than the expense of con­tinuing the war, though correct, was injudicious, as it really conveyed an admission of inferiority and weakness. Justinian’s object had been to place the great body of his military forces at liberty, in order to direct his exclusive attention to recovering the lost provinces of I the Western Empire. Had he availed himself of peace with Persia to diminish the burdens 011 his subjects, and consolidate the defence of the empire instead of extending its frontiers, he might perhaps have re­established the Roman power. As soon as Chosroes heard of the conquests of Justinian in Africa, Sicily, and Italy, his jealousy induced him to renew the war. The solicitations of an embassy sent by Witiges are said to have had some effect in determining him to take up arms.

In 540 Chosroes invaded Syria with a powerful army, and laid siege to Antioch, the second city of the empire in population and wealth. He offered to raise the siege on receiving payment of one thousand pounds’ weight of gold, but this small sum was refused. Antioch was | taken by storm, its buildings were committed to the flames, and its inhabitants were carried away captive, and settled as colonists in Persia. Hierapolis, Berrhoea (Aleppo), Apamea, and Chalcis, escaped this fate by pay- 1 ing the ransom demanded from each. To save Syria from utter destruction, Belisarius was sent to take the command of an army assembled for its defence, but he was ill supported, and his success was by 110 means brilliant. The fact that he saved Syria from utter devastation, nevertheless, rendered his campaign of 543 by 110 means unimportant for the empire. The war was carried 011 for twenty years, but during the latter period

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chap. hi. of its duration, military operations were confined to Colchis. It was terminated in 562 by a truce for fifty ¹ years, which effected little change in the frontiers of the empire. The most remarkable clause of this treaty of peace, imposed on Justinian the disgraceful obligation of paying Chosroes an annual subsidy of thirty thousand pieces of gold ; and he was compelled immediately to advance the sum of two hundred and ten thousand, for seven years. The sum, it is true, was not very great, but the condition of the Roman empire was sadly changed, when it became necessary to purchase peace from all its neighbours with gold, and with gold to find mercenary troops to carry on its wars. The moment, ‘ therefore, a supply of gold failed in the imperial treasury, the safety of the Roman power was compromised. - The weakness of the Roman empire, and the necessity of finding allies in the East, in order to secure a share of the lucrative commerce of which Persia had long ' possessed a monopoly, induced Justinian to keep up friendly communications with the king of Ethiopia | (Abyssinia). Elesboas, who then occupied the Ethiopian j throne, was a prince of great power, and a steady ally j of the Romans. The wars of this Christian monarch }' in Arabia are related by the historians of the empire; | and Justinian endeavoured, by his means, to transfer ’ the silk trade with India from Persia to the route by « the Red Sea. The attempt failed from the great length I of the sea voyage, and the difficulties of adjusting the intermediate commerce of the countries on this line of communication ; but still the trade of the Red Sea was »i so great, that the king of Ethiopia, in the reign of Justin, * was able to collect a fleet of seven hundred native ves- * sels, and six hundred Roman and Persian merchantmen, which he employed to transport his troops into Arabia.¹ i

¹Lebeau, llistoire. da Bas-Enqnrc, viii. 60. Acta Martyr. Metaplirast. up. I I Suriurn, tom. v. p. 1042.

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.321

The diplomatic relations of Justinian with the Avars and Turks, and particularly with the latter nation, were influenced by the position of the Roman empire with regard to Persia, both in a commercial and poli­tical point of view.¹

SECT. IX. — COM MERCIAL POSITION OF TIIE GREEKS, AND COMPARI­SON WITII THE OTHER NATIONS LIVING UNDER TIIE ROMAN GOV­ERNMENT.

Until the northern nations conquered the southern provinces of the Western Empire, the commerce of Europe was in the hands of the subjects of the Roman emperors ; and the monopoly of the Indian trade, its most lucrative branch, was almost exclusively possessed by the Greeks.² But the invasions of the barbarians, by diminishing the wealth of - the countries which they subdued, greatly diminished the demand for the valu­able merchandise imported from the East ; and the financial extortions of the imperial government gradu-

■    ally impoverished the Greek population of Syria, Egypt, and Cyrenai'ca, the greater portion of which had derived ^ its prosperity from this now declining trade. In order to comprehend fully the change which must have taken [place in the commercial relations of the Greeks with the western portion of Europe, it is necessary to compare the situation of each province, in the reign of Justinian,

| with its condition in the time of Hadrian. Many countries which had once supported an extensive trade in articles of luxury imported from the East, became incapable of purchasing any foreign production, and could hardly supply a diminished and impoverished

^ ¹ Theoplianes Ch. lOfi. Mnlahc ('h. pars 2, i>. ill, edit. Ycnct. Menander, Ejcc. Ley. p. 282, edit. Bonn. Theoplianes, Ch. 2015.

²     “ Minimal pie coinputatione million ccntcna millia ne.sterti(im annis omnilnu India et Seres, peninsulaque ilia, Arabia, imperio nostro adiinnnt, tan to nubi* ideliciie et fcmiiuc constant.”—l’liny, llisl. jS'al. lib. xii. c. xviii.

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chap. hi. population with the mere necessaries of life.¹ The wines of Lesbos, Rhodes, Cnidus, Thasos, Chios, Samos, and Cyprus, the woollen cloths of Miletus and Laodicea, the purple dresses of Tyre, Getulia, and Laconia, the cam­bric of Cos, the manuscripts of Egypt and Pergamus, the perfumes, spices, pearls, and jewels of India, the ivory, the slaves, and tortoise-shell of Africa, and the silks of China, were once abundant on the banks of the Rhine and in the north of Britain. Treves and York were long wealthy and flourishing cities, where every foreign luxury could be obtained. Incredible quantities of the precious metals in coined money then circulated freely, and trade was carried on with activity far beyond the limits of the empire. The Greeks who traded in amber and fur, though they may have rarely visited the northern countries in person, maintained constant com­munications with these distant lands, and paid for the commodities which they imported in gold and silver coin, in ornaments, and by inducing the barbarians to consume the luxuries, the spices, and the incense of the East. Nor was the trade in statues, pictures, vases, j and objects of art in marble, metals, earthenware, ivory, • and painting, a trifling branch of commerce, as it may • be conjectured from the relics which are now so fre- j qucntly found, after having remained concealed for ages ■ beneath the soil.

