CHAPTER IV

THE LATER YEARS OF JUSTINIAN’S REIGN

[535-565 A.D.]

BYZANTIUM RIDS ROME OF THE GOTHS

The empire of the Ostrogoths, though established on 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[13] 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. Policy induced Theodoric to treat the inhabitants of Italy with mildness. The permanent maintenance 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 privileges which enabled them to defend their civilisation.

[Sidenote: [535-537 A.D.]]

The kingdom which the great Theodoric left to his grandson Athalaric, under the guardianship of his daughter Amalasuntha, embraced not only Italy, Sicily, and a portion of the south of France; it also included Dalmatia, a part of Illyricum, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rætia. 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; Amalasuntha 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 7500 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 Neapolis. As he proceeded, he was everywhere welcomed by the inhabitants, who were then almost universally Greeks; even the Gothic commander in the south of Italy favoured the progress of the Roman general.

The city of Neapolis 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 Neapolis, 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 of 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 had availed himself of this municipal government to smooth away many of the difficulties which presented 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 no distinct feelings of nationality apart from their connection 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 he had hardly entered it before he perceived 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 breastwork, 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 sixteen years it changed masters five times, and suffered three severe sieges. Its population was almost destroyed; its public buildings and its walls must have undergone many changes, according to the exigencies of the various measures required for its defence. It has, consequently, been too generally assumed that the existing walls indicate the exact position of the walls of Aurelian. This period is also memorable for the ruin of many monuments of ancient art, which the generals of Justinian destroyed without compunction.[14]

[Sidenote: [537-540 A.D.]]

Witiges laid siege to Rome with an army said by Procopius[d] to have amounted to 150,000 men; yet this army was insufficient to invest the whole circuit of the city. 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 Prænestine 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.

In spite of the prudent arrangements adopted by Belisarius to insure supplies of provisions from his recent 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 communications of the garrison with the coast were for a time interrupted, but at last a body of five thousand fresh troops and an abundant supply of provisions, despatched by Justinian to the assistance of Belisarius, entered Rome. Shortly after the arrival of this reinforcement, the Goths found themselves constrained to abandon the siege, in which they had persevered for a year. Justinian again augmented his army in Italy, by sending over seven thousand troops under the command of the eunuch Narses, a man whose military talents were in no way inferior to those of Belisarius, 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 on 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 generals delayed the progress of the Roman arms. The Goths availed themselves of the opportunity to continue the war with vigour; they succeeded in reconquering Mediolanum, which had admitted a Roman garrison, and 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 whole population of Mediolanum at this period.

Witiges, 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 Witiges, 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 ensuring them the possession 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 surrender of Ravenna and secure the person of Witiges without further bloodshed. Italy submitted to Justinian, and the few Goths who still maintained their independence beyond the Po pressed Belisarius in vain to declare himself emperor. But even without these solicitations, his power had awakened the fears of his sovereign, and he was recalled, though with honour, from his command in Italy. He returned to Constantinople leading Witiges captive, as he had formerly appeared conducting Gelimer.

FINLAY’S ESTIMATE OF BELISARIUS

Great as the talents of Belisarius really were, and sound as his judgment appears to have been, still it must be confessed that his name occupies a more prominent place in history than his merits are entitled to claim. The accident that his conquest put an end to 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 Constantinople in almost regal splendour, and maintained a body of seven thousand cavalry attached to his household.

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. His 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 on his first disgrace, does not tend to elevate his character. At a later period, his wealth was again confiscated on an accusation of treason, and on this occasion it is said that he was deprived of his 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.

THE GOTHS RENEW THE WAR

[Sidenote: [540-544 A.D.]]

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.[15] 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 an 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 Hildebald to the throne, which he occupied about a year when he was murdered by one of his own guards. The tribe of Rugii then raised Eraric their leader to the throne; but on his entering into negotiations with the Romans he was murdered, after a reign of only five months. Totila was then elected king of the Goths, 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. 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 on 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.

[Sidenote: [544-547 A.D.]]

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 only to Belisarius as commander-in-chief. Justinian, acting on his usual maxims of jealousy, and distrusting 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 in Italy unaccompanied by a staff of scientific officers and a body of veteran troops on 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 impracticable, and his position was rendered still more disadvantageous 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 importance 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 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 the representations of Belisarius, who conjured him to abandon his barbarous scheme of devastation. 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 history of the Middle Ages than with that of preceding times.

BELISARIUS IN ROME

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 encountering an active and able sovereign like Totila. The 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 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 interests, and came back without any diminution of his wealth.

[Sidenote: [547-553 A.D.]]

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 that 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, Herulians, 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 (Tadinum) near Nuceria (Nocera), and the victory of Narses was complete.[16] Totila and six thousand Goths perished, and Rome again 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. 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 thousand men, those of the Romans did not exceed eighteen thousand; but the victory of Narses was so complete that but few of the former escaped. The remaining Goths elected another king, Theias, who perished with his army near the banks of the Sarnus (Sarno). His death put an end to the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, and allowed Narses to turn his whole attention to the civil government of his conquests, and to establish security of property and a strict administration 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 consequently able to estimate with exactness the sum which he could levy on the province and remit to Constantinople, without arresting the gradual improvement of the country. His fiscal government was, nevertheless, regarded by the Italians as extremely severe, and he was unpopular with the inhabitants of Rome.

[Sidenote: [535-625 A.D.]]

The existence of a numerous Roman population in Spain, connected with the Eastern Empire by the 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 advantages in the same manner as he had done in Africa and Italy. The king Theudes had attempted to make a diversion in Africa by besieging Ceuta, in order to call off the attention of Justinian from Italy. His attack was unsuccessful, but the circumstances were not favourable at the time for Justinian’s attempting to revenge the injury. Dissensions in the country soon after enabled the emperor to take part in a civil war, and he seized the pretext of sending a fleet and troops to support the claims of a rebel chief, in order to secure the possession of a large portion of the south of Spain. 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 Corduba, 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. The Eastern Empire retained possession of these distant conquests for about sixty years.[b]

GIBBON’S ESTIMATE OF BELISARIUS AND HIS TIMES

Our estimate of personal merit is relative to the common faculties of mankind. The aspiring efforts of genius or virtue, either in active or speculative life, are measured not so much by their real elevation as by the height to which they ascend above the level of their age or country; and the same stature, which in a people of giants would pass unnoticed, must appear conspicuous in a race of pigmies. Leonidas and his three hundred companions devoted their lives at Thermopylæ; but the education of the infant, the boy, and the man had prepared, and almost insured, this memorable sacrifice; and each Spartan would approve, rather than admire, an act of duty of which himself and eight thousand of his fellow-citizens were equally capable.

The great Pompey might inscribe on his trophies that he had defeated in battle two millions of enemies, and reduced fifteen hundred cities from the lake Mæotis to the Red Sea; but the fortune of Rome flew before his eagles; the nations were oppressed by their own fears, and the invincible legions which he commanded had been formed by the habits of conquest and the discipline of ages. In this view, the character of Belisarius may be deservedly placed above the heroes of the ancient republic. His imperfections flowed from the contagion of the times; his virtues were his own, the free gift of nature or reflection; he raised himself without a master or a rival; and so inadequate were the arms committed to his hand that his sole advantage was derived from the pride and presumption of his adversaries. Under his command, the subjects of Justinian often deserved to be called Romans; but the unwarlike appellation of Greeks was imposed as a term of reproach by the haughty Goths, who affected to blush that they must dispute the kingdom of Italy with a nation of tragedians, pantomimes, and pirates.

