[841]   Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iv, 11, 15.

[842]   Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iv, 14.

[843]   Agathias, iii, 19 et seq.

[844]   Ibid., iv, 23.

[845]   Agathias, ii, 2 et seq.

[846]   Agathias, iv, 1 et seq.

[847]   Ibid., 30. An incident in the Lazic war may serve to illustrate the usual manners of the soldier of the period. A band of forty beset a mountain fortress inhabited by a tribe in league with the Persians. It was called the Iron Castle from its supposed impregnability. A single rocky path, steep and narrow, led to the gate, where some huge stones were poised, capable of sweeping the track from top to bottom in their downward course if set in motion. In the darkness of the night, the Romans essayed the capture. Eight sentinels were seen at their posts, but all asleep. One of the ascending party slipped and made a racket with his shield, which roused the guards, who snatched up torches and gazed in every direction. But the Romans stood stock still, and escaped notice in the dark. The sentinels returned to their slumbers, and were at once attacked and slain. The Romans then rioted through the town, set fire to the houses, which were of wood; massacred women who scurried around; even a lady of rank, jewelled and elegantly dressed, who stepped out with a torch, was received with lance thrusts in the abdomen; children were flung into the air and transfixed by being caught on the points of pikes; until all seemed to be exterminated. The Byzantines then rested carelessly, as assured of safety, but the enemy collected from another quarter and, observing their fewness, killed nearly all by an unforeseen attack; Agathias, iv, 15 et seq.

[848]   Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iii, 38. It was about this time, after the death of Theodora, that John of Cappadocia returned to the capital, but he had fallen into too great disrepute to be reinstated in any creditable post by the Emperor. Being reduced to great poverty, he found that at last he must take seriously to the priesthood. At the ceremony of his ordination, not having a decent cassock, a monk named Augustus, who was standing by, lent him his garment. Shortly it was noised through the city that the prophecy as to John's exaltation had been fulfilled, and that he had now really "assumed the mantle of Augustus"; De Bel. Pers., ii, 30.

[849]   Menander, Legat., i; Theophanes, an. 6050.

[850]   Agathias, v, 11, et seq.

[851]   Agathias, 24, et seq. But Menander says Sandichl only seized on their horses, declining to make war on his own blood; Legat., ii; cf. p. 415.

[852]   Theophanes, an. 6051.

[853]   Menander, Legat., ii.

[854]   Theophanes, an. 6056. The chronology seems to be muddled here.

[855]   Jn. Malala, p. 493.

[856]   Theophanes, an. 6055.

[857]   Codinus, p. 29 (from Banduri).

[858]   Theophanes, an. 6057.

[859]   John Eph., Hist. (Smith), loc. cit.

[860]   Codinus, p. 108. On her return to Constantinople after the death of Theodora, Antonina broke off the match with Anastasius, although, in order to make sure of the alliance, the Empress had caused the young people to cohabit during their betrothal; Procopius, Anecd., 5.

[861]   Evagrius, iv, 39, et seq.; Eustathius, Vit. Eutychii, etc.

[862]   Theophanes, an. 6057, etc.

[863]   The funeral and coronation scenes are described by Corippus in his poem, De Laud. Justini Min., i, 226, et seq., iii, 28, et seq., etc. Theophanes Byz. mentions a general of the East, "Theodore, son of Justinian," who is generally supposed to be a son of the Emperor by a concubine after the death of Theodora. Procopius gives an account of a youth whom the latter was attached to, but treated cruelly. He seems, however, not to have been a lover, but merely a protégé; Anecd., 16. Justinian figures in Dante's Paradise (vi), and has a whole canto to himself. He summarizes Roman history both before and after his own times, and confesses that he owes his salvation to having been converted from Monophysitism by Pope Agapetus.

[864]   See pp. 345, 348, 441, 442, 454, 620.

[865]   A fallacy seems to have gained currency that Procopius is pedantic because he nearly always calls Constantinople Byzantium. He could not do otherwise without being singular: the new name is scarcely ever used, except in official documents and ecclesiastical writers. It is to this persistence of the original title of the city that we owe the survival into modern times of the epithet Byzantine.