In the time of Justinian, Britain, Gaul, Rhoetia, 1 Pannonia, Noricum, and Vindelicia, were reduced to such ' a state of poverty and desolation, that their foreign commerce was almost annihilated, and their internal * trade reduced to a trifling exchange of the rudest com­modities. Even the south of Gaul, Spain, Italy, Africa, and Sicily, had suffered a great decrease of population ¹

¹ The emperor Julian says, “ Ex immensis opibus egentissiina eat tandem ( Roiuana Respublica, impetitimi rerarium est, urbes exinaiiitce, populates; pro- 1 vinuue.”—Aiumianus Marcellimis, xxiv. c. 3.    r

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and wealth under the s;overnment of the Goths and Vandals ; and though their cities still carried on a con­siderable commerce with the East, that commerce was very much less than it had been in the times of the empire.¹ As the greater part of the trade of the Medi­terranean was in the hands of the Greeks, this trading population was often regarded in the West as the type of the inhabitants of the eastern Roman empire. The mercantile class was generally regarded by the barba­rians as favouring the Roman cause; and probably not without reason, for its interests must have required it to keep up constant communications with the empire.

I When Belisarius touched at Sicily, 011 his way to attack the Vandals, Procopius found a friend at Syracuse, who was a merchant, carrying on extensive dealings in Africa, as well as with the East. The Vandals, when they were threatened by Justinian’s expedition, threw many of jj the merchants of Carthage into prison, as they suspected | them of favouring Belisarius. The laws adopted by the I barbarians for regulating the trade of their native sub-

O    O

; jects,² and the dislike with which most of the Gothic nations viewed trade, manufactures, and commerce, naturally placed all commercial and money transactions in the hands of strangers. When it happened that war 1 or policy excluded the Greeks from participating in these transactions, they were generally conducted by the Jews. We find, indeed, after the fall of the Western

iVides universa Italia' loca originariis viduata cultoribus, et ilia mater luunamc messis Liguria, cui numerosa agricolarum solebat eonstare progenies, orbata atque sterilis jejunum ccspitem nostris monstrat obtutibus.”—Ennodius, v. 8l J'Jpi/'h. Opera, edit. J. Sirmondi: l’aris, 1G11, p. 358.

I ² “ l’netia debent eommuni ddibcrationc eonstitui: quia non cut dclectatio icommereii qutc jubetur invitis.” Sartorius, in citing tliis passage from a letter |of king Athalaric, addressed to (Jildia, comte of Syracuse, observes very justly, |“ J’cntends par les mots dclihcratio communis, non pas ce dont les aulieteurs et vendeurs eonviennent entru eux, ce qui serait un eommcrcc libre ; mais commc • ii cst prouv<5 par tout ce qui precede, uue vente et un acliat d’apres les prix fisds d’nn coimimn accord entre le ma.gistrat, l’eveque, et le peuple, ce^ui c."t !">recisemeiit le eontraii e.’’—See Cassiodorus, Variic, xi. 11. Sartorius, hssai svr 'Elat civil cl politique des Peuplcs d'/lalir, suns le i/ouccriicinciU des Civth?, DM.

a. n.

27-5GD.

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EEIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

i. Empire, that the Jews, availing themselves of their com­mercial knowledge and neutral political character, began to be very numerous in all the countries gained by conquest from the Romans, and particularly so in those situated on the Mediterranean, which maintained con­stant communications with the East.

Several circumstances, however, during the reign of Justinian contributed to augment the commercial trans­actions of the Greeks, and to give them a decided pre­ponderance in the Eastern trade. The long war with Persia cut off all those routes by which the Syrian and Egyptian population had maintained their ordinary communications with Persia ; and it was from Persia that they had always drawn their silk, and great part of their Indian commodities, such as muslins and jewels. This trade now began to seek two different channels, by both of which it avoided the dominions of Chosroes ; the one was to the north of the Caspian Sea, and the other by the Red Sea. This ancient route through Egypt still continued to be that of the ordinary trade. But the importance of the northern route, and the ex­tent of the trade carried on by it through different ports on the Black Sea, are authenticated by the numerous colony of the inhabitants of central Asia established at Constantinople in the reign of Justin II. Six hundred Turks availed themselves, at one time, of the security offered by the journey of a Roman ambassador to the Great Khan of the Turks, and joined his train.¹ This fact affords the strongest evidence of the great import­ance of this route, as there can be no question that the great number of the inhabitants of central Asia, who visited Constantinople, were attracted to it by their commercial occupations.

The Indian commerce through Arabia and by the Red Sea was still more important; much more so, indeed, than the mere mention of Justinian’s failure to establish

¹ Menander, p. 398, edit. Bonn.

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11-

a 1 a regular importation of silk by this route might lead

iy j us to suppose. The immense number of trading vessels I______________________ '

_Je|i which habitually frequented the Red Sea shows that J it was very great.

,j It is true that the population of Arabia now first )[ began to share the profits and feel the influence of this trade. The spirit of improvement and inquiry roused j. ₍ by the excitement of this new field of enterprise, and \ the new subjects for thought which it opened, prepared d the children of the desert for national union, and awak- y| ened the social and political impulse which gave birth J to the character of Mahomet.

J As the whole trade of western Europe, in Chinese J and Indian productions, passed through the hands of J the Greeks, its amount, though small in any one district, yet as a whole must have been large. The Greek mer- 1 cantile population of the Eastern Empire had declined, j though perhaps not yet in the same proportion as the J other classes, so that the relative importance of the ¹ trade remained as great as ever with regard to the , general wealth of the empire ; and its profits were pro-

!bably greater than formerly, since the restricted nature of the transactions in the various localities must have discouraged competitors and produced the effects of a monopoly, even in those countries where no recognised privileges were granted to the merchants. Justinian was also fortunate enough to secure to the Greeks the com- kj plete control of the silk trade, by enabling them to I share in the production and manufacture of this pre­cious commodity. This trade had excited the attention of the Romans at an early period. One of the emperors, probably Marcus Aurelius, had sent an ambassador to the East, with the view of establishing commercial relations with the country where silk was produced, and this ambassador succeededin reaching China.¹ Justinian

¹     Gibbon, .Decline and Fall of thr Homan Umpire, cli. xl. Lebeau, llistoirc du Bas-Empire, ix. 222. Saint Martin.

