[708] The Limitanei and Comitatenses are mentioned in the Code (I, xxvii, 2 (8), etc.), but the Palatine troops do not occur by name in the literature of the sixth century (?).

[709] The term was used long before the word legion dropped out; Cod. Theod., VII, i, 18, etc. By the Greeks the Numeri were called the Catalogues; Procopius, passim (also in previous use).

[710] Cod. Theod., [?] vii, 16, 17, etc.; Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iii, 39; iv, 26. Applicants of all soils were on occasion attracted by the offer of a bounty called pulveraticum.

[711] Cod., XII, xxxiv, 6, 7.

[712] Olympiodorus, p. 450; Novel., Theod., xx; Procopius, De Bel. Vand., i, 11; De Bel. Goth., iv, 5, etc.

[713] Cod., IV, lxv, 35; Novel., cxvii, 11; cf. Benjamin, Berlin Dissert., 1892.

[714] Procopius, De Bel. Vand., i, 2, 3; Agathias, ii, 7, 9, etc. There were no true allies of the Empire at this time, although all those who fought for her may not have been technically Foederati; cf. Mommsen, op. cit., pp. 217, 272.

[715] The name defines them as “biscuit-eaters,” in allusion to their being maintained at the table of their lord.

[716] Benjamin’s essay is written to oppose this view which is favoured by Mommsen; op. cit., in both cases.

[717] Procopius, De Bel. Vand., ii, 18.

[718] Ibid., De Bel. Pers., i, 25; De Bel. Goth., iii, 1, etc.

[719] Ibid., De Bel. Vand., i, 17; ii, 19, etc.

[720] Cod., IX, xii, 10.

[721] Ammianus, xiv, 2; xxvii, 9, etc.

[722] Cassiodorus, Var. Epist., v, 16, 17. An order for 1,000 dromons was executed for Theodoric in an incredibly short time. “Renuntias completum quod vix credi potest inchoatum.”

[723] The general character given to Byzantine soldiers is exceptionally bad: “The vile and contemptible military class”; Isidore Pelus., Epist., i, 390: “as free from crime as you might say the sea is free from waves”; Chrysostom, In Matth. Hom. LXI, 2 (in Migne, vii, 590). These, of course, are priests, but cf. Ammianus, xxii, 4; Zosimus, ii, 34, etc. Thus a century earlier the army had already fallen into a wretched condition; see also Synesius, De Regno.

[724] Maurice, op. cit., XII, viii, 16.

[725] From the anonymous Strategike it would seem that the phalanx was restored on occasion during the sixth century (Köchly and Rüslow).

[726] See Arrian’s Tactica v. Alanos. For an interesting exposition of the vicissitudes of warfare by means of cavalry, infantry, and missiles pure, see Oman’s Art of War, but the author’s selection of the battle of Adrianople (378) as marking a sharp turn in the evolution of Roman cavalry is quite arbitrary and could not be historically maintained. That disaster made no demonstrable difference in the constitution of the armies of the Empire. The forces of Rome were consumed to a greater extent at the battle of Mursa less than thirty years previously (351), when the army of the victor contained, perhaps, 40,000 cavalry, half of the whole amount; Julian, Orat. I, ii (p. 98, etc., Hertlein); Zonaras, xiii, 8, etc.

[727] Constantine, according to Zosimus (ii, 33), first appointed a Magister Equitum in the new sense; cf. Cod. Theod., XI, i, 1 (315).

[728] Notitia Or.

[729] Procopius, De Bel. Pers., i, 13, etc.

[730] Procop., De Bel. Pers., i, 13, etc.

[731] Ibid., De Bel. Vand., i, 19.

[732] Ibid., Anecdot., 24; Agathias, v, 15. Under Leo Macella the Scholars consisted of selected Armenians, but Zeno introduced a rabble of Isaurians, his own countrymen; these, of course, were chased by Anastasius; Theodore Lect., ii, 9, etc. Leo also levied the Excubitors to be a genuine fighting corps of the Domestics; Jn. Lydus, De Magist., i, 16.

