The Secret History of the Court of Justinian Part 7

The following is a similar case. There was a Samaritan by birth, a native of Palestine, who, having been compelled by the law to change his religion, had become a Christian and taken the name of Faustinus.

This Faustinus became a member of the senate and governor of Palestine; and when his time of office had expired, on his return to Byzantium he was accused by certain priests of favouring the religion and customs of the Samaritans and of having been guilty of great cruelties towards the Christians in Palestine. Justinian appeared to be very angry and expressed his indignation that, during his reign, anyone should have the audacity to insult the name of Christian. The members of the senate met to examine into the matter, and, at the instance of the Emperor, Faustinus was banished. But Justinian, having received large presents of money from him, immediately annulled the sentence. Faustinus, restored to his former authority and the confidence of the Emperor, was appointed steward of the imperial domains in Palestine and Phoenicia, and was allowed to act in every respect exactly as he pleased. These few instances are sufficient to show how Justinian protected the Christian ordinances.

CHAPTER XXVIII

I must now briefly relate how he unhesitatingly abolished the laws when money was in question. There was in Emesa a man named Priscus, who was an expert forger and very clever in his art. The church of Emesa, many years before, had been inst.i.tuted sole heir to the property of one of the most distinguished inhabitants named Mammia.n.u.s, a patrician of n.o.ble birth and of great wealth. During the reign of Justinian, Priscus made a list of all the families of the town, taking care to notice which were wealthy and able to disburse large sums. He carefully hunted up the names of their ancestors, and, having found some old doc.u.ments in their handwriting, forged a number of acknowledgments, in which they confessed that they were largely indebted to Mammia.n.u.s in sums of money which had been left with them by him as a deposit. The amount of these forged acknowledgments was no less than a hundred centenars of gold. He also imitated in a marvellous manner the handwriting of a public notary, a man of conspicuous honesty and virtue, who during the lifetime of Mammia.n.u.s used to draw up all their doc.u.ments for the citizens, sealing them with his own hand, and delivered these forged doc.u.ments to those who managed the ecclesiastical affairs of Emesa, on condition that he should receive part of the money which might be obtained in this manner.

But, since there was a law which limited all legal processes to a period of thirty years, except in cases of mortgage and certain others, in which the prescription extended to forty years, they resolved to go to Byzantium and, offering a large sum of money to the Emperor, to beg him to a.s.sist them in their project of ruining their fellow-citizens.

The Emperor accepted the money, and immediately published a decree which ordained that affairs relating to the Church should not be restricted to the ordinary prescription, but that anything might be recovered, if claimed within a hundred years: which regulation was to be observed not only in Emesa, but throughout the whole of the Roman Empire. In order to see that the new rule was put into execution, he sent Longinus to Emesa, a man of great vigour and bodily strength, who was afterwards made praefect of Byzantium. Those who had the management of the affairs of the church of Emesa, acting upon the forged doc.u.ments, sued some of the citizens for two centenars of gold, which they were condemned to pay, being unable to raise any objection, by reason of the length of time elapsed and their ignorance of the facts. All the inhabitants, and especially the princ.i.p.al citizens, were in great distress and highly incensed against their accusers.

When ruin already threatened the majority of the citizens, Providence came to their a.s.sistance in a most unexpected manner. Longinus ordered Priscus, the contriver of this detestable invention, to bring him all the acknowledgments; and, when he showed himself unwilling to do so, he dealt him a violent blow in the face. Priscus, unable to resist the blow dealt by a man of such bodily strength, fell backwards upon the ground, trembling and affrighted. Believing that Longinus had discovered the whole affair, he confessed; and, the whole trick being thus brought to light, the suits were stopped.

Justinian, not content with subverting the laws of the Roman Empire every day, exerted himself in like manner to do away with those of the Jews; for, if Easter came sooner in their calendar than in that of the Christians, he did not allow them to celebrate the Pa.s.sover on their own proper day or to make their offerings to G.o.d, or to perform any of their usual solemnities. The magistrates even inflicted heavy fines upon several of them, upon information that they had eaten the paschal lamb during that time, as if it were an infraction of the laws of the state. Although I could mention countless acts of this nature committed by Justinian, I will not do so, for I must draw my narrative to a close. What I have said will be sufficient to indicate the character of the man.

CHAPTER XXIX

I will, however, mention two instances of his falsehood and hypocrisy.