j

326

EEIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. hi. long attempted in vain to open direct communications with China ; but all his efforts to obtain a direct sup­ply of silk either proved unavailing or were attended with very partial success.¹ The people of the Roman empire were compelled to purchase the greater part of their silk from the Persians, who alone were able to supply the Chinese and Indian trade with the commodi­ties suitable for that distant market. The Persians were, however, unable to retain, the monopoly of this profitable commerce ; for the high price of silk in the West during the Persian wars induced the nations of central Asia to avail themselves of every opportunity of opening direct communications by land with China, and conveying it, by caravans, to the frontiers of the Roman empire. This trade followed various channels, according to the security which political circumstances afforded to the traders. At times it was directed towards the fron­tiers of Armenia, while at others it proceeded as far north as the Sea of Asof. Jornandes, in speaking of Chcrson at this time, calls it a city whence the merchant imports the produce of Asia.²

At a moment when Justinian must almost have abandoned the hope of participating in the direct trade with China, he was fortunate enough to be put in pos­session of the means of cultivating silk in his own dominions. Christian missions had been the means of extending very widely the benefits of civilisation. Christian missionaries first maintained a regular com­munication between Ethiopia and the Roman em­pire, and they had frequently visited China.³ In the year 551 two monks, who had studied the method of rearing silkworms and winding silk in China, succeeded

¹     Procopius, De Bello Pers. i. 20.

²     Jornandes, De Rebus Giticis, c. ii. “ Just a Cliersonem, quo Asia; bona avidus mprcator importat.”

³     Vcrznch duer tdlgcmcincn Missions Geschichtc der Kirchc ran Blumhanlt.— Basel, iii. 40.

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in conveying the eggs of the moth to Constantinople, enclosed in a cane. The emperor, delighted with the

■    acquisition, granted them every assistance which they required, and encouraged their undertaking with great zeal. It would not, therefore, be just to deny to Jus­tinian some share in the merit of having founded a flourishing branch of trade, which tended very materi­ally to support the resources of the Eastern Empire, and to enrich the Greek nation for several centuries.¹

The Greeks, at this time, maintained their superiority over the other people in the empire only by their com­mercial enterprise, which preserved that civilisation in the trading cities which was rapidly disappearing among the agricultural population. The Greeks in general ¹ were now reduced almost to the same level with the \ Syrians, Egyptians, Armenians, and Jews. The Greeks 1 of Cyrenai'ca and Alexandria had suffered from the same l government, and declined in the same proportion as the I native population. Of the decline of Egypt we possess ¹ exact information, which it may not be unprofitable to ' pass in review. In the reign of Augustus, Egypt fur- | nislied Rome with a tribute of twenty millions of modii of grain annually,² and it was garrisoned by a force rather exceeding twelve thousand regular troops.³ ' Under Justinian the tribute in grain was reduced to about five millions and a-lialf modii, that is 800,000 artabas; and the Roman troops, to a cohort of six liun- dred men.⁴ There can be little doubt that even the

1    Aristotle (Jlist. Animalium. v. c. xvii. 6) mentions that the art of manu­facturing the silk of some speeics of caterpillars was known in Cos.

²     Aurelius Victor, ep. e. 1, “ Ducenties eentena niillia modiorum.”

³     More, certainly, under Augustus ; but under Tiberius, Nero, and Vespasian, the garrison was two legions.—Tacitus, Ann. 4, 5. Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. Id, 4. Tacitus, 7list. ii. If). Varges, Du Stain sKrpjpti, 09.

⁴     Justinian, Edict, xiii. l’tolemy Philadelphia had only received 1,500,Ooo artabas of grain as tribute, but he received a money revenue of 1 1,800 talents, about <£2,500,000 sterling. Egypt was now incapable of making any such pay­ments. The customs of its ports, and the taxes nf its towns, must have formed a comparatively small sum.

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REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. iii. reduced production and diminished prosperity of Egypt       were prevented from sinking still lower by the expor­tation of a portion of its grain to supply the trading population on the shores of the Red Sea. The canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea afforded the means of exporting an immense quantity of the infe­rior qualities of grain to the arid coasts of Arabia, and formed a great artery for the civilisation and commerce of Arabia and Ethiopia.

About this period the Jewish nation attained a degree of importance which is worthy of attention, as explain­ing many circumstances connected with the history of the human race. It appears unquestionable that the Jews had increased very much in the age immediately preceding Justinian’s reign. This increase is to be ac­counted for by the decline of the rest of the population in the countries round the Mediterranean, and by the general decay of civilisation, in consequence of the severity of the Roman fiscal system, which trammeled every class of society with regulations restricting the industry of the people. These circumstances afforded an opening for the Jews, whose social position had been previously so bad, that the decline of their neighbours, at least, afforded them some relative improvement. The Jews, too, at this period, were the only neutral nation who could carry on their trade equally with the Persians, Ethiopians, Arabs, and Goths ; for, though they were hated everywhere, the universal dislike was a reason for tolerating a people never likely to form common cause with any other. In Gaul and Italy they had risen to considerable importance; and in Spain they carried on an extensive trade in slaves, which ex­cited the indignation of the Christian church, and which kings and ecclesiastical councils vainly endeavoured to destroy. The Jews generally found support from the barbarian monarclis ; and Theodoric the Great granted

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329

| them every species of protection. Their alliance was ij often necessary to render the country independent of | the wealth and commerce of the Greeks.¹

To commercial jealousy, therefore, as well as religious zeal, we must attribute some of the persecutions which the Jews sustained in the Eastern Empire. The cruelty of the Roman government nourished that bitter nation­. ality and revengeful hatred of their enemies, which $ have always marked the energetic character of the , Israelites ; but the history of the injustice of one party, m and of the crimes of the other, does not fall within the

■    scope of this inquiry, though the position of the Jews and Greeks in modern times offers many points of simi- | larity and comparison.

The Armenians, who at present take a large share in . the trade of the East, were then entirely occupied with ¹ war and religion, and appeared in Europe only as mercenary soldiers in the pay of Justinian, in whose service many attained the highest military rank. In , civilisation and literary attainments, the Armenians held, however, as high a rank as any of their contem­poraries. In the year 551 their patriarch, Moses II., assembled a number of their learned men, in order to reform their calendar ; and they then fixed on the era which the Armenians have since continued to use.² It is true that the numerous translations of Greek books which distinguished the literature of Armenia were chiefly made during the preceding century, for the sixth only produced a few ecclesiastical works. The literary energy of Armenia is remarkable, inasmuch as it excited the fears of the Persian monarch, who ordered that no Armenian should visit the Eastern Empire to study at the Greek universities of Constan­tinople, Athens, or Alexandria.

