СНАР.

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emperor

CHA P. XL.

Elevation of Justin the Elder.Reign of Justinian:-I. The Empress Theodora.-II. Factions of the Circus, and Sedition of Constantinople.III. Trade and Manufacture of Silk.-IV. Finances and Taxes.-V. Edifices of Justinian.

Church of St. Sophia. Fortifications and Frontiers of the Eastern Empire. Abolition of the Schools of Athens, and the Consulship of Rome.

THE

HE emperor Justinian was born near the ruins of Sardica (the modern Sophia), of an Birth of the obscure race† of Barbarians, the inhabitants of a wild and desolate country, to which the names of A. D. 482, Dardania, of Dacia, and of Bulgaria, have been May 5.-.successively applied. His elevation was prepared 483, May by the adventurous spirit of his uncle Justin, who, with two other peasants of the same village, deserted,

Justinian,

or A. D.

for

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for the profession of arms, the more useful CHA P. employment of husbandmen or shepherds * On foot, with a scanty provision of biscuit in their knapsacks, the three youths followed the high-road of Constantinople, and were soon enrolled, for their strength and stature, among the guards of the emperor Leo. Under the two succeeding reigns, the fortunate peasant emerged to wealth and honours; and his escape from some dangers which threatened his life, was afterwards ascribed to the guardian angel who watches over the fate of kings. His long and laudable service in the Isaurian and Persian wars, would not have preserved from oblivion the name of Justin ; yet they might warrant the military promotion, which in the course of fifty years he gradually obtained ; the rank of tribune, of counter and of general, the dignity of senator, and the command of the guards, who obeyed him as their chief, at the important crisis when the emperor Anastasius was removed from the world. The powerful kinsmen whom he had raised and enriched, were excluded from the throne; and the eunuch Amantius, who reigned in the palace, had secretly resolved to fix the dia. dem on the head of the most obsequious of his creatures. A liberal donative, to conciliate the suffrage of the guards, was entrusted for that purpose in the hands of their commander. But these

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weighty

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CHA P. weighty arguments were treacherously employed

by Justin in his own favour : and as no competitor Elevation presumed to appear, the Dacian peasant was inandreign of yested with the purple, by the unanimous consent his uncle Justin I. of the soldiers who knew him to be brave and Tulpas!8. gentle, of the clergy and people who believed him July 10; A.D. 527, to be orthodox, and of the provincials who yielded April 1.or Aug. 1. a blind and implicit submission to the will of the

capital. The elder Justin, as he is distinguished from another emperor of the same family and name, ascended the Byzantine throne at the

age of fixty-eight years; and, had he been left to his own guidance, every moment of a nine years reign must have exposed to his subjects the impropriety of their choice. His ignorance was similar to that of Theodoric; and it is remarkable, that in an age not destitute of learning, two contemporary monarchs had never been instructed in the knowledge of the alphabet. But the genius of Justin was far inferior to that of the Gothic king : the experience of a soldier had not qualified him for the government of an empire; and, though personally brave, the consciousness of his own weakness was naturally attended with doubt, distrust, and political apprehension, But the official business of the state was diligently and faithfully transacted by the quæstor Proclus *; and the aged ein. peror adopted the talents and ambition of his ne. phew Justinian, an aspiring youth, whom his uncle had drawn from the rustic solitude of Dacia, and

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cession of

A. D.

educated at Constantinople, as the heir of his pri. CH A P. vate fortune, and at length of the Eastern empire. Since the eunuch Amantius had been defrauded

Adoption of his money, it became necessary to deprive him and suc. of his life. The task was easily accomplished by Justinian, the charge of a real or fictitious conspiracy; and

320-5273 the judges were informed, as an accumulation of guilt, that he was secretly addicted to the Manis chæan heresy *, Amantius lost his head ; tbree of his companions, the first domestics of the pakce, were punished either with death or exile ; and their unfortunate candidate for the purple was cast into a deep dungeon, overwhelmed with stones, and ignominiously thrown, without burial, into the sea. The ruin of Vitalian was a work of more difficulty and danger. That Gothic chief had rendered himself popular by the civil war which he boldly waged against Anastasius for the defence of the orthodox faith, and after the conclusion of an advantageous treaty, he still remained in the neighbourhood of Constantinople at the head of a formidable and victorious army of Barbarians. By the frail security of oaths, he was tempted to relinquish this advantageous situation, and to trust his person within the walls of a city, whose inhabitants, particularly the blue faction, were artfully incensed against him by the remembrance even of his pious hostilia ties. The emperor and his nephew embraced him

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CH A P. as the faithful and worthy champion of the church

and state ; and gratefully adorned their favourite with the titles of consul and general ; but in the seventh month of his consulship, Vatalian was stabbed with seventeen wounds at the royal banquet *; and Justinian, who inherited the spoil, was accused as the assassin of a spiritual brother, to whom he had recently pledged his faith in the participation of the Christian mysteries t. After the fall of his rival, he was promoted without any claim of military service, to the office of master-general of the Eastern armies, whom it was his duty to lead into the field against the public enemy. But, in the pursuit of fame, Justinian might have lost his

present dominion over the age and weakness of his uncle ; and instead of acquiring by Scythian or Persian trophies the applause of his countryment, the prudent warrior solicited their favour in the churches, the circus, and the senate, of Constantinople. The Catholics were attached to the nephew of Justin, who, between the Nestorian and

Eutycian

* His power, character, and intentions, are perfectly exa plained by the Count de Buat (tom. ix. p. 54-81.). He was great-grandson of Aspar, hereditary prince in the Lesser Scythia, and count of the Gothic fæderati of Thrace. The Bessi, whom he could influence, are the minor Goths of Jornandes (c. 51.).

+ Justiniani patricii factione dicitur interfectus fuisse (Victor Tununensis, Chron. in Thesaur. Temp. Scaliger, P. ii. p. 7.). Procopius (Anecdot. c. 7.) styles him a tyrant, but acknowledges the adeqerisia, which is well explained by Allemannus.

# In his earliest youth (plane adolescens) he had passed some time as an hostage with Theodoric. For this curious fact, Alemannus (ad Procop. Anecdot. c. 9. p. 34. of the first edition) quotes a MS. history of Justinian, by his preceptor Theophilus, Ludewig (p. 143.) wishes to make him a soldier.

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