The climate of Asia has indeed been found less congenial than that of Europe to military spirit; those populous countries were enervated by luxury, despotism, and superstition, and the monks were more expensive and more numerous than the soldiers of the East. The regular force of the empire had once amounted to 645,000 men: it was reduced, in the time of Justinian, to 150,000; and this number, large as it may seem, was thinly scattered over the sea and land--in Spain and Italy, in Africa and Egypt, on the banks of the Danube, the coast of Euxine, and the frontiers of Persia. The citizen was exhausted, yet the soldier was unpaid; his poverty was mischievously soothed by the privilege of rapine and indolence; and the tardy payments were detained and intercepted by the fraud of those agents who usurp, without courage or danger, the emoluments of war. Public and private distress recruited the armies of the state; but in the field, and still more in the presence of the enemy, their numbers were always defective.

The want of national spirit was supplied by the precarious faith and disorderly service of barbarian mercenaries. Even military honour, which has often survived the loss of virtue and freedom, was almost totally extinct. The generals, who were multiplied beyond the example of former times, laboured only to prevent the success, or to sully the reputation, of their colleagues; and they had been taught by experience that, if merit sometimes provoked the jealousy, error or even guilt would obtain the indulgence of a gracious emperor.

In such an age the triumphs of Belisarius, and afterwards of Narses, shine with incomparable lustre; but they are encompassed with the darkest shades of disgrace and calamity.[17]

BARBARIC INROADS

[Sidenote: [100-550 A.D.]]

Even the Gothic victories of Belisarius were prejudicial to the state, since they abolished the important barrier of the upper Danube, which had been so faithfully guarded by Theodoric and his daughter. For the defence of Italy, the Goths evacuated Pannonia and Noricum, which they left in a peaceful and flourishing condition; the sovereignty was claimed by the emperor of the Romans, the actual possession was abandoned to the boldness of the first invader. On the opposite banks of the Danube, the plains of upper Hungary and the Transylvanian hills were possessed, since the death of Attila, by the tribes of the Gepidæ, who respected the Gothic arms and despised not indeed the gold of the Romans but the secret motive of their annual subsidies.

The vacant fortifications of the river were instantly occupied by these barbarians; their standards were planted on the walls of Sirmium and Belgrade; and the ironical tone of their apology aggravated this insult on the majesty of the empire. “So extensive, O Cæsar, are your dominions, so numerous are your cities, that you are continually seeking for nations to whom, either in peace or war, you may relinquish these useless possessions. The Gepidæ are your brave and faithful allies; and if they have anticipated your gifts, they have shown a just confidence in your bounty.” Their presumption was excused by the mode of revenge which Justinian embraced. Instead of asserting the rights of a sovereign for the protection of his subjects, the emperor invited a strange people to invade and possess the Roman provinces between the Danube and the Alps; and the ambition of the Gepidæ was checked by the rising power and fame of the Lombards.

This corrupt appellation has been diffused in the thirteenth century by the merchants and bankers, the Italian posterity of these savage warriors: but the original name of Langobards is expressive only of the peculiar length and fashion of their beards.[18] About the time of Augustus and Trajan, a ray of historic light breaks on the darkness of their antiquities, and they are discovered, for the first time, between the Elbe and the Oder. Fierce beyond the example of the Germans, they delighted to propagate the tremendous belief that their heads were formed like the heads of dogs, and that they drank the blood of their enemies whom they vanquished in battle. The smallness of their numbers was recruited by the adoption of their bravest slaves; and alone, amidst their powerful neighbours, they defended by arms their high-spirited independence.

In the tempest of the north, which overwhelmed so many names and nations, this little bark of the Lombards still floated on the surface. They gradually descended towards the south and the Danube, and at the end of four hundred years[19] they again appear with their ancient valour and renown. Their manners were not less ferocious. The assassination of a royal guest was executed in the presence and by the command of the king’s daughter, who had been provoked by some words of insult and disappointed by his diminutive stature;[20] and a tribute, the price of blood, was imposed on the Lombards by his brother the king of the Heruli. Adversity revived a sense of moderation and justice, and the insolence of conquest was chastised by the signal defeat and irreparable dispersion of the Heruli, who were seated in the southern provinces of Poland.[21]

The victories of the Lombards recommended them to the friendship of the emperors; and at the solicitation of Justinian they passed the Danube to reduce, according to their treaty, the cities of Noricum and the fortresses of Pannonia. But the spirit of rapine soon tempted them beyond these ample limits; they wandered along the coast of the Adriatic as far as Dyrrhachium, and presumed, with familiar rudeness, to enter the towns and houses of their Roman allies, and to seize the captives who had escaped from their audacious hands. These acts of hostility, the sallies, as it might be pretended, of some loose adventurers, were disowned by the nation and excused by the emperor; but the arms of the Lombards were more seriously engaged by a contest of thirty years, which was terminated only by the extirpation of the Gepidæ.

[Sidenote: [550-554 A.D.]]

The hostile nations often pleaded their cause before the throne of Constantinople; and the crafty Justinian, to whom the barbarians were almost equally odious, pronounced a partial and ambiguous sentence, and dexterously protracted the war by slow and ineffectual succours. Their strength was formidable, since the Lombards, who sent into the field several myriads of soldiers, still claimed, as the weaker side, the protection of the Romans. Their spirit was intrepid, yet such is the uncertainty of courage that the two armies were suddenly struck with a panic; they fled from each other, and the rival kings remained with their guards in the midst of an empty plain. A short truce was obtained, but their mutual resentment again kindled; and the remembrance of their shame rendered the next encounter more desperate and bloody. Forty thousand of the barbarians perished in the decisive battle[22] which broke the power of the Gepidæ, transferred the fears and wishes of Justinian, and first displayed the character of Alboin, the youthful prince of the Lombards and the future conqueror of Italy.

SLAVIC INCURSIONS

[Sidenote: [100-540 A.D.]]

The wild people who dwelt or wandered in the plains of Russia, Lithuania, and Poland might be reduced, in the age of Justinian, under the two great families of the Bulgarians and the Slavonians. According to the Greek writers, the former, who touched the Euxine and the lake of Mæotis, derived from the Huns their name or descent; and it is needless to renew the simple and well-known picture of Tatar manners. They were bold and dexterous archers, who drank the milk and feasted on the flesh of their indefatigable horses; whose flocks and herds followed, or rather guided, the motions of their roving camps; to whose inroads no country was remote or impervious, and who were practised in flight, though incapable of fear.

The nation was divided into two powerful and hostile tribes, who pursued each other with fraternal hatred. They eagerly disputed the friendship or rather the gifts of the emperor; and the distinction which nature had fixed between the faithful dog and the rapacious wolf was applied by an ambassador who received only verbal instructions from the mouth of his illiterate prince. The Bulgarians, of whatsoever species, were equally attracted by Roman wealth; they assumed a vague dominion over the Slavonian name, and their rapid marches could only be stopped by the Baltic Sea, or the extreme cold and poverty of the north. But the same race of Slavonians appears to have maintained, in every age, the possession of the same countries. Their numerous tribes, however distant or adverse, used one common language (it was harsh and irregular), and were known by the resemblance of their form, which deviated from the swarthy Tatar and approached without attaining the lofty stature and fair complexion of the German.

Forty-six hundred villages were scattered over the provinces of Russia and Poland, and their huts were hastily built of rough timber, in a country deficient both in stone and iron. Erected, or rather concealed, in the depth of forests, on the banks of rivers or the edge of morasses, we may, not perhaps without flattery, compare them to the architecture of the beaver; which they resembled in a double issue to the land and water for the escape of the savage inhabitant--an animal less cleanly, less diligent, and less social than that marvellous quadruped. The fertility of the soil, rather than the labour of the natives, supplied the rustic plenty of the Slavonians. Their sheep and horned cattle were large and numerous, and the fields which they sowed with millet and panic, afforded, in the place of bread, a coarse and less nutritive food. The incessant rapine of their neighbours compelled them to bury this treasure in the earth; but on the appearance of a stranger it was freely imparted, by a people whose unfavourable character is qualified by the epithets of chaste, patient, and hospitable. As their supreme god, they adored an invisible master of the thunder. The rivers and the nymphs obtained their subordinate honours, and the popular worship was expressed in vows and sacrifice.