¹ Ed. Thod. art. 143. Cassiod. Var. ep. 33, v. 37.

I ² Saint Martin, Memoires sur /’Armenie, i. 330. 0. F. Neumann, Vw.iuc/i I eiwtr Gcschichte der Armcnischen Literatur: Leipzig, 1830, Ovo, p. 92.

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REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. hi. The literature of the Greek language ceased, from this time, to possess a national character, and became more identified with the government, the governing classes of the Eastern Empire, and the orthodox church, than with the inhabitants of Greeee. The fact is easily explained by the poverty of the native Hellenes, and by the position of the ruling easte in the Roman Empire. The highest offiees in the eourt, in the civil administration, and in the orthodox church, were filled with a Greco-Roman easte, sprung originally from the Macedonian conquerors of Asia, and now proud of the Roman name which repudiated all idea of Greek nationality, and affected to treat Greek national dis­tinctions as mere provincialism, at the very time it was acting under the impulse of Greek prejudices, both in the State and the Church. The long existence of the new Platonic school of philosophy at Athens, seems to have eonneeted paganism with Hellenic national feel­ings, and Justinian was doubtless induced to put an end to it, and drive its last teaehers into banishment, from his hostility to all independent institutions.

The universities of the other eities of the empire were intended for the education of the higher classes des­tined for the public administration, or for the church. That of Constantinople possessed a philosophical, phi­lological, legal, and theologieal faculty. Alexandria added to these a celebrated medical school. Berytus was distinguished for its school of jurisprudence, and Edessa was remarkable fur its Syriac, as well as its Greek faculties. The university of Antioch suf­fered a severe blow in the destruction of the city by Chosroes, but it again rose from its ruin. The Greek poetical literature of this age is utterly destitute of popular interest, and shows that it formed only the amusement of a class of society, not the portrait of a nation’s feelings. Paul the Silentianj, and Agathias

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331

the historian, wrote many epigrams, which exist in the Anthology. The poem of “Hero and Leander,” by Musneus, is generally supposed to have been composed about the year 450, but it may be mentioned as one of the last Greek poems which displays a true Greek character ; and it is peculiarly valuable, as affording us a testimony of the late period to which the Hellenic people preserved their correct taste. The poems of Coluthus and Tryphiodoms, which are almost of the same period, are very far inferior in merit; but as both were Egyptian Greeks, it is not surprising that their poetical productions display the frigid character of the artificial school. After this period, the verses of the Greeks are entirely destitute of the spirit of poetry, and even the curious scholar finds their perusal a wearisome task.

The prose literature of the sixth century can boast of some distinguished names. The commentary of Simplicius on the manual of Epictetus has been fre­quently printed, and the work has even been translated into German. Simplicius was a pupil of Damascius, and one of the philosophers who, with that celebrated teacher, visited Persia on the dispersion of the Athenian schools. The collection of Stobaeus, even in the mutilated form in which we possess it, contains much curious information ; the medical works of Actius and Alexander of Tralles have been printed several times, and the geographical writings of Hierocles and Cosmas Indieopleustes possess considerable interest. In history, the writings of Procopius and Agathias are of great merit, and have been translated into several modern languages. Many other names of authors, whose works have been preserved in part and published in modern times, might be cited ; but they possess little interest for the general reader, and it does not belong to our inquiry to enter into details, which can be found

A. D.

527-505.

3 32

REIGN OF JUSTTNIAN.

chap. hi. in the history of Greek literature, nor does it fall within our province to signalise any of the legal and ecclesi­astical writers of the age.¹

SECT. X.—INFLUENCE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH ON TIIE NATIONAL FEELINGS OF THE GREEKS.

It is necessary here to advert to the effect which the existence of the established Church, as a constituted body, and forming a part of the State, produced both on the government and on the people ; though it will only be to notice its connection with the Greeks as a nation. The political connection of the Church with the State displayed its evil effects by the active part which the clergy took in exciting the numerous per­secutions which distinguish this period. The alliance of Justinian and the Roman government of his time with the orthodox Christians was forced on the parties by their political position. Their interests in Africa, Italy, and Spain, identified the imperial party and the orthodox believers, and invited them to appeal to arms as the arbiter of opinions. It became, or was thought necessary, at times, even within the limits of the empire, to unite political and ecclesiastical power in the same hands ; and the union of the office of prefect and patriarch of Egypt, in the person of Apollinarius, is a memorable instance. To the combination, therefore, of Roman policy with orthodox bigotry, we must attri­bute the religious persecutions of the Arians, Nesto- rians, Eutychians, and other heretics; as well as of Pla­tonic philosophers, Manichseans, Samaritans, and Jews. The various laws which Justinian enacted to enforce unity of opinion in religion, and to punish any differ-

¹ Geschichte tier Grleclnschen IJtcratur, (a German translation, by J. Schwarze and Dr Finder, of Schoell’s Histoire de la Litterature Grecque: the French original is in 8 vols. 8vo; the German translation in 3 vols.); and Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology and Biography.

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ence of belief from that of the established church, occupy _{A n} a considerable space in his legislation; yet as if to show ⁵-'-⁵⁶⁵- the impossibility of fixing opinions with perfect cer­tainty, it appeared at the end of his reign that this ; most orthodox of Roman emperors and munificent I patron of the church, held that the body of Jesus was incorruptible, and adopted a heterodox interpretation of the Nicene creed, in denying the two natures of Christ.

