Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part II

Those who believe that the female mind is totally depraved by the
loss of chastity, will eagerly listen to all the invectives of
private envy, or popular resentment which have dissembled the
virtues of Theodora, exaggerated her vices, and condemned with
rigor the venal or voluntary sins of the youthful harlot. From a
motive of shame, or contempt, she often declined the servile
homage of the multitude, escaped from the odious light of the
capital, and passed the greatest part of the year in the palaces
and gardens which were pleasantly seated on the sea-coast of the
Propontis and the Bosphorus. Her private hours were devoted to
the prudent as well as grateful care of her beauty, the luxury of
the bath and table, and the long slumber of the evening and the
morning. Her secret apartments were occupied by the favorite
women and eunuchs, whose interests and passions she indulged at
the expense of justice; the most illustrious personages of the
state were crowded into a dark and sultry antechamber, and when
at last, after tedious attendance, they were admitted to kiss the
feet of Theodora, they experienced, as her humor might suggest,
the silent arrogance of an empress, or the capricious levity of a
comedian. Her rapacious avarice to accumulate an immense
treasure, may be excused by the apprehension of her husband’s
death, which could leave no alternative between ruin and the
throne; and fear as well as ambition might exasperate Theodora
against two generals, who, during the malady of the emperor, had
rashly declared that they were not disposed to acquiesce in the
choice of the capital. But the reproach of cruelty, so repugnant
even to her softer vices, has left an indelible stain on the
memory of Theodora. Her numerous spies observed, and zealously
reported, every action, or word, or look, injurious to their
royal mistress. Whomsoever they accused were cast into her
peculiar prisons, 31 inaccessible to the inquiries of justice;
and it was rumored, that the torture of the rack, or scourge, had
been inflicted in the presence of the female tyrant, insensible
to the voice of prayer or of pity. 32 Some of these unhappy
victims perished in deep, unwholesome dungeons, while others were
permitted, after the loss of their limbs, their reason, or their
fortunes, to appear in the world, the living monuments of her
vengeance, which was commonly extended to the children of those
whom she had suspected or injured. The senator or bishop, whose
death or exile Theodora had pronounced, was delivered to a trusty
messenger, and his diligence was quickened by a menace from her
own mouth. “If you fail in the execution of my commands, I swear
by Him who liveth forever, that your skin shall be flayed from
your body.” 33

31 (return) [ Her prisons, a labyrinth, a Tartarus, (Anecdot. c.
4,) were under the palace. Darkness is propitious to cruelty, but
it is likewise favorable to calumny and fiction.]

32 (return) [ A more jocular whipping was inflicted on
Saturninus, for presuming to say that his wife, a favorite of the
empress, had not been found. (Anecdot. c. 17.)]

33 (return) [ Per viventem in saecula excoriari te faciam.
Anastasius de Vitis Pont. Roman. in Vigilio, p. 40.]

If the creed of Theodora had not been tainted with heresy, her
exemplary devotion might have atoned, in the opinion of her
contemporaries, for pride, avarice, and cruelty. But, if she
employed her influence to assuage the intolerant fury of the
emperor, the present age will allow some merit to her religion,
and much indulgence to her speculative errors. 34 The name of
Theodora was introduced, with equal honor, in all the pious and
charitable foundations of Justinian; and the most benevolent
institution of his reign may be ascribed to the sympathy of the
empress for her less fortunate sisters, who had been seduced or
compelled to embrace the trade of prostitution. A palace, on the
Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, was converted into a stately and
spacious monastery, and a liberal maintenance was assigned to
five hundred women, who had been collected from the streets and
brothels of Constantinople. In this safe and holy retreat, they
were devoted to perpetual confinement; and the despair of some,
who threw themselves headlong into the sea, was lost in the
gratitude of the penitents, who had been delivered from sin and
misery by their generous benefactress. 35 The prudence of
Theodora is celebrated by Justinian himself; and his laws are
attributed to the sage counsels of his most reverend wife whom he
had received as the gift of the Deity. 36 Her courage was
displayed amidst the tumult of the people and the terrors of the
court. Her chastity, from the moment of her union with Justinian,
is founded on the silence of her implacable enemies; and although
the daughter of Acacius might be satiated with love, yet some
applause is due to the firmness of a mind which could sacrifice
pleasure and habit to the stronger sense either of duty or
interest. The wishes and prayers of Theodora could never obtain
the blessing of a lawful son, and she buried an infant daughter,
the sole offspring of her marriage. 37 Notwithstanding this
disappointment, her dominion was permanent and absolute; she
preserved, by art or merit, the affections of Justinian; and
their seeming dissensions were always fatal to the courtiers who
believed them to be sincere. Perhaps her health had been impaired
by the licentiousness of her youth; but it was always delicate,
and she was directed by her physicians to use the Pythian warm
baths. In this journey, the empress was followed by the
Praetorian præfect, the great treasurer, several counts and
patricians, and a splendid train of four thousand attendants: the
highways were repaired at her approach; a palace was erected for
her reception; and as she passed through Bithynia, she
distributed liberal alms to the churches, the monasteries, and
the hospitals, that they might implore Heaven for the restoration
of her health. 38 At length, in the twenty-fourth year of her
marriage, and the twenty-second of her reign, she was consumed by
a cancer; 39 and the irreparable loss was deplored by her
husband, who, in the room of a theatrical prostitute, might have
selected the purest and most noble virgin of the East. 40