The Slavonians disdained to obey a despot, a prince, or even a magistrate; but their experience was too narrow, their passions too headstrong, to compose a system of equal law or general defence. Some voluntary respect was yielded to age and valour; but each tribe or village existed as a separate republic, and all must be persuaded where none could be compelled. They fought on foot, almost naked, and, except an unwieldy shield, without any defensive armour; their weapons of offence were a bow, a quiver of small poisoned arrows, and a long rope, which they dexterously threw from a distance, and entangled their enemy in a running noose. In the field the Slavonian infantry were dangerous by their speed, agility, and hardiness: they swam, they dived, they remained under water, drawing their breath through a hollow cane; and a river or lake was often the scene of their unsuspected ambuscade. But these were the achievements of spies and stragglers; the military art was unknown to the Slavonians; their name was obscure, and their conquests were inglorious.

[Sidenote: [540-565 A.D.]]

The level country of Moldavia and Wallachia was occupied by the Antes (or Antai), a Slavonian tribe, which swelled the titles of Justinian with an epithet of conquest. Against the Antes he erected the fortifications of the lower Danube; and laboured to secure the alliance of a people seated in the direct channel of northern inundation, an interval of two hundred miles between the mountains of Transylvania and the Euxine Sea. But the Antes wanted power and inclination to stem the fury of the torrent; and the light-armed Slavonians, from a hundred tribes, pursued with almost equal speed the footsteps of the Bulgarian horse.[23] The payment of one piece of gold for each soldier procured a safe and easy retreat through the country of the Gepidæ, who commanded the passage of the upper Danube.

The hopes or fears of the barbarians, their intestine union or discord, the accident of a frozen or shallow stream, the prospect of harvest or vintage, the prosperity or distress of the Romans--were the causes which produced the uniform repetition of annual visits, tedious in the narrative and destructive in the event. The same year, and possibly the same month, in which Ravenna surrendered was marked by an invasion of the Huns or Bulgarians,[24] so dreadful that it almost effaced the memory of their past inroads. They spread from the suburbs of Constantinople to the Ionian Gulf, destroyed thirty-two cities or castles, erased Potidæa which Athens had built and Philip had besieged, and repassed the Danube, dragging at their horses’ heels 120,000 of the subjects of Justinian. In a subsequent inroad they pierced the wall of the Thracian Chersonesus, extirpated the habitations and the inhabitants, boldly traversed the Hellespont, and returned to their companions, laden with the spoils of Asia. Another party, which seemed a multitude in the eyes of the Romans, penetrated without opposition from the straits of Thermopylæ to the Isthmus of Corinth; and the last ruin of Greece has appeared an object too minute for the attention of history.

The works which the emperor raised for the protection but at the expense of his subjects served only to disclose the weakness of some neglected part; and the walls, which by flattery had been deemed impregnable, were either deserted by the garrison or scaled by the barbarians. Three thousand Slavonians, who insolently divided themselves into two bands, discovered the weakness and misery of a triumphant reign. They passed the Danube and the Hebrus, vanquished the Roman generals who dared to oppose their progress, and plundered with impunity the cities of Illyricum and Thrace, each of which had arms and numbers to overwhelm their contemptible assailants.

Whatever praise the boldness of the Slavonians may deserve, it is sullied by the wanton and deliberate cruelty which they are accused of exercising on their prisoners. Without distinction of rank, or age, or sex, the captives were impaled or flayed alive, or suspended between four posts and beaten with clubs till they expired, or enclosed in some spacious building and left to perish in the flames with the spoil and cattle which might impede the march of these savage victors. Perhaps a more impartial narrative would reduce the number, and qualify the nature, of these horrid acts; and they might sometimes be excused by the cruel laws of retaliation. In the siege of Topirus, whose obstinate defence had enraged the Slavonians, they massacred fifteen thousand males;[25] but they spared the women and children. The most valuable captives were always reserved for labour or ransom; the servitude was not rigorous, and the terms of their deliverance were speedy and moderate. But the subject or the historian of Justinian exhaled his just indignation in the language of complaint and reproach; and Procopius has confidently affirmed that, in a reign of thirty-two years, each annual inroad of the barbarians consumed two hundred thousand of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire. The entire population of Turkish Europe, which nearly corresponds with the provinces of Justinian, would perhaps be incapable of supplying six millions of persons, the result of this incredible estimate.

In the midst of these obscure calamities, Europe felt the shock of a revolution, which first revealed to the world the name and nation of the Turks.[c]

TURKS AND AVARS

[Sidenote: [545-557 A.D.]]

Since that period the Turks have always continued to occupy a memorable place in the 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 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 on 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 Volga and the Caspian Sea to the shores of the ocean, or the Sea of Japan, and from the banks of the Oxus (Gihon) 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 afterwards bore the 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 Theophylactus Simocatta,[m] 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. 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 death they were firmly established on the borders of Pannonia.[b]

They had followed the well-known road of the Volga, cherished the error of the nations who confounded them with the original Avars, and spread the terror of that false though famous appellation, which had not, however, saved its lawful proprietors from the yoke of the Turks. After a long and victorious march, the new Avars arrived at the foot of Mount Caucasus, in the country of the Alans and Circassians, where they first heard of the splendour and weakness of the Roman Empire. They humbly requested their confederate, the prince of the Alans, to lead them to this source of riches; and their ambassador, with the permission of the governor of Lazica, was transported by the Euxine Sea to Constantinople. The whole city was poured forth to behold with curiosity and terror the aspect of a strange people; their long hair, which hung in tresses down their backs, was gracefully bound with ribbons, but the rest of their habit appeared to imitate the fashion of the Huns. When they were admitted to the audience of Justinian, Candish, the first of the ambassadors, addressed the Roman emperor in these terms: “You see before you, O mighty prince, the representatives of the strongest and most populous of nations, the invincible, the irresistible Avars. We are willing to devote ourselves to your service, we are able to vanquish and destroy all the enemies who now disturb your repose. But we expect, as the price of our alliance, as the reward of our valour, precious gifts, annual subsidies, and fruitful possessions.”

[Sidenote: [557-565 A.D.]]

At the time of this embassy Justinian had reigned above thirty, he had lived above seventy-five years; his mind, as well as his body, was feeble and languid; and the conqueror of Africa and Italy, careless of the permanent interest of his people, aspired only to end his days in the bosom even of inglorious peace. In a studied oration, he imparted to the senate his resolution to dissemble the insult and to purchase the friendship of the Avars; and the whole senate, like the mandarins of China, applauded the incomparable wisdom and foresight of their sovereign. The instruments of luxury were immediately prepared to captivate the barbarians; silken garments, soft and splendid beds, and chains and collars encrusted with gold. The ambassadors, content with such liberal reception, departed from Constantinople, and Valentin, one of the emperor’s guards, was sent with a similar character to their camp at the foot of Mount Caucasus. As their destruction or their success must be alike advantageous to the empire, he persuaded them to invade the enemies of Rome; and they were easily tempted, by gifts and promises, to gratify their ruling inclinations. These fugitives, who fled before the Turkish arms, passed the Tanais and Borysthenes, and boldly advanced into the heart of Poland and Germany, violating the law of nations and abusing the rights of victory.