The religious persecutions of Justinian tended to ripen the general feelings of dissatisfaction with the Roman government, which were universal in the provinces, into feelings of permanent hostility in all those portions of the empire in which the heretics formed the majority of the population. The orthodox church, unfortunately, rather exceeded the common measure of bigotry in this age ; and it was too closely connected with the Greek nation for the spirit of persecution not to acquire a national as well as a religious character. As Greek was the language of the civil and ecclesiastical admin-

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I istration, those acquainted with the Greek language 1 could alone attain the highest ecclesiastical prefer- | ments. The jealousy of the Greeks generally endea­voured to raise a suspicion of the orthodoxy of their rivals, in order to exclude them from promotion ; and, consequently, the Syrians, Egyptians, and Armenians found themselves placed in opposition to the Greeks by their national language and literature.

| The Scriptures had, at a very early period, been t translated into all the spoken languages of the East ;

^ and the Syrians, Egyptians, and Armenians, not only V made use of their own language in the service of the 1 church, but also possessed at this time a provincial ¹ clergy in no ways inferior to the Greek provincial '■ clergy in learning and piety, and their ecclesiastical ' literature was fully equal to the portion of the Greek

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chap. hi. ecclesiastical literature which was accessible to the mass of the people. This use of the national language gave the church of each province a national character ; the ecclesiastical opposition which political circum­stances created in these national churches against the established church of the emperors, furnished a pre­text for the imputation of heresy, and, probably, at times gave a heretical impulse to the opinions of the provincials. But a large body of the Armenians and the Chaldseans had never submitted to the supremacy of the Greek church in ecclesiastical matters, and a strong disposition to quarrel with the Greeks had always displayed itself among the natives of Egypt. Justinian carried his persecutions so far that in several provinces the natives separated from the established church and elected their own bishops, an act which, in the society of the time, was a near approach to open rebellion. Indeed, the hostility to the Roman govern­ment throughout the East was everywhere connected with an opposition to the Greek clergy. The Jews re­vived an old saying indicating a national as well as political and religious animosity,—“ Cursed is he who eateth swine’s flesh, or teaclieth his child Greek.”¹ Power, whether ecclesiastical or civil, is so liable to abuse, that it is not surprising that the Greeks, as soon as they had succeeded in transforming the established church of the Roman empire into the Greek church, should have acted unfairly to the provincial clergy of the eastern provinces of the empire, in which the Greek liturgy was not used ; nor is it surprising that the national differences should have soon been identi­fied with opposite opinions in points of doctrine. As soon as any question arose, the Greek clergy, from their

¹ Yet, even among the Jews, there was a government party who wished to ! ®

introduce the use of the Greek Scriptures in the synagogues, and a reasonable      i|

party who wished the people to understand the Scriptures. “ Vel etiam patria      i¹

forte — Italica hac dicimus—lingua,” &c.—Jusliniani Nov. 146. A nth. Const. 125.        j

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alliance with the State, and their possession of the ec­clesiastical revenues of the Church, were sure of being orthodox ; and the provincial clergy were in constant danger of being regarded as heterodox, merely because they were not Greeks. There can be no doubt that several of the national churches of the East owe some increase of their hostility to the Roman government to the circumstances adverted to. The sixth century gave strong proofs of the necessity that each country which possessed a language and literature should possess also its national church ; and the struggle of the Roman empire and of the Greek ecclesiastical establishment against this attempt at national independence 011 the part of the Armenians, Syrians, Egyptians, Africans, and Italians, involved the empire in many difficulties, and opened a way, first for the Persians to push their invasions into the heart of the empire, and afterwards for the Mohammedans to conquer the eastern provinces, and virtually to put an end to the Roman power.

!SECT. XI.     STATE OF ATIIEXS DURING THE DECLINE OF PAGANISM,

AND UNTIL TIIE EXTINCTION OF ITS SCHOOLS 13Y JUSTINIAN.

^ Ancient Greek literature and Hellenic traditions ex­pired at Athens in the sixth century. In the year 520 Justinian closed the schools of rhetoric and philosophy, md confiscated the property devoted to their support.¹ The measure was probably dictated by his determina- ;ion to centralise all power and patronage at Constan­tinople in his own person ; for the municipal funds ippropriated annually by the Athenian magistrates to \ay the salaries of public teachers could not have ex­ited the cupidity of the emperor during the early part )f his reign. while the imperial treasury was still over­lowing with the savings of Anastasius and Justin.

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¹     Joan. Malalert, <51, edit. Von. Thcopliaiic.s, lo3. Agathias, ii. 30.

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chap. iii. The conduct of the great lawgiver must have been the ! result of policy rather than of rapacity.

It seems to be generally supposed that Athens had * dwindled into a small town ; that its schools were fre­quented only by a few lazy pedants, and that the office of professor had become a sinecure before Justinian ₍ closed for ever the gates of the Academy, the Lyceum, and the Stoa, and allowed the last Athenian philosophers to wander to Persia in search of the votaries they were 110 Iono;er allowed to seek amone; the citizens of the

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Roman empire.¹ A passage of Synesius, who was com­pelled to touch at the port of the Piraeus without having ; any desire to visit Athens, has been cited to prove the ! decay of learning, and the decline of population. The i¹ African philosopher says that the deserted aspect of ^!l the city of Minerva reminded him of the skin of an ₍ animal which had been sacrificed, and whose body had } been consumed as an offering. Athens had nothing to boast of but great names. The Academy, the j Lyceum, and the Stoa, were indeed still shown to tra- I vellers, but learning had forsaken these ancient re- 1 treats, and, instead of philosophers in the agora, you met only dealers in honey.² The Dorian prejudices of the Cyrenian, who boasted of his descent from Spartan ' kings, evidently overpowered the candour of the visi- ¹ tor. His spleen may have been caused by some neglect ' on the part of the Athenian literary aristocracy to i welcome their distinguished guest, but it does little j honour to the taste of Synesius that he could see the glorious spectacle of the Acropolis in the rich hue of its original splendour, and walk along surrounded by the many noble monuments of architecture, sculpture, and painting, which then adorned the city, without one

¹                               Cud. Just. i. xi. 10. Procopius, Arc. IIis!. 74, 77, edit. Par.   [

²                                     Syncsii Epist. 135. Gibbon, eli. xxx. note 8 ; Neander, ii. 81,—who both | refer to this passage.                         •

STATE OF ATHENS.

expression of admiration. The time of his visit was not the most favourable for one who sought Athenian society, for it was only two years after the invasion of Alaric; but, after every allowance has been made for the peevishness of the writer, and for the deserted state of the city in consequence of the Gothic invasion, there exists ample proof that this description is a mere flourish of rhetorical exaggeration. History tells us that Athens prospered, and that her schools were fre­quented by many eminent men long after the ravages of Alaric and the visit of Synesius. The empress Eudocia (Athenais) was a year old, and Synesius might have seen in a nurse's arms the infant who re­ceived at Athens the education which made her one of the most accomplished and elegant ladies of a brilliant and luxurious court, as well as a person of learning, even without reference to her sex and rank.