34 (return) [ Ludewig, p. 161—166. I give him credit for the
charitable attempt, although he hath not much charity in his
temper.]

35 (return) [ Compare the anecdotes (c. 17) with the Edifices (l.
i. c. 9)—how differently may the same fact be stated! John Malala
(tom. ii. p. 174, 175) observes, that on this, or a similar
occasion, she released and clothed the girls whom she had
purchased from the stews at five aurei apiece.]

36 (return) [ Novel. viii. 1. An allusion to Theodora. Her
enemies read the name Daemonodora, (Aleman. p. 66.)]

37 (return) [ St. Sabas refused to pray for a son of Theodora,
lest he should prove a heretic worse than Anastasius himself,
(Cyril in Vit. St. Sabae, apud Aleman. p. 70, 109.)]

38 (return) [ See John Malala, tom. ii. p. 174. Theophanes, p.
158. Procopius de Edific. l. v. c. 3.]

39 (return) [ Theodora Chalcedonensis synodi inimica canceris
plaga toto corpore perfusa vitam prodigiose finivit, (Victor
Tununensis in Chron.) On such occasions, an orthodox mind is
steeled against pity. Alemannus (p. 12, 13) understands of
Theophanes as civil language, which does not imply either piety
or repentance; yet two years after her death, St. Theodora is
celebrated by Paul Silentiarius, (in proem. v. 58—62.)]

40 (return) [ As she persecuted the popes, and rejected a
council, Baronius exhausts the names of Eve, Dalila, Herodias,
&c.; after which he has recourse to his infernal dictionary:
civis inferni—alumna daemonum—satanico agitata spiritu-oestro
percita diabolico, &c., &c., (A.D. 548, No. 24.)]

II. A material difference may be observed in the games of
antiquity: the most eminent of the Greeks were actors, the Romans
were merely spectators. The Olympic stadium was open to wealth,
merit, and ambition; and if the candidates could depend on their
personal skill and activity, they might pursue the footsteps of
Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct their own horses in the rapid
career. 41 Ten, twenty, forty chariots were allowed to start at
the same instant; a crown of leaves was the reward of the victor;
and his fame, with that of his family and country, was chanted in
lyric strains more durable than monuments of brass and marble.
But a senator, or even a citizen, conscious of his dignity, would
have blushed to expose his person, or his horses, in the circus
of Rome. The games were exhibited at the expense of the republic,
the magistrates, or the emperors: but the reins were abandoned to
servile hands; and if the profits of a favorite charioteer
sometimes exceeded those of an advocate, they must be considered
as the effects of popular extravagance, and the high wages of a
disgraceful profession. The race, in its first institution, was a
simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were distinguished
by white and red liveries: two additional colors, a light green,
and a caerulean blue, were afterwards introduced; and as the
races were repeated twenty-five times, one hundred chariots
contributed in the same day to the pomp of the circus. The four
factions soon acquired a legal establishment, and a mysterious
origin, and their fanciful colors were derived from the various
appearances of nature in the four seasons of the year; the red
dogstar of summer, the snows of winter, the deep shades of
autumn, and the cheerful verdure of the spring. 42 Another
interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons, and the
struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent the
conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories
announced either a plentiful harvest or a prosperous navigation,
and the hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat
less absurd than the blind ardor of the Roman people, who devoted
their lives and fortunes to the color which they had espoused.
Such folly was disdained and indulged by the wisest princes; but
the names of Caligula, Nero, Vitellius, Verus, Commodus,
Caracalla, and Elagabalus, were enrolled in the blue or green
factions of the circus; they frequented their stables, applauded
their favorites, chastised their antagonists, and deserved the
esteem of the populace, by the natural or affected imitation of
their manners. The bloody and tumultuous contest continued to
disturb the public festivity, till the last age of the spectacles
of Rome; and Theodoric, from a motive of justice or affection,
interposed his authority to protect the greens against the
violence of a consul and a patrician, who were passionately
addicted to the blue faction of the circus. 43