Before ten years had elapsed, their camps were seated on the Danube and the Elbe, many Bulgarian and Slavonian names were obliterated from the earth, and the remainder of their tribes are found, as tributaries and vassals, under the standard of the Avars. The chagan, the peculiar title of their king, still affected to cultivate the friendship of the emperor; and Justinian entertained some thoughts of fixing them in Pannonia, to balance the prevailing power of the Lombards. But the virtue or treachery of an Avar betrayed the secret enmity and ambitious designs of their countrymen; and they loudly complained of the timid, though jealous, policy of detaining their ambassadors, and denying the arms which they had been allowed to purchase in the capital of the empire.

Perhaps the apparent change in the dispositions of the emperors may be ascribed to the embassy which was received from the conquerors of the Avars. The immense distance, which eluded their arms, could not extinguish their resentment; the Turkish ambassadors pursued the footsteps of the vanquished to the Jaik, the Volga, Mount Caucasus, the Euxine, and Constantinople, and at length appeared before the successor of Constantine, to request that he would not espouse the cause of rebels and fugitives. The emperor renounced, or seemed to renounce, the fugitive Avars, but he accepted the alliance of the Turks; and the ratification of the treaty was carried by a Roman minister to the foot of Mount Altai. Under the successors of Justinian, the friendship of the two nations was cultivated by frequent and cordial intercourse.[c]

RELATIONS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE WITH PERSIA

[Sidenote: [400-527 A.D.]]

The Asiatic frontier of the Roman Empire was less favourable for attack than defence. The range of the Caucasus was occupied, as it still is, by a cluster of small nations of various languages, strongly attached to their independence, which the nature of their country enabled them to maintain amidst the wars and conflicting negotiations of the Romans, Persians, and Huns, by whom they were surrounded. The kingdom of Colchis (Mingrelia) was in permanent alliance with the 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 plundering 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 own church and literature, they had maintained their nationality uninjured after the loss of their political 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 Theodosiopolis (Erzerum), situated on the very frontier of Pers-Armenia. From Theodosiopolis the empire was bounded by ranges of mountains which cross the Euphrates and extend to the river Nymphæus, and here the city of Martyropolis, the capital of Roman Armenia, east of the Euphrates, was situated. From the junction of the Nymphæus with the Tigris the frontier again followed the mountains to Dara, and from thence it proceeded to the Chaboras and the fortress of Circesium.

The Arabs or Saracens, who inhabited the district between Circesium and Idumæa, were divided into 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; and the country between the gulfs of Ailath 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.

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 on with Persia reflect little glory on 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 epochs, 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 were too demoralised to venture on political reforms, 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 weaknesses 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 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 consequently carried on according to a regular routine of service, and was continued during a succession of campaigns in which much blood and treasure were expended, and much glory gained, with very little change in the relative military power, and none in the frontiers, of the two empires.

[Sidenote: [527-532 A.D.]]

The avarice of Justinian, or his inconstant plans, often induced him to leave the eastern frontier of the 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 Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, or Colchis generally lay with the Persians; and Chosroes attempted to penetrate into the empire by every portion of this frontier during his long wars. The Roman army, in spite of the change which had taken place in its arms and organisation, still retained its superiority.[b]

The first war with the Persians had followed close upon Justinian’s accession. He had sent Belisarius to build a fortress near Nisibis in 528; the Persians under Prince Xerxes invaded Mesopotamia and defeated the Romans with heavy loss. The next year was devoted to raids by both sides, but in 530 Belisarius, then only twenty-five, won a victory at Daras. “This being,” says Procopius,[d] “the first defeat suffered by the Persians for a long time.” The next year, however, at Callinicum, Belisarius was badly defeated, and while Procopius, his secretary, says he fought bravely, Johannes Malalas[n] accuses him of cowardice. At any rate he was recalled, and his successor Mundus won some glory. Then the old King Kobad died and his famous son Chosroes I came to the Persian throne.[a]

[Sidenote: [532-562 A.D.]]

And now the war in which Justinian had found the empire engaged on his succession was terminated by a peace called “the Everlasting Peace,” which the Romans purchased by the payment of eleven thousand 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 the Western Empire. Had he availed himself of peace with Persia to diminish the burdens on his subjects, and consolidate the defence of the empire instead of extending its frontiers, he might perhaps have re-established 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, Berœa (Aleppo), Apamea, and Chalcis escaped this fate by paying 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 no means brilliant. The fact that he saved Syria from utter devastation, nevertheless, rendered his campaign of 543 by no means unimportant for the empire.[b]

In 545 a truce for five years was signed, Justinian paying two thousand pounds of gold. In 549 the Romans yielded to the appeal of the Lazi and sent troops to aid them to shake off the Persian yoke. After various sieges, a new truce was concluded in 551, the Romans paying twenty-six hundred pounds of gold. Hostilities went on, none the less, with a result, as Bury[e] notes, that the Persians failed of their design to gain access to the Euxine, and “that on the waters of the sea the Romans were to remain without rivals.” The Romans had, however, to pay, as usual, the price.[a] The war had been carried on for twenty years, but during the latter period of its duration military operations had been confined to Colchis. It was terminated in 562 by a truce for fifty 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 [£18,750 or $93,750]; and he was compelled immediately to advance the sum of 210,000 pounds, 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 throne, was a prince of great power, and a steady ally of the Romans. The wars of this Christian monarch in Arabia are related by the historians of the empire; and Justinian endeavoured, by this means, to transfer the silk trade with India from Persia to the route by the Red Sea.

The attempt failed from the great length 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 so great that the king of Ethiopia, in the reign of Justin, was able to collect a fleet of seven hundred native vessels, and six hundred Roman and Persian merchantmen, which he employed to transport his troops into Arabia.[b]

THE REVOLT IN AFRICA

[Sidenote: [535-545 A.D.]]

The review of the nations from the Danube to the Nile has exposed on every side the weakness of the Romans; and our wonder is reasonably excited that they should presume to enlarge an empire, whose ancient limits they were incapable of defending. But the wars, the conquests, and the triumphs of Justinian are the feeble and pernicious efforts of old age, which exhaust the remains of strength and accelerate the decay of the powers of life. He exulted in the glorious act of restoring Africa and Italy to the republic; but the calamities which followed the departure of Belisarius betrayed the impotence of the conqueror and accomplished the ruin of those unfortunate countries.

From his new acquisitions, Justinian expected that his avarice, as well as pride, should be richly gratified. A rapacious minister of the finances closely pursued the footsteps of Belisarius; and as the old registers of tribute had been burned by the Vandals, he indulged his fancy in a liberal calculation and arbitrary assessment of the wealth of Africa. The increase of taxes, which were drawn away by a distant sovereign, and a general resumption of the patrimony or crown lands soon dispelled the intoxication of the public joy; but the emperor was insensible to the modest complaints of the people, till he was awakened and alarmed by the clamours of military discontent. Many of the Roman soldiers had married the widows and daughters of the Vandals. As their own, by the double right of conquest and inheritance, they claimed the estates which Genseric had assigned to his victorious troops. They heard with disdain the cold and selfish representations of their officers that the liberality of Justinian had raised them from a savage or servile condition; that they were already enriched by the spoils of Africa, the treasure, the slaves, and the movables of the vanquished barbarians; and that the ancient and lawful patrimony of the emperors would be applied only to the support of that government on which their own safety and reward must ultimately depend.

The mutiny was secretly inflamed by a thousand soldiers, for the most part Heruli, who had imbibed the doctrines and were instigated by the clergy of the Arian sect; and the cause of perjury and rebellion was sanctified by the dispensing powers of fanaticism. The Arians deplored the ruin of their church, triumphant above a century in Africa; and they were justly provoked by the laws of the conqueror, which interdicted the baptism of their children and the exercise of all religious worship. Of the Vandals chosen by Belisarius, the far greater part, in the honours of the eastern service, forgot their country and religion. But a generous band of four hundred obliged the mariners, when they were in sight of the isle of Lesbos, to alter their course; they touched on Peloponnesus, ran ashore on a desert coast of Africa, and boldly erected on Mount Aurasius the standard of independence and revolt.