Athens was not then a rude provincial town. St John Chrysostom informs us that, in the court of Pul- cheria’s mother, a knowledge of dress, embroidery, and music, were considered as the most important objects on which taste could be displayed; but that to converse with elegance, and to compose pretty verses, were re­garded as necessary proofs of intellectual superiority.¹ Pulcheria, though born in this court, against which Chrysostom declaimed with eloquent but sometimes unseemly violence, lived the life of a saint. Yet she adopted the elegant heathen maiden Athenais as a protegee, and, when she converted her, bestowed 011 her the name of her own mother Eudocia. Though history tells us nothing of the fashionable society of Athens at this time, it supplies us with some interest­ing information concerning the social position of her

¹     See the Memoir on the manners of thr age of Theodosius I. and An-adius, which Montfaucou wrote while editing the works of Chrysostom.—Mcmonxs de ? Acadcmic dcs Inscr'tp. xiii. 171.

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. learned men, and we know that they were generally gentlemen whose chief pride was that they were also scholars.

When the members of the native aristocracy in Greece found that they were excluded by the Romans from the i. civil and military service of the State, they devoted themselves to literature and philosophy. It became * the tone of good society to be pedantic. The wealth ¹ and the fame of Herodes Atticus have rendered him the type of the Greek aristocratic philosophers.¹ The Emperor Hadrian had revived the importance and ' augmented the prosperity of Athens by his visits, and i. he gave additional consequence to its schools by ap- I pointing an official professor of the branch of learning 1 called Sophistics. Lollianus, who first occupied this | chair, was a native of Ephesus ; but he was welcomed S by the Athenians, for the strong remedies the Romans L had applied to diminish their pride had at least cured them of the absurd vanity of autochthonism. Lolli- anus not only received the rights of citizenship, he was ^ elected strategos, then the highest office in the local jl magistracy. During his term of service he employed 1 his own wealth and his personal credit to alleviate ^! the sufferings caused by a severe famine; and he dis- \ charged all the debts contracted for this purpose from his private fortune. The Athenians rewarded him for his generosity by erecting two statues to his memory.² 'a Antoninus Pius increased the public importance, and ji gave an official character to the schools, by allowing j the professors named by the emperor an annual salary j of ten thousand drachmas.³ Marcus Aurelius, who i

¹                                   See the Memoir on the Life of Herodes Atticus, by Buriguy. Mem. de j I’Acad, des Iitscrip. xxx. 1.                   1

²     Philostratus, Vit. Soph. 225. edit. Kaysor. Before the com arrived, the people would have stoned their strategos if Pankratios the cynic had not turned aside their anger by asking them whether they did not know that the trade of , Lollianus was to supply words, not bread.

³                               Philo,stratus, Vie. Soph. 245, edit. Ivayser.                  '

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visited Athens 011 his return from the East after the rebellion of Avidius Cassius, established official teachers of every kind of learning then publicly taught, and or­ganised the philosophers into an university. Scholarchs were appointed for the four great philosophical sects of the stoics, platonists, peripatetics, and epicureans, who received fixed salaries from the government.¹ The wealth and avarice of the Athenian philosophers be­came after this a common subject of envy and reproach. Many names of some eminence in literature might be cited as connected with the Athenian schools during the second and third centuries; but to show the uni­versal character of the studies pursued, and the free­dom of inquiry that was allowed, it is only necessary to mention the Christian writers Quadratus, Aristeides, and Athenagoras, who shared with their heathen con­temporaries the fame and patronage of which Athens could dispose.

It appears that even before the end of the second century the population of the city had undergone a great change, in consequence of the constant immigra­tion of Asiatic and Alexandrian Greeks who visited it in order to frequent its schools, and make use of its libraries. The attendants and followers of these wealthy strangers settled at Athens in such numbers as to modify the spoken dialect, which then lost its classic purity ; and it was only in the depopulated demoi, and amon" the impoverished landed proprietors of Attica, who were too poor to purchase foreign slaves or to asso­ciate with wealthy sophists, that pure Attic Greek was any longer heard.² Strangers filled the chairs of elo­quence and philosophy, and rhetoricians were elected to be the chief magistrates. I11 the third century,

^ ¹ Dion Casaiufi, lxxi. 31. Philustnitus, Vit. So/>h. 1115. Lucinn. Eunuch. 3. I'jllisen. Zur Oesehichte jtilhtm nach de.m Vcrtuste seiner SdbslmidiijkcU.

²     Pliilostratua, I^Tit. Soph. 23S.

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however, we find the Athenian Dexippus, a rhetor­ician, a patriot, and a historian, holding the highest offices in the local administration with honour to him­self and to his country.¹

Both Athens and the Piraeus had completely recovered from the ravages committed by the Goths before the time of Constantine. The large crews which were embarked in ancient galleys, and the small space which they contained for the stowage of provisions, rendered it necessary to select a station well supplied either from its own resources or from its being a centre of commercial communication, in order to assemble a great naval force. The fact that Constantine selected the Piraeus as the harbour at which his son Crispus concentrated the large force with which he defeated Licinius at the Hellespont, proves at least that the Athenian markets afforded abundant supplies of pro­visions.

The heathen city of Minerva enjoyed the favour and protection of the Christian emperors. Constantine con­tinued the salaries of the scholarchs and professors. He enlarged their privileges, and exempted them from many onerous taxes and public burdens. He furnished the city with an annual supply of grain for distribu­tion, and lie accepted the title of strategos, as Hadrian had accepted that of archon, to show that he deemed it an honour to belong to its local magistrature.² Constantins granted a donative of grain to the city as a special mark of favour to Proaeresius; and during his reign we find its schools extremely popular, crowded with wealthy students from every province of the em­pire, and attended by all the great men of the time.³ Four celebrated men resided there nearly at the same

¹     Corpus Script. Hist. Byz., “ De Dexippo," p. xiv. edit. Bonn.

²     .Julian, Orat. in Laud. C'onstantii, p. 8, edit. Spankeim. Eunupius, Vit. ( Soph. 22, edit. Boissonade. Cod. Theod. xiii. 3, 1 and 3.

³                                 Eunapius, Vit. Soph. 00, edit. Boissonade.                      *

STATE OF ATHENS.