[866]   See p. 514; cf. De Bel. Pers., ii, 9, 10; De Bel. Goth., i, 3, etc.

[867]   The general ignorance of this age is well illustrated by the ridiculous account Procopius gives of Britain; De Bel. Goth., iv, 20. The island, he says, is divided longitudinally by a wall on account of the diversity of climatical conditions which prevail on the different sides. To the east the country is genial and salubrious, fertile with corn crops and fruit trees, and thickly populated. But on the west of the wall everything is the contrary, and no man could exist there, even for half an hour. The region is thronged with vipers, serpents innumerable, and poisonous beasts. And, what is hardly credible, if anyone should cross the wall, he at once succumbs fatally to the pestilential air—as the natives relate. But he thinks it must be altogether a fable when they say that the villagers on a certain part of the Gallic coast, who live as fishers and farmers are absolved from payment of taxes on condition of their ferrying the souls of the dead across the ocean to this adjacent isle of Britain. In tempestuous weather, at the dead of night, they are summoned from their beds, and have to rush to the sea-shore. There they find numbers of apparently empty boats. They have to seize the oars and row for a day and a night. When they start, the vessels are weighed down to the water's edge, but on returning, they are so light as barely to skim the surface. Yet all the time they see no one; but when landing the souls, they hear a voice calling out the names and titles of each of the deceased. Procopius also makes an excursion into British history, which is, perhaps, no more authentic than his ghostly narrative. The Franks, he informs us, claimed some extent of suzerainty over the island, and when they sent a legation to Justinian in 548, they included, for the sake of ostentation, a number of Angles in the party. He goes on to relate that a prince of the Varni, a nation occupying lands to the north of the Rhine over against Britain, had betrothed his son Radiger to a British maid, the sister of the King of the Angles. He had himself recently taken, as his second wife, a sister of Theodebert, the Frankish monarch. Soon afterwards, finding himself on his death-bed, he exhorted his son to marry his step-mother, a connection permitted by their law, as being more to the interest of the Varni than the British alliance. On his father's decease, Radiger obeyed these instructions, whereupon the British princess, indignant at being jilted, assembled an army of one hundred thousand, under one of her brothers' generalship, and invaded the country of her faithless lover. Procopius explains that all this force consisted of infantry, since the islanders had never even seen a horse. A great battle was fought, in which the Varni were defeated and put to flight. Radiger being taken prisoner, was brought before the martial princess, who reproached him severely for his conduct towards her. He excused himself by pointing out the various necessities which had weighed upon him, but expressed his present willingness to fulfil his first contract of marriage. His offer was accepted, and ultimately the nuptials of Radiger and the English princess were peacefully solemnized; ibid.

[868]   Anecd., praef.

[869]   He mentions (Anecd., 18, 23, 24), that he is writing thirty-two years after Justinian came into power, meaning 518, the date of the accession of the superannuated Justin; see p. 304. The credit of pointing out the very obvious fact that Procopius ignores Justin as a cypher, is due to Haury, Procopiana, Augsburg, 1891.

[870]   Jn. Malala, loc. cit. The name was not uncommon, so that the identification is only highly probable.

[871]   De Bel. Pers., i, 1.

[872]   See his own remarks, i, introd., iii, 1.

[873]   For an expanded account and appreciation of Byzantine writers, see Krumbacher's Gesch. d. Byz. Lit., 2nd ed., Munich, 1896; also the introduction to Diehl's Justinian, and his Études Byzant., 1904. Useful summaries and jottings on various points are also to be found in the appendixes to Bury's Gibbon, especially vol. iv.

[874]   See his tracts for educational purposes, some of which are referred to on p. 212.

[875]   See Agincourt's pictorial series, which exemplifies the perfection of Greek and Roman art, traces its decay, and finally illustrates its rehabilitation in the fifteenth century. In Diehl's Justinian there are many excellent photographs of sixth century productions.

