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§ 1. Election and Reign of Justin I (A.D. 518-527)

ANASTASIUS had made no provision for a successor to the throne, and there was no Augusta to influence the election. Everything turned out in a way that no one could have foreseen. The most natural solution might have seemed to be the choice of one of the late Emperor’s three nephews, Probus, Pompeius, or Hypatius. They were men of average ability, and one of them, at least, Pompeius, did not share his uncle’s sympathy with the Monophysitic creed. But they were not ambitious, and perhaps their claims were not seriously urged.1

The High Chamberlain Amantius hoped to play the part which Urbicius had played on the death of Zeno, and he attempted to secure the throne for a certain Theocritus, otherwise unknown, who had probably no qualification but personal devotion to himself. As the attitude of the Palace guards would probably decide the election, he gave money to Justin, the Count of the Excubitors, to bribe the troops.2

In the morning (July 9) the people assembled in the Hippodrome and acclaimed the Senate. “Long live the Senate! Senate of the Romans, tu vincas! We demand our Emperor, given by God, for the army; we demand our Emperor, given by God, for the world!” The high officials, the senators, and the Patriarch had gathered in the Palace, clad most of them in mouse-coloured garments, and sat in the great hall, the Triklinos of the Nineteen Akkubita. Celer, the Master of Offices, urged them to decide quickly on a name and to act promptly before others (the army or the people) could wrest the initiative from their hands. But they were unable to agree, and in the meantime the Excubitors and the Scholarians were acting in the Hippodrome. The Excubitors proclaimed John, a tribune and a friend of Justin, and raised him on a shield. But the Blues would not have him; they threw stones and some of them were killed by the Excubitors. Then the Scholarians put forward an unnamed patrician and Master of Soldiers, but the Excubitors would not accept him and he was in danger of his life. He was rescued by the efforts of Justin’s nephew, the candidatus Justinian. The Excubitors then wished to proclaim Justinian himself, but he refused to accept the diadem. As each of these persons was proposed, their advocates knocked at the Ivory Gate, which communicated between the Palace and the Hippodrome, and called upon the chamberlains to deliver the Imperial robes. But on the announcement of the name, the chamberlains refused.

At length, the Senate ended their deliberations by the election of Justin, and constrained him to accept the purple. He appeared in the Kathisma of the Hippodrome and was favourably received by the people; the Scholarians alone, jealous of the Excubitors, resented the choice. The coronation rite was immediately performed in the Kathisma. Arrayed in the Imperial robes, which the chamberlains at last delivered, he was crowned by the Patriarch John; he took the lance and shield, and was acclaimed Basileus by the assembly. To the troops he promised a donation of five nomismata (£3/7/6) and one pound of silver for each man.

Such is the official description of the circumstances of the election of Justin.3 If it is true so far as it goes, it is easy to see that there was much behind that has been suppressed. The intrigue of Amantius is ignored. Not a word is said of the candidature of Theocritus which Justin had undertaken to support. If Justin had really used his influence with the Excubitors and the money which had been entrusted to him in the interest of Theocritus, it is hardly credible that the name of Theocritus would not have been proposed in the Hippodrome. If, on the other hand, he had worked in his own interest, as was naturally alleged after the event,4 how was it that other names, but not his, were put forward by the Excubitors? The data seem to point to the conclusion that the whole mise en scène was elaborately planned by Justin and his friends. They knew that he could not count on the support of the Scholarians, and, if he were proclaimed by his own troops alone, the success of his cause would be doubtful. The problem therefore was to manage that the initiation should proceed from the Senate, whose authority, supported by the Excubitors, would rally general consent and overpower the resistance of the Scholarian guards. It was therefore arranged that the Excubitors should propose candidates who had no chance of being chosen, with the design of working on the fears of the Senate. Justin’s friends in the Senate could argue with force: “Hasten to agree, or you will be forestalled, and some wholly unsuitable person will be thrust upon us. But you must choose one who will be acceptable to the Excubitors. Justin fulfils this condition. He may not be an ideal candidate for the throne, but he is old and moderate.” But, however the affair may have been managed by the wirepullers, Justin ascended the throne with the prestige of having been regularly nominated by the Senate, and he could announce to the Pope that “We have been elected to the Empire by the favour of the indivisible Trinity, by the choice of the highest ministers of the sacred Palace, and of the Senate, and finally by the election of the army.”5