341

period—the future Emperor Julian, the sophist Libanius, St Basil, and St Gregory Nazianzenus. Athens then enjoyed the inestimable blessing of toleration. Heathens and Christians both frequented her schools unmolested, in spite of the laws already promulgated against some pagan rites, for the regulations against soothsayers and diviners were not supposed to be applicable to gentle­men and philosophers. Athenian society consequently suffered for some time very little from the changes which took place in the religious opinions of the em­perors. It gained nothing from the heathenism of Julian, and lost nothing by the Arianism of Valens.

Julian, it is true, ordered all the temples to be re­paired, and regular sacrifices to be performed with order and pomp ; but his reign was too short to effect any considerable change, and his orders met with little attention in Greece, for Christianity had already made numerous converts among the priests of the temples, who, strange to say, appear to have embraced the doctrines of Christianity much more readily and promptly than the philosophers. Many priests had already been converted to Christianity with their whole families, and in many temples it was difficult to procure the celebration of the heathen ceremonies.¹ Julian attempted to inflict one serious wound 011 Christianity at Athens, by issuing an unjust and ar­bitrary edict forbidding Christians from giving instruc­tions publicly in rhetoric and literature. By this law lie believed that it would be in his power to reduce the Christians to a state of ignorance. His respect for the character of Prooeresius, an Armenian, who was then a professor at Athens, induced him to exempt that teacher from his ordinance ; but Proceresius refused to avail

¹     Panegyricl Vetcrcs. Manicrtini grafiartivi actio Juliana, c. it ; quoted by Zinkeisen, Geschichte Gricchcnlands, p. 021. The priests had begun to forget or to neglect the ancient rites in the time of Apollonius of Tyana.—l’hiloatra- tus, iii. 58.

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11EIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

chap. hi. liimself of the emperor’s permission, for, as new cere­monies were prescribed in the resorts of public teaching, lie considered it his duty to cease lecturing rather than appear tacitly to conform to heathen usages.¹

The supremacy of paganism was of short duration. About two years after Julian had proclaimed it the established religion of the Roman empire, Valentinian and Valens published an edict forbidding incantations, magical ceremonies, and offerings by night, under pain of death.² The application of this law, according to the letter, would have prevented the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, and rendered life intolerable to many fervid votaries of Hellenic superstition, and of the Neo-platonic philosophy. The suppression of the great heathen festivals, of which some of the rites were celebrated during the night, would have seriously in­jured the prosperity of Athens, and some other cities in Greece. The celebrated Prastextatus, a heathen highly esteemed for his integrity and administrative talents, was then proconsul of Achaia. His represen­tations induced the emperors to make some necessary modifications in the application of the edict, and the Eleusinian mysteries continued to be celebrated until Alaric destroyed the temple.³

Paganism rapidly declined, but the heathen philoso­phers at Athens continued to live as a separate class of society, refusing to embrace Christianity, though without offering any opposition to its progress. They considered their own religious opinions as too elevated for the vulgar, so that there existed no community of feeling between the aristocratic Neo-platonists of the schools, the burgesses of the towns, whether they were heathens or Christians, and the agriculturists in the

¹     Ammianus Marcellinus, xxv. 4. See the article “ Proteresius,” in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.

²                        Cod. Theod. ix. 1G, 7. A. D. 364. ’

³     Zosimus, iv. 3. Lasaulx, Der Untergamj des ITeUenismus, p. 84, note 242.

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country, who were generally pagans. Hence the em­perors entertained 110 political dislike to the philoso­phers, and continued to employ them in the public service. Neither Christian emperors nor Christian bishops felt any rancour against the amiable scholars who cherished the exclusive prejudices of Hellenic civilisation, and who considered the philanthropic spirit of Christianity as an idle dream. The Neo-pla- tonists viewed man as by nature a brutal creature, and they deemed slavery to be the proper condition of the labouring classes. They scorned equally the rude idol­atry of corrupted paganism, and the simple doctrines of pure Christianity. They were deeply imbued with those social prejudices which have for centuries separ­ated the rural and urban population in the East; pre­judices which were first created by the prevalence of predial slavery, but which were greatly increased by the fiscal system of the Romans, which enthralled men to degraded employment in hereditary castes. Liba- nius, Themistius, and Symmachus, were favoured even by the orthodox emperor Theodosius the Great. St Basil corresponded with Libanius. Musonius, who had taught rhetoric at Athens, was imperial governor of Asia in the year 367 ; but, as it is possible that he had then embraced Christianity, this circumstance can only be cited to prove the social rank still maintained by the teachers of the Athenian schools.¹

The last breath of Hellenic life was now rapidly passing away, and its dissolution conferred 110 glory on Greece. The Olympic games were celebrated until the reimi of Theodosius I. The last recorded victor

O                            _#

was an Armenian. Alexander, son of Amyntas, king of Macedon, had not been allowed to become a com­petitor for a prize until he had proved his Hellenic* descent; but the Hellenes were at this time prouder

¹     Clinton, lutsti Romani. See Mnsoiiins, and the eitatioiis relating to him.

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REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.

of being Romaioi than of being Greeks, and the Arme­nian Varastad, whose name closes the long list which commences with demi-gods, and is filled with heroes, was a Romaios.¹ Hellenic art also fled from the soil of Hellas. The chryselephantine statue of the Olym­pian Jupiter was transported to Constantinople, where it was destroyed in one of the great fires which so often laid waste that city. The statue of Minerva, which the pagans believed had protected her favourite city against Alaric, was carried off about the same time, and thus the two great works of Phidias were exiled from Greece.² The destruction of the great temple of Olympia followed soon after, but the exact date is unknown. Some have supposed that it was burned by the Gothic troops of Alaric; others think that it was destroyed by Chris­tian bigotry in the reign of Theodosius II. The Olym­piads, which for generation after generation had served to record the noble emulation of the Greeks, were now supplanted by the notation of the indiction. Glory resigned her influence over society to taxation.

The restrictions which Julian had placed on public instruction in order to acquire the power of injuring Christianity, had not been productive of permanent effects.³ Theodosius II. was the first emperor who interfered with public instruction for the direct ob­ject of controlling and circumscribing public opinion. While he honoured those professors who were ap­pointed by his own authority, and propagated the principles of submission, or rather of servility, to the imperial commands, he struck a mortal blow at the

¹     Moses Chorenensis, iii. 40, cited by Lasaulx, note 310. Tlie suppression of the Olympic games, overlooked by Clinton (Fasti Romani), is mentioned by Cedrenus, i, 326. a. d. 394 (?)