After having deprived Liberius (of whom I have spoken above) of his office, he put in his place John, an Egyptian by birth, surnamed Laxarion. When Pelagius, who was a particular friend of Liberius, heard of this, he inquired of Justinian whether what he had heard was true. The Emperor immediately denied it, and protested that he had done nothing of the kind. He then gave Pelagius a letter in which Liberius was ordered to hold fast to his government and by no means to give it up, and added that he had no present intention of removing Liberius. At that time there resided in Byzantium an uncle of John named Eudaemon, a man of consular rank and great wealth, who had the management of the imperial estates. Having been informed of what had taken place, he also inquired of the Emperor whether his nephew was a.s.sured in his government. Justinian, saying nothing about his letter to Liberius, sent John positive orders to hold fast to his government, since his views were still the same concerning it. Trusting to this, John ordered Liberius to quit the governor's palace, as having been deprived of his office. Liberius refused, placing equal reliance in the Emperor's despatch. John, having armed his followers, marched against Liberius, who defended himself with his guards. An engagement took place, in which several were slain, and amongst them John, the new governor.

At the earnest entreaty of Eudaemon, Liberius was immediately summoned to Byzantium. The matter was investigated before the senate, and Liberius was acquitted, as being only guilty of justifiable homicide in self-defence. Justinian, however, did not let him escape, until he had forced him to give him a considerable sum of money privately. Such was the great respect Justinian showed for the truth, and such was the faithfulness with which he kept his promises. I will here permit myself a brief digression, which may not be irrelevant. This Eudaemon died shortly afterwards, leaving behind him a large number of relatives, but no will, either written or verbal. About the same time, the chief eunuch of the court, named Euphratas, also died intestate; he left behind him a nephew, who would naturally have succeeded to his property, which was considerable. The Emperor took possession of both fortunes, appointing himself sole heir, not even leaving so much as a three-obol piece to the legal inheritors. Such was the respect Justinian showed for the laws and the kinsmen of his intimate friends.

In the same manner, without having the least claim to it, he seized the fortune of Irenaeus, who had died some time before.

Another event which took place about this time I cannot omit. There lived at Ascalon a man named Anatolius, the most distinguished member of the senate. His daughter, his only child and heiress, was married to a citizen of Caesarea, named Mamilia.n.u.s, a man of distinguished family. There was an ancient statute which provided that, whenever a senator died without male issue, the fourth part of his estate should go to the senate of the town, and the rest to the heirs-at-law. On this occasion Justinian gave a striking proof of his character. He had recently made a law which reversed this,--that, when a senator died without male issue, the fourth part only should go to the heirs, the three other parts being divided between the senate and the public treasury, although it had never happened before that the estate of any senator had been shared between the public treasury and the Emperor.

Anatolius died while this law was in force. His daughter was preparing to divide her inheritance with the public treasury and the senate of the town in accordance with the law, when she received letters from the senate of Ascalon and from the Emperor himself, in which they resigned all claim to the money, as if they had received their due.

Afterwards Mamilia.n.u.s (the son-in-law of Anatolius) died, leaving one daughter, the legal heiress to his estate. The daughter soon afterwards died, during her mother's lifetime, after having been married to a person of distinction, by whom, however, she had no issue, either male or female. Justinian then immediately seized the whole estate, giving utterance to the strange opinion, that it would be a monstrous thing that the daughter of Anatolius, in her old age, should be enriched by the property of both her husband and father.

However, to keep her from want, he ordered that she should receive a stater of gold a day, as long as she lived; and, in the decree whereby he deprived her of all her property, he declared that he bestowed this stater upon her for the sake of religion, seeing that he was always in the habit of acting with piety and virtue.

I will now show that he cared nothing even for the Blue faction, which showed itself devoted to him, when it was a question of money. There was amongst the Cilicians a certain Malthanes, the son-in-law of that Leo who had held the office of "Referendary," whom Justinian commissioned to put down seditious movements in the country. On this pretext, Malthanes treated most of the inhabitants with great cruelty.

He robbed them of their wealth, sent part to the Emperor, and claimed the rest for himself. Some endured their grievances in silence; but the inhabitants of Tarsus who belonged to the Blue faction, confident of the protection of the Empress, a.s.sembled in the market-place and abused Malthanes, who at the time was not present. When he heard of it, he immediately set out with a body of soldiers, reached Tarsus by night, sent his soldiers into the houses at daybreak, and ordered them to put the inhabitants to death. The Blues, imagining that it was an attack from a foreign foe, defended themselves as best they could.