While the troops of the province disclaimed the commands of their superiors, a conspiracy was formed at Carthage against the life of Solomon, who filled with honour the place of Belisarius; and the Arians had piously resolved to sacrifice the tyrant at the foot of the altar, during the awful mysteries of the festival of Easter. Fear or remorse restrained the daggers of the assassins, but the patience of Solomon emboldened their discontent; and at the end of ten days a furious sedition was kindled in the circus, which desolated Africa above ten years. The pillage of the city and the indiscriminate slaughter of its inhabitants were suspended only by darkness, sleep, and intoxication; the governor, with seven companions, among whom was the historian Procopius, escaped to Sicily. Two-thirds of the army were involved in the guilt of treason; and eight thousand insurgents, assembling in the fields of Bulla, elected Stozas for their chief, a private soldier who possessed, in a superior degree, the virtues of a rebel. Under the mask of freedom, his eloquence could lead, or at least impel, the passions of his equals. He raised himself to a level with Belisarius and the nephew of the emperor, by daring to encounter them in the field; and the victorious generals were compelled to acknowledge that Stozas deserved a purer cause and a more legitimate command. Vanquished in battle, he dexterously employed the arts of negotiation; a Roman army was seduced from their allegiance, and the chiefs, who had trusted to his faithless promise, were murdered by his order in a church of Numidia.

When every resource, either of force or perfidy, was exhausted, Stozas with some desperate Vandals retired to the wilds of Mauretania, obtained the daughter of a barbarian prince, and eluded the pursuit of his enemies by the report of his death. The personal weight of Belisarius, the rank, the spirit, and the temper of Germanus, the emperor’s nephew, and the vigour and success of the second administration of the eunuch Solomon, restored the modesty of the camp, and maintained, for a while, the tranquillity of Africa. But the vices of the Byzantine court were felt in that distant province; the troops complained that they were neither paid nor relieved; and as soon as the public disorders were sufficiently mature, Stozas was again alive, in arms, and at the gates of Carthage. He fell in a single combat, but he smiled in the agonies of death, when he was informed that his own javelin had reached the heart of his antagonist.

[Sidenote: [545-558 A.D.]]

The example of Stozas, and the assurance that a fortunate soldier had been the first king, encouraged the ambition of Gontharis, and he promised by a private treaty to divide Africa with the Moors, if, with their dangerous aid, he should ascend the throne of Carthage. The feeble Areobindus, unskilled in the affairs of peace and war, was raised by his marriage with the niece of Justinian to the office of exarch. He was suddenly oppressed by a sedition of the guards; and his abject supplications, which provoked the contempt, could not move the pity, of the inexorable tyrant. After a reign of thirty days, Gontharis himself was stabbed at a banquet, by the hand of Artaban; and it is singular enough that an Armenian prince, of the royal family of Arsaces, should re-establish at Carthage the authority of the Roman Empire. In the conspiracy which unsheathed the dagger of Brutus against the life of Cæsar, every circumstance is curious and important to the eyes of posterity; but the guilt or merit of these loyal or rebellious assassins could interest only the contemporaries of Procopius, who, by their hopes and fears, their friendship or resentment, were personally engaged in the revolutions of Africa.

That country was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism, from whence it had been raised by the Phœnician colonies and Roman laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some deplorable victory of savage man over civilised society. The Moors, though ignorant of justice, were impatient of oppression; their vagrant life and boundless wilderness disappointed the arms and eluded the chains of a conqueror, and experience had shown that neither oaths nor obligations could secure the fidelity of their attachment. The victory of Mount Aurasius had awed them into momentary submission; but if they respected the character of Solomon, they hated and despised the pride and luxury of his two nephews, Cyrus and Sergius, on whom their uncle had imprudently bestowed the provincial governments of Tripolis and Pentapolis.

[Sidenote: [558-559 A.D.]]

A Moorish tribe encamped under the walls of Leptis, to renew their alliance, and receive from the governor the customary gifts. Fourscore of their deputies were introduced as friends into the city; but, on the dark suspicion of a conspiracy, they were massacred at the table of Sergius; and the clamour of arms and revenge was re-echoed through the valleys of Mount Atlas, from both the Syrtes to the Atlantic Ocean. A personal injury, the unjust execution or murder of his brother, rendered Antalas the enemy of the Romans. The defeat of the Vandals had formerly signalised his valour; the rudiments of justice and prudence were still more conspicuous in a Moor; and while he laid Hadrumetum in ashes, he calmly admonished the emperor that the peace of Africa might be secured by the recall of Solomon and his unworthy nephews. The exarch led forth his troops from Carthage; but at the distance of six days’ journey, in the neighbourhood of Tebeste,[26] he was astonished by the superior numbers and fierce aspect of the barbarians. He proposed a treaty, solicited a reconciliation, and offered to bind himself by the most solemn oaths. “By what oaths can he bind himself?” interrupted the indignant Moors. “Will he swear by the Gospels, the divine books of the Christians? It was on those books that the faith of his nephew Sergius was pledged to eighty of our innocent and unfortunate brethren. Before we trust them a second time, let us try their efficacy in the chastisement of perjury, and the vindication of their own honour.” Their honour was vindicated in the field of Tebeste, by the death of Solomon and the total loss of his army.

The arrival of fresh troops and more skilful commanders[27] soon checked the insolence of the Moors; seventeen of their princes were slain in the same battle; and the doubtful and transient submission of their tribes was celebrated with lavish applause by the people of Constantinople. Successive inroads had reduced the province of Africa to one-third of the measure of Italy; yet the Roman emperors continued to reign above a century over Carthage and the fruitful coast of the Mediterranean. But the victories and the losses of Justinian were alike pernicious to mankind; and such was the desolation of Africa that in many parts a stranger might wander whole days without meeting the face either of a friend or an enemy.

The nation of the Vandals had disappeared; they once amounted to 160,000 warriors, without including the children, the women, or the slaves. Their numbers were infinitely surpassed by the number of the Moorish families extirpated in a relentless war; and the same destruction was retaliated on the Romans and their allies, who perished by the climate, their mutual quarrels, and the rage of the barbarians. When Procopius first landed, he admired the populousness of the cities and country, strenuously exercised in the labours of commerce and agriculture. In less than twenty years, that busy scene was converted into a silent solitude; the wealthy citizens escaped to Sicily and Constantinople; and the secret historian has confidently affirmed that five millions of Africans were consumed by the wars and government of the emperor Justinian.

INVASION OF THE COTRIGUR HUNS

[Sidenote: [559-563 A.D.]]

The repose of the aged Belisarius was crowned by a last victory which saved the emperor and the capital. The barbarians who annually visited the provinces of Europe were less discouraged by some accidental defeat than they were excited by the double hope of spoil and of subsidy.

In the thirty-second winter of Justinian’s reign, the Danube was deeply frozen; Zabergan led the cavalry of the Cotrigur (or Cotugur) Huns, and his standard was followed by a promiscuous multitude. The savage chief passed, without opposition, the river and the mountains, spread his troops over Macedonia and Thrace, and advanced with no more than seven thousand horse to the long walls which should have defended the territory of Constantinople. But the works of man are impotent against the assaults of nature; a recent earthquake had shaken the foundations of the wall, and the forces of the empire were employed on the distant frontiers of Italy, Africa, and Persia. The seven schools, or companies of the guards or domestic troops, had been augmented to the number of fifty-five hundred men, whose ordinary station was in the peaceful cities of Asia. But the places of the brave Armenians were insensibly supplied by lazy citizens, who purchased an exemption from the duties of civil life, without being exposed to the dangers of military service. Of such soldiers, few could be tempted to sally from the gates; and none could be persuaded to remain in the field unless they wanted strength and speed to escape from the Cotrigurs.