²     Marinus, Vit. Procli, c. 29, 30, edit. Boissonade; cited by Chastel, Iliatoire de la Destruction du Paijanisine dans I’Empire d'Orient, p. 235. See the de­scription of the statue of Minerva in Codinus, De Orig. Constant, p. 13. Other statues were carried off from Athens to adorn Constantinople in the time of Theodosius II.—See Codinus, p. 2G, 32, edit. Far.

³     Cod. Just. xiii. 3, 5 ; x. 52, 7.

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spirit of free inquiry by forbidding private teachers to give public lectures under pain of infamy and banish­ment.¹ Private teachers of philosophy had hitherto enjoyed great freedom in teaching throughout Greece ; but henceforth thought was enslaved even at Athens, and no opinions were allowed to be taught except such as could obtain a license from the imperial authorities. Emulation was destroyed, and genius, which is always regarded with suspicion by men of routine, for it sheds new light even 011 the oldest subject, was now officially suppressed. Men not having the liberty of uttering their thoughts soon ceased to think.

Though we are acquainted with very few precise facts relating to the state of society in Athens from the time of Theodosius II. to the suppression of the schools of philosophy by Justinian, we are, neverthe­less, able to form some idea of the peculiarities which distinguished it from the other provincial cities of the empire. The privileges and usages transmitted from the time when Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius treated Athens, as a free city, were long tolerated by the Chris­tian emperors. Some Hellenic pride was still nourished at Athens, from the tradition of its having been lone; an

O                          O

ally and not a subject of Rome. A trace of this memory of the past seems discernible in the speech of the Em­press Eudocia to the people of Antioch, as she was on her pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It closed with a boast of their common Hellenic origin.² The spirit of emulation be­tween the votaries of the Gospel and the schools un­doubtedly tended to improve the morality of Athens. Paganism, after it had been driven from the mind, survived in the manners of the people in most of the great cities of the empire. But at Athens the philoso­phers distinguished themselves by purity of morals ; and the Christians would have been ashamed in their

¹ CW. Tlteod. xiv. 9, 3; Cod. Just. xi. IS, 1.   - Evagrius, llist. I’ccles. i. 20.

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chap. hi. presence of the exhibitions of tumult and simony which disgraced the ecclesiastical elections at Rome, ! Alexandria, and Constantinople. In the mean time, j the civilisation of the ancient world was not extinct, though many of its vices were banished. Public hotels ! for strangers existed on the model which the Moham­medans have gained so much honour by imitating ; alms-houses for the destitute, and hospitals for the ! sick, were to be found in due proportion to the popula- - tion, or the want would have been justly recorded to the disgrace of the wealthy pagans. The truth is, that j the spirit of Christianity had penetrated into heathen­ism, which had become virtuous and unobtrusive, as / well as mild and timid. The habits of Athenian |j' society were soft and humane; the wealthy lived in j; palaces, and purchased libraries. Many philosophers, like Proclus, enjoyed ample revenues, and perhaps, like him, received rich legacies.¹ Ladies wore dresses of silk embroidered with gold. Both sexes delighted in boots of thick silk ornamented with tassels of gold fringe. The luxurious drank wine of Cnidus and Thasos, as we find attested by the inscribed handles of broken amphoroe still scattered in the fields round the modern city.² The luxury and folly against which Chrysostom declaimed at Constantinople were perhaps not unknown at Athens, but, as there was less wealth, ! vice could not exhibit itself so shamelessly in the phi- 1 losophic as in the orthodox city. It is not probable i that the Bishop of Athens found it necessary to preach j against ladies swimming in public cisterns, which ex- J cited the indignation of the saint at Constantinople, I and which continued to be a favourite amusement of the fair sex for several generations, until Justinian j suppressed it by admitting it as a ground of divorce.³

¹                               Chastel, Hist, de la Destruction dn Par/anistne, 200.       ¹

~ Those of Rhodes are rarely of a late period.

^a Montfaucon, Mimoires de I'Academic dct Inscrip, xiii. 482. Cod. Just. v. I

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Theodosius I., Arcadius, and Theodosius II., passed many laws prohibiting the ceremonies of paganism, and ordering the persecution of its votaries. It ap­pears that many of the aristocracy, and even some men in high official employment, long adhered to its delusions. Optatus, the prefect of Constantinople in 404, was a heathen. Isokasios, cjuestor of Antioch, was accused of the same crime in 467 ; and Tribonian, the celebrated jurist of Justinian, who died in 545, was supposed to be attached to philosophic opinions hostile to Christianity, though he made no scruple in con­forming outwardly to the established religion. His want of religious principle caused him to be called an atheist.¹ The philosophers were at last persecuted with great cruelty, and anecdotes are related of their martyrdom in the reign of Zeno.² Phocas, a patrician, poisoned himself in the reign of Justinian to avoid being compelled to embrace Christianity, or suffer death as a criminal.³ Yet the most celebrated histo­rians of this period were heathens. Of Eunapius and Zosimus there is no doubt, and the general opinion re­fuses to regard Procopius as a Christian.

At last, in the year 529, Justinian confiscated all the funds devoted to philosophic instruction at Athens, closed the schools, and seized the endowments of the academy of Plato, which had maintained an uninter­rupted succession of teachers for nine hundred years. The last teacher enjoyed an annual revenue of one thousand gold solidi, but it is probable that he wan­dered in a deserted grove, and lectured in an empty hall.⁴ Seven Athenian philosophers are celebrated for

17,9. This state of manners renders the picture of Theodora’s conduct, ami that of her companions, as given by I’rocopius, evidence concerning the state of society, though it may he individually calumnious.

¹     Suidas, ii. 1204, edit. Pernhardi.

² Lasaulx, 140. Suidas,  i. edit. Bcrnh.

³     Lasaulx, 147.

^ 1 he same property yielded only three gold pieces in the time of Plato. Suidas, VXo.tuv, ii. 207, edit, l’ernh.

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chap. hi. exiling themselves to Persia, where they were sure to escape the persecutions of Justinian, and where they hoped to find disciples. But they met with no sym­pathy among the followers of Zoroaster, and they were soon happy to avail themselves of the favour of Chos­roes, who obtained for them permission to return and spend their lives in peace in the Roman empire.¹ Toler­ation rendered their declining influence utterly insigni­ficant, and the last heathen fancies of the philosophic schools disappeared from the conservative aristocracy, where they had found their last asylum.²