[733] Longinus, brother of Zeno, expected to succeed him, but he was seized promptly, shaved, and banished as a presbyter to Alexandria; Theophanes, an. 5984, etc.

[734] Ibid., an. 5985. To his power among the Isaurians Zeno owed his elevation, being taken up by Leo as a counterpoise to Aspar and his Goths, the authors of his own fortune, of whom he was in danger of becoming the tool; Candidus, Excerpt., p. 473, etc.

[735] Marcellinus Com., an. 498.

[736] This was the end of the war according to Theophanes (an. 5988), who gives it only three years; cf. Jn. Malala, xvi.

[737] These brigands had been subsidized to the amount of 5,000 lb. of gold annually (Jn. Antioch., Müller, v, p. 30, says only 1,500 lb.), which was henceforth saved to the treasury; Evagrius, iii, 35. All the most troublesome characters were captured and settled permanently in Thrace; Procopius, Gaz. Paneg., 10. For a monograph on this war see Brooks, Eng. Hist. Rev., 1893.

[738] Kavádh in recent transliteration. Persian history has been greatly advanced by modern Orientalists; see especially Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, Leyden, 1887. But the history of Tabari is absurdly wrong in nearly all statements respecting the Romans and the translations of Nöldeke and Zotenberg vary so much that we often seem to be reading different works.

[739] Theodore Lect., ii; Procopius, De Bel. Pers., i, 7, et seq.; De Aedific., iii, 2, et seq.

[740] Ibid.; De Bel. Pers., ii, 3.

[741] Procopius, De Bel. Pers., i, 7; cf. his parallel story of Attila and the storks at Aquileia; De Bel. Vand., i, 4 (copied, perhaps, by Jordanes). While such anecdotes may enliven the page of history, their effectivity must always be accepted with suspicion.

[742] If the statements of Zacharias Myt. and Michael Melit. can be accepted, the town must have been very populous, as the number of citizens slain is put by them at eighty thousand.

[743] The Nephthalites or White Huns who occupied Bactria, previously the seat of a powerful Greek kingdom under a dynasty of Alexander’s successors.

[744] Ammianus, xxv, 7.

[745] Procopius, De Aedific., ii, 1; cf. Jn. Malala, xvi, etc.

[746] Jordanes, 58. I am putting it, perhaps, too mildly in the text if Theodoric, who was a vassal of the Empire, knew beforehand of the course taken by his general. Sabinianus was chiefly supported by Bulgarians in consequence of Zeno’s treaty with them; cf. Ennodius, Panegyr. Theodor. Petza had only 2,000 foot and 500 horse.

[747] Marcellinus Com., an. 505; Ennodius, loc. cit.

[748] Marcellinus Com., an. 508. Doubtless this was the event which caused Theodoric to build a large fleet; Cassiodorus, Var. Epist., v, 15, 16.

[749] Cassiodorus, Var. Epist., i, 1, might apply here; in any case the sentiments of Theodoric are clearly expressed by Jordanes, 59; cf. 57.

[750] Jn. Antioch. and Jn. Malala, Hermes, vi (Mommsen), pp. 344, 389.

[751] Marcellinus Com., an. 514; Jn. Malala, xvi; Theophanes, an. 6005, etc.

[752] Marcellinus Com., an. 514; Theophanes, an. 6005. The texts merely imply, perhaps, that they deserted to Vitalian. Hypatius, the Byzantine general, and nephew to Anastasius, was taken prisoner, deliberately given up in fact. A second engagement, however, under Cyril, was undoubtedly bloody; Jn. Malala, xvi.

[753] Jn. Malala, xvi; Zonaras (xiv, 3) says the fleet was inflamed by burning (concave) mirrors.

[754] As a ransom for their captives; Marcellinus Com., an. 515; Theophanes, an. 6006. The Senate negotiated for Anastasius.

[755] Marcellinus Com., an. 515.

[756] See, besides the above authorities, the correspondence between Emperor and Pope (in Migne, S.L., lxiii, also Concil. and Baronius).