The report of the fugitives exaggerated the numbers and fierceness of an enemy who had polluted holy virgins and abandoned new-born infants to the dogs and vultures;[28] a crowd of rustics, imploring food and protection, increased the consternation of the city, and the tents of Zabergan were pitched at the distance of twenty miles, on the banks of a small river which encircles Melanthias, and afterwards falls into the Propontis. Justinian trembled; and those who had only seen the emperor in his old age, were pleased to suppose that he had lost the alacrity and vigour of his youth. By his command, the vessels of gold and silver were removed from the churches in the neighbourhood and even the suburbs of Constantinople; the ramparts were lined with trembling spectators; the golden gate was crowded with useless generals and tribunes, and the senate shared the fatigues and the apprehensions of the populace.

But the eyes of the prince and people were directed to a feeble veteran, who was compelled by the public danger to resume the armour in which he had entered Carthage and defended Rome. The horses of the royal stables, of private citizens, and even of the circus, were hastily collected; the emulation of the old and young was roused by the name of Belisarius, and his first encampment was in the presence of a victorious enemy. His prudence, and the labour of the friendly peasants, secured with a ditch and rampart the repose of the night; innumerable fires and clouds of dust were artfully contrived to magnify the opinion of his strength; his soldiers suddenly passed from despondency to presumption, and while ten thousand voices demanded the battle, Belisarius dissembled his knowledge that in the hour of trial he must depend on the firmness of three hundred veterans.

The next morning the Cotrigur cavalry advanced to the charge. But they heard the shouts of multitudes, they beheld the arms and discipline of the front; they were assaulted on the flanks by two ambuscades which rose from the woods; their foremost warriors fell by the hand of the aged hero and his guards; and the swiftness of their evolutions was rendered useless by the close attack and rapid pursuit of the Romans. In this action (so speedy was their flight) the Cotrigur Huns lost only four hundred horse; but Constantinople was saved; and Zabergan, who felt the hand of a master, withdrew to a respectful distance. But his friends were numerous in the councils of the emperor, and Belisarius obeyed with reluctance the commands of envy and Justinian, which forbade him to achieve the deliverance of his country.

On his return to the city, the people, still conscious of their danger, accompanied his triumph with acclamations of joy and gratitude, which were imputed as a crime to the victorious general. But when he entered the palace the courtiers were silent, and the emperor, after a cold and thankless embrace, dismissed him to mingle with the train of slaves. Yet so deep was the impression of his glory on the minds of men that Justinian, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, was encouraged to advance near forty miles from the capital, and to inspect in person the restoration of the long wall. The Cotrigurs wasted the summer in the plains of Thrace; but they were inclined to peace by the failure of their rash attempts on Greece and the Chersonesus. A menace of killing their prisoners quickened the payment of heavy ransoms; and the departure of Zabergan was hastened by the report that double-prowed vessels were built on the Danube to intercept his passage. The danger was soon forgotten; and a vain question, whether their sovereign had shown more wisdom or weakness, amused the idleness of the city.

END OF BELISARIUS

[Sidenote: [563-565 A.D.]]

About two years after the last victory of Belisarius, the emperor returned from a Thracian journey of health, or business, or devotion. Justinian was afflicted by a pain in his head; and his private entry countenanced the rumour of his death. Before the third hour of the day, the bakers’ shops were plundered of their bread, the houses were shut, and every citizen, with hope or terror, prepared for the impending tumult. The senators themselves, fearful and suspicious, were convened at the ninth hour; and the prefect received their commands to visit every quarter of the city, and proclaim a general illumination for the recovery of the emperor’s health. The ferment subsided, but every accident betrayed the impotence of the government and the factious temper of the people; the guards were disposed to mutiny as often as their quarters were changed or their pay was withheld; the frequent calamities of fires and earthquakes afforded the opportunities of disorder; the disputes of the blues and greens, of the orthodox and heretics, degenerated into bloody battles; and in the presence of the Persian ambassador, Justinian blushed for himself and for his subjects.

Capricious pardon and arbitrary punishment embittered the irksomeness and discontent of a long reign; a conspiracy was formed in the palace; and unless we are deceived by the names of Marcellus and Sergius, the most virtuous and the most profligate of the courtiers were associated in the same designs. They had fixed the time of the execution; their rank gave them access to the royal banquet; and their black slaves were stationed in the vestibule and porticoes, to announce the death of the tyrant and to excite a sedition in the capital. But the indiscretion of an accomplice saved the poor remnant of the days of Justinian. The conspirators were detected and seized, with daggers hidden under their garments; Marcellus died by his own hand, and Sergius was dragged from the sanctuary. Pressed by remorse, or tempted by the hopes of safety, he accused two officers of the household of Belisarius; and torture forced them to declare that they had acted according to the secret instructions of their patron.

Posterity will not hastily believe that a hero who, in the vigour of life, had disdained the fairest offers of ambition and revenge, would stoop to the murder of his prince whom he could not long expect to survive. His followers were impatient to fly; but flight must have been supported by rebellion, and he had lived enough for nature and for glory. Belisarius appeared before the council with less fear than indignation. After forty years’ service, the emperor had prejudged his guilt; and injustice was sanctified by the presence and authority of the patriarch. The life of Belisarius was graciously spared; but his fortunes were sequestered, and from December to July he was guarded as a prisoner in his own palace. At length his innocence was acknowledged; his freedom and honours were restored; and death, which might be hastened by resentment and grief, removed him from the world about eight months after his deliverance (March, 565).

The name of Belisarius can never die; but instead of the funeral, the monuments, the statues so justly due to his memory, it appears that his treasure, the spoils of the Goths and Vandals, were immediately confiscated by the emperor. Some decent portion was reserved, however, for the use of his widow; and as Antonina had much to repent, she devoted the last remains of her life and fortune to the foundation of a convent. Such is the simple and genuine narrative of the fall of Belisarius and the ingratitude of Justinian. That he was deprived of his eyes, and reduced by envy to beg his bread--“Give a penny to Belisarius the general!”--is a fiction of later times, which has obtained credit, or rather favour, as a strange example of the vicissitudes of fortune.

DEATH OF JUSTINIAN

[Sidenote: [527-565 A.D.]]

If the emperor could rejoice in the death of Belisarius, he enjoyed the base satisfaction only eight months, the last period of a reign of thirty-eight and a life of eighty-three years. It would be difficult to trace the character of a prince who is not the most conspicuous object of his own times; but the confessions of an enemy may be received as the safest evidence of his virtues. The resemblance of Justinian to the bust of Domitian is maliciously urged; with the acknowledgment, however, of a well-proportioned figure, a ruddy complexion, and a pleasing countenance.

The emperor was easy of access, patient of hearing, courteous and affable in discourse, and a master of the angry passions which rage with such destructive violence in the breast of a despot. Procopius[p] praises his temper, to reproach him with calm and deliberate cruelty; but in the conspiracies which attacked his authority and person, a more candid judge will approve the justice, or admire the clemency, of Justinian. He excelled in the private virtues of chastity and temperance; but the impartial love of beauty would have been less mischievous than his conjugal tenderness for Theodora, and his abstemious diet was regulated not by the prudence of a philosopher but the superstition of a monk. His repasts were short and frugal; on solemn fasts he contented himself with water and vegetables; and such was his strength, as well as fervour, that he frequently passed two days and as many nights without tasting any food. The measure of his sleep was not less rigorous; after the repose of a single hour, the body was awakened by the soul, and, to the astonishment of his chamberlains, Justinian walked or studied till the morning light. Such restless application prolonged his time for the acquisition of knowledge and the despatch of business; and he might seriously deserve the reproach of confounding, by minute and preposterous diligence, the general order of his administration.