The new Emperor, who was about sixty-six years of age, was an Illyrian peasant. He was born in the village of Bederiana in the province of Dardania, not far from Scupi, of which the name survives in the town of Üsküb, and his native language was Latin.6 Like hundreds of other country youths,7 he set forth with a bag of bread on his back and walked to Constantinople to better his fortune by enlisting in the army. Two friends accompanied him, and all three, recommended by their physical qualities, were enrolled in the Palace guards.8 Justin served in the Isaurian and Persian wars of Anastasius, rose to be Count of the Excubitors, distinguished himself in the repulse of Vitalian, and received senatorial rank.9 He had no qualifications for the government of a province, not to say of an Empire; for he had no knowledge except of military matters, and he was uneducated.10 It is even said that he could not write and was obliged, like Theoderic the Ostrogoth, to use a mechanical device for signing documents.

He had married a captive whom he had purchased and who was at first his concubine. Her name was Lupicina, but she was crowned Augusta under the more decorous name of Euphemia.11 In his successful career the peasant of Bederiana had not forgotten his humble relatives or his native place. His sister, wife of Sabbatius, lived at the neighbouring village of Tauresium12 and had two children, Petrus Sabbatius and Vigilantia. He adopted his elder nephew, brought him to Constantinople, and took care that he enjoyed the advantages of an excellent education. The young man discarded the un-Roman names of Peter and Sabbatius13 and was known by the adoptive name of Justinianus. He was enrolled among the candidati. Justin had other nephews and seems to have cared also for their fortunes. They were liberally educated and were destined to play parts of varying distinction and importance on the political scene.14

The first care of Justin was to remove the disaffected; Amantius and Theocritus were executed, and three others were punished by death or exile.15 His next was to call to Constantinople the influential leader who had shaken the throne of Anastasius. Before he came to the city, Vitalian must have been assured of the religious orthodoxy of the new Emperor, and he came prepared to take part in the reconciliation of Rome with the Eastern Churches. He was immediately created Master of Soldiers in praesenti,16 and in A.D. 520 he was consul for the year. The throne of Justin seemed to be firmly established. The relatives of Anastasius were loyal; Pompeius co-operated with Justinian and Vitalian in the restoration of ecclesiastical unity. Marinus, the trusted counseller of the late sovran, was Praetorian Prefect of the East in A.D. 519.17

The reunion with Rome, which involved the abandonment of the Henotikon of Zeno, the restoration of the prestige of the Council of Chalcedon, and the persecution of the Monophysites, was the great inaugural act of the new dynasty.18 The Emperor’s nephew, Justinian, was deeply interested in theological questions, and was active in bringing about the ecclesiastical revolution. His intellectual powers and political capacity must have secured to him from the beginning a preponderant influence over his old uncle, and he would naturally regard himself as the destined successor to the throne. Immediately after Justin’s election, he was appointed Count of the Domestics; and then he was invested with the rank of patrician, and was created a Master of Soldiers in praesenti.19 His detractors said that he was unscrupulous in removing possible competitors for political influence. The execution of Amantius was attributed to his instigation.20 Vitalian was a more formidable rival, and in the seventh month of his consulship Vitalian was murdered in the Palace. For this crime, rightly or wrongly, Justinian was also held responsible.21 During the remaining seven years of the reign we may, without hesitation, regard him as the directing power of the Empire.22 He held the consulship in A.D. 521 and entertained the populace with magnificent spectacles.23 When he was afterwards elevated to the rank of nobilissimus,24 it was a recognition of his position as the apparent heir to the throne. We may wonder why he did not receive the higher title of Caesar; perhaps Justin could not overcome some secret jealousy of the brilliant nephew whose fortune he had made.