[757] Theophanes, an. 6006; Cedrenus, i, p. 632.

[758] All the chronographists relate the vision of Anastasius, to whom, just before his death, a figure with a book appeared, saying: “For your insatiable avarice I erase fourteen years.” Every one must regret the inherent defect of character which deprived us of a centenarian emperor.

[759] That of Anastasius is the last life written by Tillemont, which, as usual, he has illustrated by his wide erudition in ecclesiastical literature. But the infantile credulity of the man in theological matters abates much of the critical value of his work. Thus he gravely questions if the action of the Deity was correct when, for the benefit of the Persian king, he allowed a Christian bishop to release a treasure guarded by demons whom the Magi had failed to exorcise. He believes implicitly that an orthodox bishop emerged from the flames intact so as to convince an Arian congener of his error, etc. Rose’s thesis (Halle, 1886) on these wars is of some value.

[760] Strabo, II, i, 30, etc.; Pliny, Hist. Nat., ii, 112. The earth was thought to be about 9,000 miles long and half that width, north to south.

[761] Cosmas Indicopleustes, a merchant who eventually turned monk, in his Christian Topography is our chief authority for popular cosmogony and trade in the sixth century (in Migne, S.G.). The theories of philosophers jar with his Biblical convictions and excite his antagonism. He writes to prove that the world is flat, that the sun rounds a great mountain in the north to cause night, etc. Being something of a draughtsman he explains his views by cosmographical diagrams, and figures many objects seen in his travels. There is an annotated translation by McCrindle, Lond., 1899 (Hakluyt Soc.).

[762] Diodorus, Sic., v, 19, 22, etc. For tin to the Scilly Is., etc.

[763] Phoenician trade is summarized with considerable detail by Ezekiel, xxvii; cf. Genesis, xxxvii, 25. But a couple of centuries earlier the race was well known to Homer, who often adverts to their skill in manufactures, as also to their knavery and chicanery:

The recently discovered ruins in Mashonaland (Rhodesia) prove, perhaps, that their unrecorded expeditions reached to S. Africa; see works by Bent, Neal and Hall, Keane, etc.

[764] 326 B.C. In Arrian’s Indica, 18, et seq.

[765] Strabo, XVII, i, 13.

[766] Pliny, Hist. Nat., vi, 26; Pseud-Arrian, Peripl. Mar. Erythr., 57. For a discussion as to the date of Hippalus see Vincent, Commerce of the Ancients, ii, p. 47, etc. The S.W. monsoon blows from April to October, the N.E. in the interval.

[767] Very small, however, according to modern ideas; Pliny (op. cit., vi, 24) gives them 3,000 amphorae, not more than 40 or 50 tons register. Arrian (op. cit., 19) marks the distinction between “long, narrow war-galleys and round, capacious trading ships.” A few great ships—floating palaces rather—were built by the Ptolemies and Hiero of Syracuse, but they were never seriously employed in navigation; Athenaeus, v, 36, et seq. Yet ships of at least 250 tons register were in common use by 170; Pand., L, v, 3.

[768] Pliny, op. cit., vi, 26, et seq.; Pseud-Arrian, op. cit., 57. The vessels had to be armed lest they should fall in with pirates. “The merchant floating down the stream; the caravan crossing the desert, mounting the defile, looking out upon the sea and its harbours; the ferry passing the river; the mariners in their little ship—they are real figures, yet they are nameless, all but a few; they suffer and they succumb without ever finding a voice for their story. On the desert, perhaps, a cloud of robber horse burst upon them; on the river the boat sinks, overladen; in the mountain passes they drop with cold; in the dirty lanes of the mart they die of disease. Commerce is not organized, safeguarded, universalized, as at present, but, such as it is, it reaches wide, and its life is never quite extinct.” Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, i, p. 177.

[769] Pliny, op. cit., vi, 19. He remarks that Pompey, during the Mithridatic war, first made the existence of this trade known to the Romans; cf. Strabo, XI, ii, 16; the geographer notes that Dioscurias, about 50 miles north of Phasis, was a great barbarian mart frequented by 70, or even, as some said, by 300 different nations; see also Ammianus, xxiii, 6.