41 (return) [ Read and feel the xxiid book of the Iliad, a living
picture of manners, passions, and the whole form and spirit of
the chariot race West’s Dissertation on the Olympic Games (sect.
xii.—xvii.) affords much curious and authentic information.]

42 (return) [ The four colors, albati, russati, prasini, veneti,
represent the four seasons, according to Cassiodorus, (Var. iii.
51,) who lavishes much wit and eloquence on this theatrical
mystery. Of these colors, the three first may be fairly
translated white, red, and green. Venetus is explained by
coeruleus, a word various and vague: it is properly the sky
reflected in the sea; but custom and convenience may allow blue
as an equivalent, (Robert. Stephan. sub voce. Spence’s Polymetis,
p. 228.)]

43 (return) [ See Onuphrius Panvinius de Ludis Circensibus, l. i.
c. 10, 11; the xviith Annotation on Mascou’s History of the
Germans; and Aleman ad c. vii.]

Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues, of
ancient Rome; and the same factions which had agitated the
circus, raged with redoubled fury in the hippodrome. Under the
reign of Anastasius, this popular frenzy was inflamed by
religious zeal; and the greens, who had treacherously concealed
stones and daggers under baskets of fruit, massacred, at a solemn
festival, three thousand of their blue adversaries. 44 From this
capital, the pestilence was diffused into the provinces and
cities of the East, and the sportive distinction of two colors
produced two strong and irreconcilable factions, which shook the
foundations of a feeble government. 45 The popular dissensions,
founded on the most serious interest, or holy pretence, have
scarcely equalled the obstinacy of this wanton discord, which
invaded the peace of families, divided friends and brothers, and
tempted the female sex, though seldom seen in the circus, to
espouse the inclinations of their lovers, or to contradict the
wishes of their husbands. Every law, either human or divine, was
trampled under foot, and as long as the party was successful, its
deluded followers appeared careless of private distress or public
calamity. The license, without the freedom, of democracy, was
revived at Antioch and Constantinople, and the support of a
faction became necessary to every candidate for civil or
ecclesiastical honors. A secret attachment to the family or sect
of Anastasius was imputed to the greens; the blues were zealously
devoted to the cause of orthodoxy and Justinian, 46 and their
grateful patron protected, above five years, the disorders of a
faction, whose seasonable tumults overawed the palace, the
senate, and the capitals of the East. Insolent with royal favor,
the blues affected to strike terror by a peculiar and Barbaric
dress, the long hair of the Huns, their close sleeves and ample
garments, a lofty step, and a sonorous voice. In the day they
concealed their two-edged poniards, but in the night they boldly
assembled in arms, and in numerous bands, prepared for every act
of violence and rapine. Their adversaries of the green faction,
or even inoffensive citizens, were stripped and often murdered by
these nocturnal robbers, and it became dangerous to wear any gold
buttons or girdles, or to appear at a late hour in the streets of
a peaceful capital. A daring spirit, rising with impunity,
proceeded to violate the safeguard of private houses; and fire
was employed to facilitate the attack, or to conceal the crimes
of these factious rioters. No place was safe or sacred from their
depredations; to gratify either avarice or revenge, they
profusely spilt the blood of the innocent; churches and altars
were polluted by atrocious murders; and it was the boast of the
assassins, that their dexterity could always inflict a mortal
wound with a single stroke of their dagger. The dissolute youth
of Constantinople adopted the blue livery of disorder; the laws
were silent, and the bonds of society were relaxed: creditors
were compelled to resign their obligations; judges to reverse
their sentence; masters to enfranchise their slaves; fathers to
supply the extravagance of their children; noble matrons were
prostituted to the lust of their servants; beautiful boys were
torn from the arms of their parents; and wives, unless they
preferred a voluntary death, were ravished in the presence of
their husbands. 47 The despair of the greens, who were persecuted
by their enemies, and deserted by the magistrates, assumed the
privilege of defence, perhaps of retaliation; but those who
survived the combat were dragged to execution, and the unhappy
fugitives, escaping to woods and caverns, preyed without mercy on
the society from whence they were expelled. Those ministers of
justice who had courage to punish the crimes, and to brave the
resentment, of the blues, became the victims of their indiscreet
zeal; a præfect of Constantinople fled for refuge to the holy
sepulchre, a count of the East was ignominiously whipped, and a
governor of Cilicia was hanged, by the order of Theodora, on the
tomb of two assassins whom he had condemned for the murder of his
groom, and a daring attack upon his own life. 48 An aspiring
candidate may be tempted to build his greatness on the public
confusion, but it is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign
to maintain the authority of the laws. The first edict of
Justinian, which was often repeated, and sometimes executed,
announced his firm resolution to support the innocent, and to
chastise the guilty, of every denomination and color. Yet the
balance of justice was still inclined in favor of the blue
faction, by the secret affection, the habits, and the fears of
the emperor; his equity, after an apparent struggle, submitted,
without reluctance, to the implacable passions of Theodora, and
the empress never forgot, or forgave, the injuries of the
comedian. At the accession of the younger Justin, the
proclamation of equal and rigorous justice indirectly condemned
the partiality of the former reign. “Ye blues, Justinian is no
more! ye greens, he is still alive!” 49