During the dark, amongst other misfortunes, Damia.n.u.s, a member of the senate and president of the Blues in Tarsus, was slain by an arrow.

When the news reached Byzantium, the Blues a.s.sembled in the streets with loud murmurs of indignation, and bitterly complained to the Emperor of the affair, uttering the most violent threats against Leo and Malthanes. The Emperor pretended to be as enraged as they were, and immediately ordered an inquiry to be made into the conduct of the latter. But Leo, by the present of a considerable sum of money, appeased him, so that the process was stopped, and the Emperor ceased to show favour to the Blues. Although the affair remained uninvestigated, the Emperor received Malthanes, who came to Byzantium to pay his respects, with great kindness and treated him with honour.

But, as he was leaving the Emperor's presence, the Blues, who had been on the watch, attacked him in the palace, and would certainly have slain him, had not some of their own party, bribed by Leo, prevented them. Who would not consider that state to be in a most pitiable condition, in which the sovereign allows himself to be bribed to leave charges uninvestigated, and in which malcontents venture without hesitation to attack one of the magistrates within the precincts of the palace, and to lay violent hands upon him? However, no punishment was inflicted either upon Malthanes or his a.s.sailants, which is a sufficient proof of the character of Justinian.

CHAPTER x.x.x

His regulations as to the public "posts" and "spies" will show how much he cared for the interests of the state. The earlier Emperors, in order to gain the most speedy information concerning the movements of the enemy in each territory, seditions or unforeseen accidents in individual towns, and the actions of the governors and other officials in all parts of the Empire, and also in order that those who conveyed the yearly tribute might do so without danger or delay, had established a rapid service of public couriers according to the following system:--As a day's journey for an active man, they settled eight stages, sometimes fewer, but never less than five. There were forty horses in each stage and a number of grooms in proportion. The couriers who were intrusted with this duty, by making use of relays of excellent horses, frequently covered as much ground in one day by this means as they would otherwise have covered in ten, when carrying out the above commissions. In addition, the landed proprietors in each country, especially those whose estates were in the interior, reaped great benefit from these posts; for, by selling their surplus corn and fruit every year to the state for the support of the horses and grooms, they gained considerable revenue. By this means the state received, without interruption, the tribute due from each, and, in turn, reimbursed those who furnished it, and thus everything was to the advantage of the state. Such was the old system. But Justinian, having commenced by suppressing the post between Chalcedon and Dakibiza, compelled the couriers to carry all despatches from Byzantium to Helenopolis by sea. They unwillingly obeyed; for, being obliged to embark upon small skiffs, such as were generally used for crossing the strait, they ran great risk of being shipwrecked, if they met with stormy weather. For, since great speed was enjoined upon them, they were unable to wait for a favourable opportunity for putting out to sea, when the weather was calm. It is true that he maintained the primitive system on the road to Persia, but for the rest of the East, as far as Egypt, he reduced the number of posts to one, for a day's journey, and subst.i.tuted a few a.s.ses for the horses, so that the report of what was taking place in each district only reached Byzantium with difficulty and long after the events had occurred, when it was too late to apply any remedy; and, on the other hand, the owners of estates found no benefit from their products, which were either spoilt or lay idle.

The spies were organized in the following manner:--A number of men used to be supported at the state's expense, whose business it was to visit hostile countries, especially the court of Persia, on pretence of business or some other excuse, and to observe accurately what was going on; and by this means, on their return, they were able to report to the Emperors all the secret plans of their enemies, and the former, being warned in advance, took precautions and were never surprised.

This system had long been in vogue amongst the Medes. Chosroes, by giving larger salaries to his spies, none of whom were born Romans, reaped great benefit from this precaution. Justinian, having discontinued this practice, lost considerable territory, especially the country of the Lazes, which was taken by the enemy, since the Romans had no information where the King and his army were. The state also formerly kept a large number of camels, which carried the baggage on the occasion of an expedition into an hostile country. By this means the peasants were relieved from the necessity of carrying burdens, and the soldiers were well supplied with necessaries.