[770] Cosmas, op. cit., ii; cf. Procopius, De Bel. Pers., i, 20.

[771] So called from a sophist who was murdered there; Libanius, Epist., 20. Previously Nicephorium.

[772] Cod. Theod., VII, xvi, 2, 3, and Godfrey ad loc.; Cod., IV, lxiii, 4.

[773] The inhabitants were a mixed race, containing Semitic and Hellenic elements, etc. Greek inscriptions were common there; Cosmas, op. cit., ii; cf. Philostorgius, iii, 6, etc.

[774] For the transport of an army to the opposite coast the king was able to collect 120 Roman, Persian, and native vessels; Act. Sanct. (Boll.), lviii, p. 747 (not 1,300 as Finlay, i, p. 264, which comes from adding a cipher to the figures in Surius).

[775] Called Taprobane by the Greek and Roman writers. It was distinguished by the possession of an immense lustrous jewel (ruby perhaps) which scintillated from the top of a temple; Cosmas, op. cit., xi.

[776] The junks from Annam, as it appears, ploughed round the Malay peninsula to Galle; Hirth, China and the Roman Orient, 1885, p. 178. The Cingalese took no active part in the trade!; Tennant, Ceylon, i, p. 568 (ibid.).

[777] Cosmas, op. cit., xi. His own trade seems to have lain chiefly between Adule and Malabar. In this age all the southern regions eastward of the Nile were commonly referred to as India; and that river was often named as the boundary between Africa and Asia. Hence the Nile was said to rise in India; Procopius, De Aedific., vi, 1, etc.

[778] Now Somaliland.

[779] Cosmas, op. cit., xi; cf. Strabo, XVI, iv, 14. When Nonnosus went to Axume, c. 330, he saw 5,000 elephants grazing in a vast plain; Excerpt., p. 480.

[780] Cosmas, op. cit., ii. This kind of wordless barter was also the mode of trading with the Serae or Chinese on the higher reaches of the Brahmaputra (?); Pliny, Hist. Nat., vi, 24; Ammianus, xxiii, 6; cf. Herodotus, iv, 196.

[781] Pliny, op. cit., xii, 30. This district was also called the land of Frankincense; cf. Strabo, XVI, iv, 25; Pseud-Arrian, op. cit., 29. There was also a port called Arabia Felix on or near the site of modern Aden.

[782] Cosmas, op. cit., xi. White slaves, especially beautiful females for concubinage, were among the most important exports to India; Pseud-Arrian, op. cit., 49. One Eudoxus tried to reach that country by rounding West Africa with a cargo of choir girls, physicians, and artisans, but twice failed; Strabo, II, iii, 4. In the time of Pliny the Empire was drained by the East yearly to the amount of £800,000 in specie; Hist. Nat., xii, 41. Statues and paintings were also exported from the Empire; Strabo, XVI, iv, 26; Pseud-Arrian, op. cit., 48; Philostratus, Vit. Apol., v, 20. The import of precious stones, etc., may be conceived from the statement that Lollia Paulina appeared in the theatre wearing emeralds and pearls to the value of £304,000; Pliny, op. cit., ix, 58.

[783] Cosmas, op. cit., ii.

[784] Malchus, p. 234; Theophanes, an. 5990. The island was taken by the Scenite (tent-dwelling) Arabs under Theodosius II, but was recovered by Anastasius.

[785] Ibid.

[786] Antoninus Martyr, Perambulatio, etc., 38, 41 (trans. in Pal. Pilgr. Text Soc., ii). The martyr, however, is a liar, as he professes to have produced wine from water at Cana, unless some brother monk in copying has been anxious to enhance his reputation. Clysma is now Suez.

[787] Rhinocolura, near Gaza, was the depôt for this trade in the time of Strabo (XVI, iv, 24).