44 (return) [ Marcellin. in Chron. p. 47. Instead of the vulgar
word venata he uses the more exquisite terms of coerulea and
coerealis. Baronius (A.D. 501, No. 4, 5, 6) is satisfied that the
blues were orthodox; but Tillemont is angry at the supposition,
and will not allow any martyrs in a playhouse, (Hist. des Emp.
tom. vi. p. 554.)]

45 (return) [ See Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 24.) In describing
the vices of the factions and of the government, the public, is
not more favorable than the secret, historian. Aleman. (p. 26)
has quoted a fine passage from Gregory Nazianzen, which proves
the inveteracy of the evil.]

46 (return) [ The partiality of Justinian for the blues (Anecdot.
c. 7) is attested by Evagrius, (Hist. Eccles. l. iv. c. 32,) John
Malala, (tom ii p. 138, 139,) especially for Antioch; and
Theophanes, (p. 142.)]

47 (return) [ A wife, (says Procopius,) who was seized and almost
ravished by a blue-coat, threw herself into the Bosphorus. The
bishops of the second Syria (Aleman. p. 26) deplore a similar
suicide, the guilt or glory of female chastity, and name the
heroine.]

48 (return) [ The doubtful credit of Procopius (Anecdot. c. 17)
is supported by the less partial Evagrius, who confirms the fact,
and specifies the names. The tragic fate of the præfect of
Constantinople is related by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 139.)]

49 (return) [ See John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 147;) yet he owns
that Justinian was attached to the blues. The seeming discord of
the emperor and Theodora is, perhaps, viewed with too much
jealousy and refinement by Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 10.) See
Aleman. Praefat. p. 6.]