The emperor professed himself a musician and architect, a poet and philosopher, a lawyer and theologian; and if he failed in the enterprise of reconciling the Christian sects, the review of the Roman jurisprudence is a noble monument of his spirit and industry. In the government of the empire, he was less wise or less successful. The age was unfortunate; the people was oppressed and discontented; Theodora abused her power; a succession of bad ministers disgraced his judgment; and Justinian was neither beloved in his life nor regretted at his death. The love of fame was deeply implanted in his breast, but he condescended to the poor ambition of titles, honours, and contemporary praise; and while he laboured to fix the admiration, he forfeited the esteem and affection of the Romans.

The design of the African and Italian wars was boldly conceived and executed; and his penetration discovered the talents of Belisarius in the camp, of Narses in the palace. But the name of the emperor is eclipsed by the names of his victorious generals; and Belisarius still lives, to upbraid the envy and ingratitude of his sovereign. The partial favour of mankind applauds the genius of a conqueror who leads and directs his subjects in the exercise of arms.

The characters of Philip II and of Justinian are distinguished by the cold ambition which delights in war and declines the dangers of the field. Yet a colossal statue of bronze represented the emperor on horseback preparing to march against the Persians in the habit and armour of Achilles. In the great square before the church of St. Sophia, this monument was raised on a brass column and a stone pedestal of seven steps; and the pillar of Theodosius, which weighed seventy-four hundred pounds of silver, was removed from the same place by the avarice and vanity of Justinian. Future princes were more just or indulgent to his memory; the elder Andronicus, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, repaired and beautified his equestrian statue; since the fall of the empire it has been melted into cannon by the victorious Turks.

JUSTINIAN AS A LEGISLATOR

The vain titles of the victories of Justinian are crumbled into dust; but the name of the legislator is inscribed on a fair and everlasting monument. Under his reign, and by his care, the civil jurisprudence was digested in the immortal works of the _Code_, the _Pandects_, and the _Institutions_: the public reason of the Romans has been silently or studiously transfused into the domestic institutions of Europe, and the laws of Justinian still command the respect or obedience of independent nations. Wise or fortunate is the prince who connects his own reputation with the honour and interest of a perpetual order of men. The defence of their founder is the first cause which in every age had exercised the zeal and industry of the civilians. They piously commemorate his virtues, dissemble or deny his failings, and fiercely chastise the guilt or folly of the rebels who presume to sully the majesty of the purple. The idolatry of love has provoked, as it usually happens, the rancour of opposition; the character of Justinian has been exposed to the blind vehemence of flattery and invective, and the injustice of a sect (the anti-Tribonians) has refused all praise and merit to the prince, his ministers, and his laws.

When Justinian ascended the throne, the reformation of the Roman jurisprudence was an arduous but indispensable task. In the space of ten centuries, the infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand volumes, which no fortune could purchase and no capacity could digest. Books could not easily be found; and the judges, poor in the midst of riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion. The subjects of the Greek provinces were ignorant of the language that disposed of their lives and properties; and the barbarous dialect of the Latins was imperfectly studied in the academies of Berytus and Constantinople. As an Illyrian soldier, that idiom was familiar to the infancy of Justinian; his youth had been instructed by the lessons of jurisprudence, and his imperial choice selected the most learned civilians of the East to labour with their sovereign in the work of reformation. The theory of professors was assisted by the practice of advocates and the experience of magistrates; and the whole undertaking was animated by the spirit of Tribonian. This extraordinary man, the object of so much praise and censure, was a native of Side in Pamphilia; and his genius, like that of Bacon, embraced, as his own, all the business and knowledge of the age.

In the first year of his reign, Justinian directed the faithful Tribonian, and nine learned associates, to revise the ordinances of his predecessors, as they were contained, since the time of Hadrian, in the Gregorian, Hermogenian, and Theodosian codes; to purge the errors and contradictions, to retrench whatever was obsolete or superfluous, and to select the wise and salutary laws best adapted to the practice of the tribunals and the use of his subjects. The work was accomplished in fourteen months; and the twelve books or tables, which the new decemvirs produced, might be designed to imitate the labours of their Roman predecessors. The new _Code_ of Justinian was honoured with his name, and confirmed by his royal signature; authentic transcripts were multiplied by the pens of notaries and scribes. A more arduous operation was still behind--to extract the spirit of jurisprudence from the decisions and conjectures, the questions and disputes, of the Roman civilians. Seventeen lawyers, with Tribonian at their head, were appointed by the emperor to exercise an absolute jurisdiction over the works of their predecessors. If they had obeyed his commands in ten years, Justinian would have been satisfied with their diligence; and the rapid composition of the _Digest of Pandects_, in three years, will deserve praise or censure, according to the merit of the execution. From the library of Tribonian, they chose forty, the most eminent civilians of former times; two thousand treatises were comprised in an abridgment of fifty books; and it has been carefully recorded that three millions of lines or sentences were reduced, in this abstract, to the moderate number of 150,000. The edition of this great work was delayed a month after that of the _Institutions_; and it seemed reasonable that the elements should precede the digest of the Roman law. As soon as the emperor had approved their labours, he ratified, by his legislative power, the speculations of these private citizens: their commentaries on the twelve tables, the perpetual edict, the laws of the people, and the decrees of the senate, succeeded to the authority of the text; and the text was abandoned, as a useless, though venerable, relic of antiquity. The _Code_, the _Pandects_, and the _Institutions_ were declared to be the legitimate system of civil jurisprudence; they alone were admitted in the tribunals, and they alone were taught in the academies of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus. Justinian addressed to the senate and provinces his eternal oracles; and his pride, under the mask of piety, ascribed the consummation of this great design to the support and inspiration of the Deity.

Since the emperor declined the fame and envy of original composition, we can only require at his hands method, choice, and fidelity, the humble, though indispensable, virtues of a compiler. Among the various combinations of ideas, it is difficult to assign any reasonable preference; but as the order of Justinian is different in his three works, it is possible that all may be wrong; and it is certain that two cannot be right. In the selection of ancient laws, he seems to have viewed his predecessors without jealousy, and with equal regard: the series could not ascend above the reign of Hadrian, and the narrow distinction of paganism and Christianity, introduced by the superstition of Theodosius, had been abolished by the consent of mankind. But the jurisprudence of the _Pandects_ is circumscribed within a period of a hundred years, from the perpetual edict to the death of Severus Alexander: the civilians who lived under the first Cæsars are seldom permitted to speak, and only three names can be attributed to the age of the republic. The favourite of Justinian (it has been fiercely urged) was fearful of encountering the light of freedom and the gravity of Roman sages. Tribonian condemned to oblivion the genuine and native wisdom of Cato, the Scævolas, and Sulpicius; while he invoked spirits more congenial to his own, the Syrians, Greeks, and Africans, who flocked to the imperial court to study Latin as a foreign tongue, and jurisprudence as a lucrative profession. But the ministers of Justinian were instructed to labour, not for the curiosity of antiquarians, but for the immediate benefit of his subjects. It was their duty to select the useful and practicable parts of the Roman law; and the writings of the old republicans, however curious or excellent, were no longer suited to the new system of manners, religion, and government. Perhaps, if the preceptors and friends of Cicero were still alive, our candour would acknowledge that, except in purity of language, their intrinsic merit was excelled by the school of Papinian and Ulpian. The science of the laws is the slow growth of time and experience, and the advantage both of method and materials is naturally assumed by the most recent authors. The civilians of the reign of the Antonines had studied the works of their predecessors: their philosophic spirit had mitigated the rigour of antiquity, simplified the forms of proceeding, and emerged from the jealousy and prejudice of the rival sects. The choice of the authorities that compose the _Pandects_ depended on the judgment of Tribonian; but the power of his sovereign could not absolve him from the sacred obligations of truth and fidelity. As the legislator of the empire, Justinian might repeal the acts of the Antonines, or condemn as seditious the free principles which were maintained by the last of the Roman lawyers. But the existence of past facts is placed beyond the reach of despotism; and the emperor was guilty of fraud and forgery when he corrupted the integrity of their text, inscribed with their venerable names the words and ideas of his servile reign, and suppressed by the hand of power the pure and authentic copies of their sentiments. The changes and interpolations of Tribonian and his colleagues are excused by the pretence of uniformity: but their cares have been insufficient, and the antinomies, or contradictions, of the _Code_ and _Pandects_ still exercise the patience and subtlety of modern civilians.