[876]   The mosaics of Ravenna can be examined in the South Kensington facsimiles, and their crudity recognized by comparing them with modern work of the same kind executed on the walls of the museum. One of the faces in these tableaux, that of Maximian, Bishop of Ravenna, who stands besides Justinian, gives the impression of being a faithful likeness; which is probable, since the work was executed under his own supervision (c. 545). This was a man of some force of character, who gained considerable repute in his day. Of him an amusing story is told: it is said that he discovered a great treasure, which it was his duty to hand over to the Emperor, but, as he wished to retain a portion for his charitable obligations, he hit on the following expedient. Having killed an ox, he emptied the abdomen and stowed a quantity of the gold inside. He then took a pair of boots and filled them with a further amount. With the rest of the treasure he set out for Constantinople and, on his arrival, presented it to Justinian. The Autocrator immediately inquired, "Is this the whole of what you discovered?" "All," said Maximian, "except what I put in the belly and the boots." By this answer he is supposed to have hoodwinked the Emperor, who imagined him to allude merely to his sustenance and travelling expenses while on the road; Agnellus, Lib. Pontif., in Vita.

[877]   There is one very pleasing example, the well-known diptych of the archangel Michael in the British Museum, but it seems of unique merit.

[878]   A century or so before Justinian, however, very fine capitals of a Corinthian type were being sculptured at Thessalonica; see the pictorial exposition of the churches in that city by Texier and Pullan. Some of those done in the sixth century are represented, and seem to be very inferior, as are those at St. Vitale.

[879]   See p. 539.

[880]   Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iv, 17; Theophanes Byz. etc.

[881]   Agathias, ii, 15.

[882]   Ibid., v, 9; Theophanes, an. 6051, etc.

[883]   Procopius, Anecd., 18.

[884]   The reign of Theodoric has been treated most fully by Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, Lond., 1880, etc.

[885]   Procopius, Anecd., 18.

[886]   It appears that Justinian kept up an army of no more than 150,000 men, whereas for the Eastern Empire alone twice that number at least was considered necessary by former rulers. Agathias, v, 13; see p. 167. Thus, notwithstanding the numerous forts he built ostentatiously, he neglected to garrison them, both in Europe and Asia; (Procopius, Anecd., 24; see p. 541), whilst the lavish subsidies paid to the barbarians constituted a standing invitation for the most distant tribes to present themselves constantly in order to receive those gratifications (Ibid., 8, 11, 19). As for the Long Walls, they were so devoid of troops that, as Agathias remarks (v, 13), they were not even so well protected as a farm yard, where at least a watch-dog's bark might be heard.

[887]   It is said that in his latter days he incurred the enmity of his subordinates through parsimony, whence they petitioned for his recall. On his refusal to return to the capital in obedience to a mandate, Sophia taunted him by writing, "Come and take up your proper place among the handmaids who ply the distaff in the women's apartments," to which he replied, "I will find a yarn for her to spin which she will not be able to get through in her lifetime"; Paulus Diac., Hist. Miscell., xviii, etc.

[888]   Agnellus, Lib. Pontif., Agnellus, Peter Sen.

[889]   Agathias, iv, 29.

[890]   The history of the Empire up to the fall of Constantinople, has been narrated by Gibbon, and at greater length by Finlay. The fullest account of the siege is that of Pears, Lond., 1896.

[891]   Nov. clxi. At all times and places the Byzantine system was so oppressive, that even the Abasgi and Tzani, who were supposed to have found salvation in Christianity (pp. 700, 702), revolted to the Persians and had to be reconquered; Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iv, 9; Agathias, v, 1. Notwithstanding his Roman experience, his having retrieved his character at Petra, and his age, Bessas at once entered on another campaign of fiscal extortion in Pontus and Armenia; Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iv, 13. Justin also, the son of Germanus, countenanced a subordinate in harrying the farmers for military stores which they could not supply, in lieu of which they had to buy off their liability for an exorbitant sum; Agathias, iv, 22.