A sedition, which almost laid Constantinople in ashes, was
excited by the mutual hatred and momentary reconciliation of the
two factions. In the fifth year of his reign, Justinian
celebrated the festival of the ides of January; the games were
incessantly disturbed by the clamorous discontent of the greens:
till the twenty-second race, the emperor maintained his silent
gravity; at length, yielding to his impatience, he condescended
to hold, in abrupt sentences, and by the voice of a crier, the
most singular dialogue 50 that ever passed between a prince and
his subjects. Their first complaints were respectful and modest;
they accused the subordinate ministers of oppression, and
proclaimed their wishes for the long life and victory of the
emperor. “Be patient and attentive, ye insolent railers!”
exclaimed Justinian; “be mute, ye Jews, Samaritans, and
Manichaeans!” The greens still attempted to awaken his
compassion. “We are poor, we are innocent, we are injured, we
dare not pass through the streets: a general persecution is
exercised against our name and color. Let us die, O emperor! but
let us die by your command, and for your service!” But the
repetition of partial and passionate invectives degraded, in
their eyes, the majesty of the purple; they renounced allegiance
to the prince who refused justice to his people; lamented that
the father of Justinian had been born; and branded his son with
the opprobrious names of a homicide, an ass, and a perjured
tyrant. “Do you despise your lives?” cried the indignant monarch:
the blues rose with fury from their seats; their hostile clamors
thundered in the hippodrome; and their adversaries, deserting the
unequal contest spread terror and despair through the streets of
Constantinople. At this dangerous moment, seven notorious
assassins of both factions, who had been condemned by the
præfect, were carried round the city, and afterwards transported
to the place of execution in the suburb of Pera. Four were
immediately beheaded; a fifth was hanged: but when the same
punishment was inflicted on the remaining two, the rope broke,
they fell alive to the ground, the populace applauded their
escape, and the monks of St. Conon, issuing from the neighboring
convent, conveyed them in a boat to the sanctuary of the church.
51 As one of these criminals was of the blue, and the other of
the green livery, the two factions were equally provoked by the
cruelty of their oppressor, or the ingratitude of their patron;
and a short truce was concluded till they had delivered their
prisoners and satisfied their revenge. The palace of the præfect,
who withstood the seditious torrent, was instantly burnt, his
officers and guards were massacred, the prisons were forced open,
and freedom was restored to those who could only use it for the
public destruction. A military force, which had been despatched
to the aid of the civil magistrate, was fiercely encountered by
an armed multitude, whose numbers and boldness continually
increased; and the Heruli, the wildest Barbarians in the service
of the empire, overturned the priests and their relics, which,
from a pious motive, had been rashly interposed to separate the
bloody conflict. The tumult was exasperated by this sacrilege,
the people fought with enthusiasm in the cause of God; the women,
from the roofs and windows, showered stones on the heads of the
soldiers, who darted fire brands against the houses; and the
various flames, which had been kindled by the hands of citizens
and strangers, spread without control over the face of the city.
The conflagration involved the cathedral of St. Sophia, the baths
of Zeuxippus, a part of the palace, from the first entrance to
the altar of Mars, and the long portico from the palace to the
forum of Constantine: a large hospital, with the sick patients,
was consumed; many churches and stately edifices were destroyed
and an immense treasure of gold and silver was either melted or
lost. From such scenes of horror and distress, the wise and
wealthy citizens escaped over the Bosphorus to the Asiatic side;
and during five days Constantinople was abandoned to the
factions, whose watchword, Nika, vanquish! has given a name to
this memorable sedition. 52

50 (return) [ This dialogue, which Theophanes has preserved,
exhibits the popular language, as well as the manners, of
Constantinople, in the vith century. Their Greek is mingled with
many strange and barbarous words, for which Ducange cannot always
find a meaning or etymology.]

51 (return) [ See this church and monastery in Ducange, C. P.
Christiana, l. iv p 182.]

52 (return) [ The history of the Nika sedition is extracted from
Marcellinus, (in Chron.,) Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 26,) John
Malala, (tom. ii. p. 213—218,) Chron. Paschal., (p. 336—340,)
Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 154—158) and Zonaras, (l. xiv. p.
61—63.)]

As long as the factions were divided, the triumphant blues, and
desponding greens, appeared to behold with the same indifference
the disorders of the state. They agreed to censure the corrupt
management of justice and the finance; and the two responsible
ministers, the artful Tribonian, and the rapacious John of
Cappadocia, were loudly arraigned as the authors of the public
misery. The peaceful murmurs of the people would have been
disregarded: they were heard with respect when the city was in
flames; the quaestor, and the præfect, were instantly removed,
and their offices were filled by two senators of blameless
integrity. After this popular concession, Justinian proceeded to
the hippodrome to confess his own errors, and to accept the
repentance of his grateful subjects; but they distrusted his
assurances, though solemnly pronounced in the presence of the
holy Gospels; and the emperor, alarmed by their distrust,
retreated with precipitation to the strong fortress of the
palace. The obstinacy of the tumult was now imputed to a secret
and ambitious conspiracy, and a suspicion was entertained, that
the insurgents, more especially the green faction, had been
supplied with arms and money by Hypatius and Pompey, two
patricians, who could neither forget with honor, nor remember
with safety, that they were the nephews of the emperor
Anastasius. Capriciously trusted, disgraced, and pardoned, by the
jealous levity of the monarch, they had appeared as loyal
servants before the throne; and, during five days of the tumult,
they were detained as important hostages; till at length, the
fears of Justinian prevailing over his prudence, he viewed the
two brothers in the light of spies, perhaps of assassins, and
sternly commanded them to depart from the palace. After a
fruitless representation, that obedience might lead to
involuntary treason, they retired to their houses, and in the
morning of the sixth day, Hypatius was surrounded and seized by
the people, who, regardless of his virtuous resistance, and the
tears of his wife, transported their favorite to the forum of
Constantine, and instead of a diadem, placed a rich collar on his
head. If the usurper, who afterwards pleaded the merit of his
delay, had complied with the advice of his senate, and urged the
fury of the multitude, their first irresistible effort might have
oppressed or expelled his trembling competitor. The Byzantine
palace enjoyed a free communication with the sea; vessels lay
ready at the garden stairs; and a secret resolution was already
formed, to convey the emperor with his family and treasures to a
safe retreat, at some distance from the capital.