Justinian, however, did away with nearly all the camels, so that, when the army is marching against an enemy, everything is in an unsatisfactory condition. Such was the care he took of the most important state inst.i.tutions. It will not be out of place to mention one of his ridiculous acts. There was at Caesarea a lawyer named Evangelius, a person of distinction, who, by the favour of fortune, had ama.s.sed great riches and considerable landed estates. He afterwards purchased, for three centenars of gold, a village on the coast named Porphyreon. When Justinian heard of this, he immediately took it from him, only returning him a small portion of the price he had paid for it, at the same time declaring that it was unseemly that such a village should belong to Evangelius the lawyer. But enough of this. It remains to speak of certain innovations introduced by Justinian and Theodora. Formerly, when the senate had audience of the Emperor, it paid him homage in the following manner:--Every patrician kissed him on the right breast, and the Emperor, having kissed him on the head, dismissed him; all the rest bent the right knee before the Emperor and retired. As for the Empress, it was not customary to do homage to her. But those who were admitted to the presence of this royal pair, even those of patrician rank, were obliged to prostrate themselves upon their face, with hands and feet stretched out; and, after having kissed both his feet, they rose up and withdrew. Nor did Theodora refuse this honour. She received the amba.s.sadors of the Persians and other barbarian nations and (a thing which had never been done before) bestowed magnificent presents upon them, as if she had been absolute mistress of the Empire. Formerly, those who a.s.sociated with the Emperor called him Imperator and the Empress Imperatrix, and the other officials according to their rank. But if anyone addressed either Justinian or Theodora without the addition of the t.i.tle Sovereign Lord or Sovereign Lady, or without calling himself their slave, he was looked upon as ignorant and insolent in his language, and, as if he had committed a very grave offence and insulted those whom it least became him, he was dismissed. Formerly, only a few were granted admission to the palace, and that with difficulty; but, from the time of the accession of Justinian and Theodora, the magistrates and all other persons were continually in the palace. The reason was, that formerly the magistrates freely administered justice and laws independently, and executed the customary sentences at their own residences, and the subjects, seeing and hearing that no injustice would be done to them, had little reason to trouble the Emperor. But this pair, taking control of all business to themselves in order that they might ruin their subjects, forced them to humiliate themselves before them in a most servile manner. Thus the courts of justice were empty nearly every day, and hardly a person was to be seen in them, while in the palace there were crowds of men pushing and abusing one another, all endeavouring to be foremost in showing their servility.

Those who were on the most intimate terms with the Imperial pair remained the whole day and a great part of the night, without food or sleep, until they were worn out, and this apparent good fortune was their only reward. Others, who were free from all these cares and anxieties, were puzzled to think what had become of the wealth and treasures of the Empire. Some declared that it had all fallen into the hands of the barbarians, while others a.s.serted that the Emperor kept it locked up in secret hiding-places of his own. When Justinian--whether he be man or devil--shall have departed this life, those who are then living will be able to learn the truth.

NOTES

[1: By Mr. Hodgkin, "Italy and her Invaders," vol. iii., p. 638.]

[2: The best modern authorities are agreed that he was really the author.]

[3: Or, rather, three, the fourth being only a kind of supplement.]

[4: As internal evidence in favour of the ident.i.ty of the author of the "Secret History," and the "Wars" and "Buildings," the few following points, amongst many, may be noticed. The reference in the preface to the "History of the Wars," that the author was born at Caesarea, is more closely defined by the statement in the "Secret History" that he was from Caesarea in Palestine; in both works an account of the relations of Justinian to the Church is promised, but the promise is not fulfilled. The "Secret History" refers to the extravagant "building" mania of the Emperor. In all three works we meet with a constant recurrence of the same ideas, the same outspoken language, greatly embittered in the "Secret History," the same fanatical pragmatism, the same a.s.sociation of luck, destiny, and divinity, of guilt and expiation, the same superst.i.tion in the forms of demonology, belief in dreams and miracles, and lastly the same commonplaces, expressions, and isolated words.]

[5: "Decline and Fall," chap. xl.]

[6: The aedificia, or "Buildings," of Justinian.]

[7: The article on _Procopius_ in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (9th edition) by Professor Bryce should also be consulted.]

[8: Spearmen, lancers.]

[9: Shield-bearers.]

[10: Or "Count," Master of the royal stables.]

[11: Pumpkin.]

[12: Private secretaries.]

[13: Syn[=o]n[=e].]

[14: Epibol[=e].]

[15: Diagraph[=e].]

[16: Here the text is corrupt.]

[17: Chancellors, or, Commissioners.]

[18: Shears, scissors.]