[788] Strabo, XVII, i, 45; Pliny, Hist. Nat., vi, 26; Pseud-Arrian, op. cit., passim. Cosmas does not mention Berenice, but it was flourishing in the time of Procopius (De Aedific., vi, 2).

[789] Strabo, XVII, i, 45; Pliny, op. cit., vi, 26.

[790] Strabo, XVI, iv, 24; XVII, iv, 10, et seq. There was a canal from the Red Sea to the Nile, but it silted up too rapidly to be permanently used. In Roman times Trajan last reopened it; see Lethaby and S., op. cit., p. 236, for monographs on this subject.

[791] Notitia Or., X, XII; Cod. Theod., X, xx, xxi, xxii, and Godefroy’s commentaries; Cod., XI, viii, ix, x.

[792] Strabo, XVI, iv, 24; Pliny, op. cit., v, 16. There were different shades of purple and only the imperial shade was prohibited; Pliny, op. cit., xxi, 22. The murex was gathered in several other places, especially Laconia, where it was inferior only to that of Tyre; Pausanias, iii, 21, etc.

[793] Sozomen, v, 15. Much money was also coined at Cyzicus.

[794] Cod. Theod., X, xx, 8.

[795] Cod., IV, lxxxiii, 6. This doubtless applied only to great houses, not to petty retail dealers and shopkeepers (to the ἔμπορος not the κάπηλος); the number seems too large to understand it of the capital alone.

[796] Pliny, op. cit., viii, 73; Athenaeus, i, 50; xv, 17, etc.

[797] Strabo, XII, viii, 16; Pliny, op. cit., 73, etc.

[798] Athenaeus, ii, 30; vi, 67.

[799] Pliny, op. cit., xi, 27, etc. It is a question whether the transparent Coan fabrics were of silk, linen, or cotton, or a mixture.

[800] Procopius, Anecdot., 25.

[801] Ibid.

[802] Athenaeus, i, 50.

[803] Pliny, op. cit., xxxv, 46.

[804] Strabo, XVI, ii, 25; Pliny, op. cit., xxxvi, 65. False stones were plentifully manufactured; ibid., xxxvii, 78, etc.

[805] Strabo, XIII, iv, 17.

[806] Athenaeus, i, 50; xiii, 24.

[807] Pliny, op. cit., xiii, 21.

[808] Strabo, XVII, i, 15; Pliny, op. cit., xiii, 22; Hist. August. Firmus, etc.

[809] Pausanias, v, 5; vii, 21.

[810] Strabo, XIII, iv, 14.

[811] Cod. Theod., XV, xi; Cod., XI, xliv. Indigenously called Mabog. It was a mart of venal beauty as well as of beasts; Lucian, De Syria Dea.

[812] Ammianus, xxix, 4; Procopius, Anecdot. 21.

[813] Pliny, op. cit., iv, 27; xxxvii, 11.

[814] Pliny, op. cit., xiv, passim; Athenaeus, i, 52, 55; x, passim.

[815] Strabo, XVII, iii, 23; Pliny, xxiv, 48; measuring more than 100 by 30 miles. What silphium really was is now indeterminate, but it was economically akin to garlic and asafoetida. It seems to have been indispensable in ordinary cooking.

[816] Totius Orb. Descript. (Müller, Geog. Graec. Min., Paris, 1861) 36; Procopius, De Aedific., v, 1.

[817] Tot. Orb. Descr., 51, 53. This tract from a Greek original (c. 350) summarizes the productions of the whole Empire, and for the most part confirms the continuance of the industries adverted to by the earlier and more copious writers.

[818] Athenaeus, i, 49.

[819] Ibid.

[820] Strabo, VII, vi, 2; Pliny, ix, 17, et seq.

[821] Cosmas, op. cit., ii.

[822] Several “embassies” from Rome are mentioned in the Chinese annals, but nothing seems to have been known of them in the West. Stray merchants sometimes penetrated very far; Strabo, XV, i, 4. At first Rome is disguised as Ta-thsin, but later (643) the Byzantine power figures as Fou-lin; see Pauthier, Relat. polit. de la Chine avec les puiss. occid., 1859; cf. Hirth, op. cit., who was without books to pursue the inquiry; Florus, iv, 12, etc.