Justinian was lost, if the prostitute whom he raised from the
theatre had not renounced the timidity, as well as the virtues,
of her sex. In the midst of a council, where Belisarius was
present, Theodora alone displayed the spirit of a hero; and she
alone, without apprehending his future hatred, could save the
emperor from the imminent danger, and his unworthy fears. “If
flight,” said the consort of Justinian, “were the only means of
safety, yet I should disdain to fly. Death is the condition of
our birth; but they who have reigned should never survive the
loss of dignity and dominion. I implore Heaven, that I may never
be seen, not a day, without my diadem and purple; that I may no
longer behold the light, when I cease to be saluted with the name
of queen. If you resolve, O Caesar! to fly, you have treasures;
behold the sea, you have ships; but tremble lest the desire of
life should expose you to wretched exile and ignominious death.
For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity, that the
throne is a glorious sepulchre.” The firmness of a woman restored
the courage to deliberate and act, and courage soon discovers the
resources of the most desperate situation. It was an easy and a
decisive measure to revive the animosity of the factions; the
blues were astonished at their own guilt and folly, that a
trifling injury should provoke them to conspire with their
implacable enemies against a gracious and liberal benefactor;
they again proclaimed the majesty of Justinian; and the greens,
with their upstart emperor, were left alone in the hippodrome.
The fidelity of the guards was doubtful; but the military force
of Justinian consisted in three thousand veterans, who had been
trained to valor and discipline in the Persian and Illyrian wars.

Under the command of Belisarius and Mundus, they silently marched
in two divisions from the palace, forced their obscure way
through narrow passages, expiring flames, and falling edifices,
and burst open at the same moment the two opposite gates of the
hippodrome. In this narrow space, the disorderly and affrighted
crowd was incapable of resisting on either side a firm and
regular attack; the blues signalized the fury of their
repentance; and it is computed, that above thirty thousand
persons were slain in the merciless and promiscuous carnage of
the day. Hypatius was dragged from his throne, and conducted,
with his brother Pompey, to the feet of the emperor: they
implored his clemency; but their crime was manifest, their
innocence uncertain, and Justinian had been too much terrified to
forgive. The next morning the two nephews of Anastasius, with
eighteen illustrious accomplices, of patrician or consular rank,
were privately executed by the soldiers; their bodies were thrown
into the sea, their palaces razed, and their fortunes
confiscated. The hippodrome itself was condemned, during several
years, to a mournful silence: with the restoration of the games,
the same disorders revived; and the blue and green factions
continued to afflict the reign of Justinian, and to disturb the
tranquility of the Eastern empire. 53

53 (return) [ Marcellinus says in general terms, innumeris
populis in circotrucidatis. Procopius numbers 30,000 victims: and
the 35,000 of Theophanes are swelled to 40,000 by the more recent
Zonaras. Such is the usual progress of exaggeration.]