But the emperor was unable to fix his own inconstancy; and while he boasted of renewing the exchange of Diomede, of transmuting brass into gold, he discovered the necessity of purifying his gold from the mixture of baser alloy. Six years had not elapsed from the publication of the _Code_, before he condemned the imperfect attempt by a new and more accurate edition of the same work, which he enriched with two hundred of his own laws, and fifty decisions of the darkest and most intricate points of jurisprudence. Every year, or according to Procopius each day, of his long reign, was marked by some legal innovation. Many of his acts were rescinded by himself; many were rejected by his successors; many have been obliterated by time; but the number of sixteen edicts, and one hundred and sixty-eight novels has been admitted into the authentic body of the civil jurisprudence. In the opinion of a philosopher superior to the prejudices of his profession, these incessant, and for the most part trifling, alterations, can be only explained by the venal spirit of a prince who sold without shame his judgments and his laws.

Monarchs seldom condescend to become the preceptors of their subjects; and some praise is due to Justinian, by whose command an ample system was reduced to a short and elementary treatise. Among the various institutes of the Roman law, those of Caius were the most popular in the East and West; and their use may be considered as an evidence of their merit. They were selected by the imperial delegates, Tribonian, Theophilus, and Dorotheus; and the freedom and purity of the Antonines was encrusted with the coarser materials of a degenerate age. The same volume which introduced the youth of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus to the gradual study of the _Code_ and _Pandects_, is still precious to the historian, the philosopher, and the magistrate. The _Institutions_ of Justinian are divided into four books: they proceed, with no contemptible method, from Persons to Things, and from Things to Actions; and the article of Private Wrongs is terminated by the principles of Criminal Law.[c]

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

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 remember with gratitude, that for thirteen hundred years the Pandects served as the magazine or source of legal lore, and constitution of civil rights, to the Christian 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 of equity logically in regulating the dispensation of 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.

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 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 later edicts (novels) were published in Greek. Nothing can illustrate in a stronger manner the artificial and anti-national position of the Eastern Roman Empire than this fact, that the Latin language was used in the promulgation of a system of laws for an empire, the language of whose church and literature was Greek. Latin was preserved in official business, and in public 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 with the customary law of the various Greek provinces. This restriction, and the importance attached to it by the emperor, prove that the Roman law was now the universal rule of conduct in the empire.

Justinian took every measure which 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, was, at the time of the publication of the law, in the hands of the Goths. It is therefore not surprising 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 novels 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.[b]

BURY’S ESTIMATE OF JUSTINIAN

The sixth century may be called the age of Justinian. He may be likened to a colossal Janus bestriding the way of passage between the ancient and mediæval worlds. On the one side his face was turned towards the past. His ideal, we are told, was to restore the proud aspect of the old Roman Empire, and this was chiefly realised by the conquests in Italy, Africa, and Spain. The great juristic works executed at the beginning of his reign breathe to some degree the spirit of ancient Rome. Moreover he represents the last stage in the evolution of the Roman imperium; in him was fulfilled its ultimate absolutism.

In four departments Justinian has won an immortal name: in warfare, in law, in architecture, and in church history. Standing on the shore of the mediæval or modern period, he cast into the waters of the future great stones which created immense circles. His military achievements decided the course of the history of Italy, and affected the development of western Europe; his legal works are inextricably woven into the web of European civilisation; his St. Sophia is one of the greatest monuments of the world, one of the visible signs of the continuity of history, a standing protest against the usurpation of the Turk; and his ecclesiastical authority influenced the distant future of Christendom.[e]

FOOTNOTES

[13] [For a fuller account of the war in Italy, see the latter part of this volume, under “The Western Empire.”]

[14] [“With the conquest of Rome by Belisarius,” says Finlay,[b] “the history of the ancient city may be considered as terminating; and with his defence against Witiges commences the history of the Middle Ages--of the time of destruction and change.” Similarly, though from different reasons, Bury[e] says of the plague of 542 A.D., “If we may speak of watersheds in history, this plague marks the watershed of what we call the ancient and what we call the mediæval age. Really nothing is more striking than the difference between the first half and the last half of Justinian’s reign.”]

[15] [According to Bury,[e] “Alexander was called ‘Scissors’ from his practice of clipping coins.” Procopius says he “alienated the minds of the Italians from Justinian; and none of the soldiers were willing to undergo the hazard of war.”]

[16] [Bury[e] says that the place is in dispute, some placing it near Sassoferrato, and others near Scheggia. He feels that we are justified in placing the date as July or August, 552.]

[17] [“Belisarius,” says Freeman,[f] “was perhaps the greatest commander that ever lived, as he did the greatest things with the smallest means.”]

[18] [This is the old theory, and Hodgkin[g] says, “I confess that, to me, the old-fashioned derivation, that which was accepted by Isidore[h] and Paulus, still seems the most probable.” The word _bard_, usually allied to the Latin _barba_, “beard,” has also been referred to the old High German _barta_, “axe,” and to _bord_, “shore,” and some writers would translate Langobards as “Long-axe-men” or “Long-shore-men.”]

[19] [Hodgkin[g] says “three hundred years.”]

[20] [Paulus Diaconus[i] tells the story, I. 20. Rodulf was then king of the Heruli, and his brother was killed by the servants of King Tato, “seventh Lombard king.”]

[21] [Hodgkin[g] calls the Heruli “a perpetual puzzle to ethnologists,” and quotes Zeuss,[j] who calls them “the most unstable of German tribes.” Their seat at the moment in question is also variously guessed at, Hodgkin inclining to Hungary. This fatal battle took place about 508. The Lombards were Arians,--how they were converted we do not know,--and they brought into Italy a hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons.]

[22] [Jordanes[k] says that “on both sides there fell over 6000 men. No equal battle has been heard of in our times since the days of Attila, except that of Calluc against the same Gepidæ, or of Mundo with the Goths.” The date was about 554.]

[23] [Bury[e] says, “the Bulgarians soon cease to be mentioned and it appears probable that they were subjugated by the neighbouring Slavs.” He adds that these Bulgarians of the sixth century had nothing to do with the foundation of the Bulgarian Kingdom in the seventh century.]

[24] [Procopius[d] calls the Bulgarians “Huns.” Roesler[l] calls the Cotrigur Huns “Bulgarians.” The origins of these races will be taken up more fully in the later volumes of modern history.]

[25] [Such a slaughter requires a far larger population than the obscure town of Topirus could probably have possessed.]

[26] [Now Tibesh in Algiers.]

[27] [“The glory of Belisarius deserves to be contrasted with the oblivion which has covered the exploits of Johannes 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 compelled to import the necessary provisions for his troops. Though Johannes defeated the Moors, and restored 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 exerted 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 discovery of the poetry of Corippus, one of the last and worst of the Roman poets, rescued them from complete oblivion.”--FINLAY.[b]]

[28] [“As if,” comments Agathias,[o] “this alone had been the purpose of their appearance in the world.”]