[823] Aristotle, Hist. Animal., v, 19; Pliny, op. cit., xi, 26; Pausanias, vi, 26.

[824] Cosmas, op. cit., ii.

[825] Procopius, De Bel. Pers., i, 30.

[826] A serf was called colonus, inquilinus, or adscriptus glebae, terms fairly synonymous; Cod., XI, xlvii, 13. Godefroy’s paratitlon to Cod. Theod., V, ix, x, is an epitome of everything relating to the serfs of antiquity; cf. Savigny, Römische Colonat u.s.w. Berlin Acad., 1822-3. The name of modern works on slavery and serfdom is legion.

[827] Cod., XI, xlvii, 21.

[828] Ibid., 18, 23.

[829] Cod. Theod., X, xv, and Godefroy ad loc.; Pand., XLVII, vi; Novel., xvii, 17; lxxxv, 4, etc. This general disarmament of the industrial classes often left them defenceless against the barbarian raiders, as is instanced practically by Synesius, Epist. 107. Yet in an age of non-explosives peasants armed only with agricultural implements could become terrible, as was shown in Paphlagonia (359), when the incensed Novatian sectaries routed the legionaries sent against them with their hatchets, reaping-hooks, etc.; Socrates, ii, 30; Sozomen, iv, 21.

[830] Cod. Theod., X, xx, 16.

[831] Ibid., X, xx, xxi, xxii; Cod., XI, viii, ix, x. To be a public baker (manceps) was a particular sort of punishment; Cod. Theod., XIV, lii, 22, etc.

[832] Ibid., X, xx, 3, 5, 10, 15. Male and female alike, as well as their offspring, became bound to the sodality into which they married. The addicti were branded on the arm like recruits; ibid., X, xxi, 4; cf. IX, xl, 2; Cod., XI, ix, 2. Scarcely less stringent were the rules by which even the private guilds or colleges were governed. All the trades were incorporated in such associations under an official charter; Cod. Theod., XIV, ii-viii. But the note of personal liberty had already been sounded, and the more coercive restrictions were omitted from the later Code; cf. Choisy, L’art de batir chez les Byzantins, Paris, 1883, p. 200, etc. (Mommsen’s pioneer work on guilds is well known).

[833] Cod. Theod., XIII, v, vi, ix; Cod., X, ii, etc. (and Godefroy).

[834] Procopius, De Aedfiic., v, 1.

[835] Although their property was held in lien by the state as security for the maintenance of ships, it appears that they could grow rich through the facilities they enjoyed for private commerce and possess an independent fortune; Cod. Theod., XIII, vi; cf. Pand., L, iv, 5. Hence some joined voluntarily.

[836] Cod. Theod., XII, i. This title, the longest of all (192 laws), provides us with a plummet with which we may sound the depths of their misery, and exemplifies their eagerness to escape to any other mode of existence as well as the stringency with which they were reclaimed.

[837] Hence their property was always in chancery, as we may say, and the Curia to which they belonged was their reversionary heir, necessarily to a fourth; Cod., X, xxxiv. In the Code the laws relating to them are reduced to about seventy; X, xxxi, et seq. Their duties and liabilities are indexed in Godefroy’s paratitlon. Libanius had seen people of substance reduced to beggary by these obligations; Epitaph. Juliani (R., I., p. 571). Majorian (457-61) attempted reforms in the West.

[838] See Libanius, Epist., 248, 339, 825, 1079, 1143, etc. The sophist had much interest owing to the number of pupils he had trained to succeed in advocacy, etc., and could often beg off one old disciple by appealing to another. A Rector’s nod in such cases was more potent than an Imperial rescript; Cod. Theod., XII, i, 17; ibid., 1, notwithstanding. Zeno enacted that even some Illustrious officials should not be exempt after vacating their office; Cod., X, xxxi, 64, 65.