III. That empire, after Rome was barbarous, still embraced the
nations whom she had conquered beyond the Adriatic, and as far as
the frontiers of Aethiopia and Persia. Justinian reigned over
sixty-four provinces, and nine hundred and thirty-five cities; 54
his dominions were blessed by nature with the advantages of soil,
situation, and climate: and the improvements of human art had
been perpetually diffused along the coast of the Mediterranean
and the banks of the Nile from ancient Troy to the Egyptian
Thebes. Abraham 55 had been relieved by the well-known plenty of
Egypt; the same country, a small and populous tract, was still
capable of exporting, each year, two hundred and sixty thousand
quarters of wheat for the use of Constantinople; 56 and the
capital of Justinian was supplied with the manufactures of Sidon,
fifteen centuries after they had been celebrated in the poems of
Homer. 57 The annual powers of vegetation, instead of being
exhausted by two thousand harvests, were renewed and invigorated
by skilful husbandry, rich manure, and seasonable repose. The
breed of domestic animals was infinitely multiplied. Plantations,
buildings, and the instruments of labor and luxury, which are
more durable than the term of human life, were accumulated by the
care of successive generations. Tradition preserved, and
experience simplified, the humble practice of the arts: society
was enriched by the division of labor and the facility of
exchange; and every Roman was lodged, clothed, and subsisted, by
the industry of a thousand hands. The invention of the loom and
distaff has been piously ascribed to the gods. In every age, a
variety of animal and vegetable productions, hair, skins, wool,
flax, cotton, and at length silk, have been skilfully
manufactured to hide or adorn the human body; they were stained
with an infusion of permanent colors; and the pencil was
successfully employed to improve the labors of the loom. In the
choice of those colors 58 which imitate the beauties of nature,
the freedom of taste and fashion was indulged; but the deep
purple 59 which the Phœnicians extracted from a shell-fish, was
restrained to the sacred person and palace of the emperor; and
the penalties of treason were denounced against the ambitious
subjects who dared to usurp the prerogative of the throne. 60

54 (return) [ Hierocles, a contemporary of Justinian, composed
his (Itineraria, p. 631,) review of the eastern provinces and
cities, before the year 535, (Wesseling, in Praefat. and Not. ad
p. 623, &c.)]

55 (return) [ See the Book of Genesis (xii. 10) and the
administration of Joseph. The annals of the Greeks and Hebrews
agree in the early arts and plenty of Egypt: but this antiquity
supposes a long series of improvement; and Warburton, who is
almost stifled by the Hebrew calls aloud for the Samaritan,
Chronology, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 29, &c.) * Note: The
recent extraordinary discoveries in Egyptian antiquities strongly
confirm the high notion of the early Egyptian civilization, and
imperatively demand a longer period for their development. As to
the common Hebrew chronology, as far as such a subject is capable
of demonstration, it appears to me to have been framed, with a
particular view, by the Jews of Tiberias. It was not the
chronology of the Samaritans, not that of the LXX., not that of
Josephus, not that of St. Paul.—M.]

56 (return) [ Eight millions of Roman modii, besides a
contribution of 80,000 aurei for the expenses of water-carriage,
from which the subject was graciously excused. See the 13th Edict
of Justinian: the numbers are checked and verified by the
agreement of the Greek and Latin texts.]

57 (return) [ Homer’s Iliad, vi. 289. These veils, were the work
of the Sidonian women. But this passage is more honorable to the
manufactures than to the navigation of Phoenicia, from whence
they had been imported to Troy in Phrygian bottoms.]

58 (return) [ See in Ovid (de Arte Amandi, iii. 269, &c.) a
poetical list of twelve colors borrowed from flowers, the
elements, &c. But it is almost impossible to discriminate by
words all the nice and various shades both of art and nature.]

59 (return) [ By the discovery of cochineal, &c., we far surpass
the colors of antiquity. Their royal purple had a strong smell,
and a dark cast as deep as bull’s blood—obscuritas rubens, (says
Cassiodorus, Var. 1, 2,) nigredo saguinea. The president Goguet
(Origine des Loix et des Arts, part ii. l. ii. c. 2, p. 184—215)
will amuse and satisfy the reader. I doubt whether his book,
especially in England, is as well known as it deserves to be.]

60 (return) [ Historical proofs of this jealousy have been
occasionally introduced, and many more might have been added; but
the arbitrary acts of despotism were justified by the sober and
general declarations of law, (Codex Theodosian. l. x. tit. 21,
leg. 3. Codex Justinian. l. xi. tit. 8, leg. 5.) An inglorious
permission, and necessary restriction, was applied to the mince,
the female dancers, (Cod. Theodos. l. xv. tit. 7, leg. 11.)]