Justinian’s power behind the throne was sustained by the enthusiastic support of the orthodox ecclesiastics, but he is said to have sought another means of securing his position, by attracting the devotion of one of the Factions of the Hippodrome. Anastasius had shown favour to the Greens; and it followed almost as a matter of course that Justinian should patronise the Blues. In each party there was a turbulent section which was a standing menace to public order, known as the Partisans,25 and Justinian is alleged to have enlisted the Blue Partisans in his own interest. He procured official posts for them, gave money to those who needed it, and above all protected them against the consequences of their riots. It is certain that during the reign of Justin, both the capital and the cities of the East were frequently troubled by insurrections against the civil authorities and sanguinary fights; and it was the Blue Faction which bore the chief share of the guilt.26 The culminating scandal occurred in A.D. 524.27 On this occasion a man of some repute was murdered by the Partisans in St. Sophia. Justinian happened to be dangerously ill at the time, and the matter was laid before the Emperor. His advisers seized the opportunity to urge upon him the necessity of taking rigorous measures to suppress the intolerable licence of these enemies of society. Justin ordered the Prefect of the City, Theodotus Colocynthius, to deal out merciless justice to the malefactors.28 There were many executions, and good citizens rejoiced at the spectacle of assassins and plunderers being hanged, burned, or beheaded.29 Theodotus, however, was immediately afterwards deprived of his office and exiled to Jerusalem, and his disgrace has been attributed to the resentment of Justinian who had unexpectedly recovered from his disease.30 However this may have been, the Blues had received an effective lesson, and during the last years of the reign not only the capital but the provincial cities also enjoyed tranquillity.31

There were few events of capital importance during the reign of Justin. Its chief significance lay in the new orientation of religious policy which was inaugurated at the very beginning, and in the long apprenticeship to statecraft which it imposed on Justinian before the full power and responsibility of government devolved on him. Next to him the most influential minister was Proclus the Quaestor, an incorruptible man who had the reputation of an Aristides.32 There was some danger of a breach with the Ostrogothic ruler of Italy in A.D. 525-526, but this menace was averted by his death,33 and the Empire enjoyed peace till the last year of the reign, when war broke out with Persia.

In the spring of A.D. 527 Justin was stricken down by a dangerous illness, and he yielded to the solicitations of the Senate to co-opt Justinian as his colleague. The act of coronation was performed in the great Triklinos in the Palace (on April 4), and it seems that the Patriarch, in the absence of the Emperor, placed the diadem on the head of the new Augustus. The subsequent ceremonies were carried out in the Delphax, where the Imperial guards were assembled, and not, as was usual, in the Hippodrome.34 Justin recovered, but only to survive for a few months. He died on August 1, from an ulcer in the foot where, in one of his old campaigns, he had been wounded by an arrow.35

§ 2. Justinian

The Emperor Justinian was about forty-five years old when he ascended the throne.36 Of his personal appearance we can form some idea from the description of contemporary writers37 and from portraits on his coins and in mosaic pictures.38 He was of middle height, neither thin nor fat; his smooth shaven face was round, he had a straight nose, a firm chin, curly hair which, as he aged, became thin in front. A slight smile seems to have been characteristic. The bust which appears on the coinage issued when he had reached the age of fifty-six, shows that there was some truth in the resemblance which a hostile writer detected between his countenance and that of the Emperor Domitian.

His intellectual talents were far above the ordinary standard of Roman Emperors, and if fortune had not called him to the throne, he would have attained eminence in some other career. For with his natural gifts he possessed an energy which nothing seemed to tire; he loved work, and it is not improbable that he was the most hardworking man in the Empire. Though his mind was of that order which enjoys occupying itself with details, it was capable of conceiving large ideas and embracing many interests. He permitted himself no self-indulgence; and his temperance was ascetic. In Lent he used to fast entirely for two days, and during the rest of the season he abstained from wine and lived on wild herbs dressed with oil and vinegar. He slept little and worked far into the night.39 His manners were naturally affable. As Emperor he was easily accessible, and showed no offence if a bold or tactless subject spoke with a freedom which others would have resented as disrespectful. He was master of his temper, and seldom broke out into anger.40 He could exhibit, too, the quality of mercy. Probus, the nephew of Anastasius, accused of reviling him, was tried for treason. When the report of the trial was laid before the Emperor he tore it up and said to Probus, “I pardon you for your offence against me. Pray that God also may pardon you.”41

The reign of a ruler endowed with these estimable qualities, animated by a strong and unflagging sense of duty, devoting himself day and night to the interests of the State42 for thirty-eight years, could not fail to be memorable. Memorable assuredly it was. Justinian wrought not only for his own time but for posterity. He enhanced the prestige of the Empire and enlarged its borders. He bequeathed, by his monumental work in Roman law, an enduring heritage to Europe; while the building of the Church of St. Sophia would in itself be an imperishable title to the gratitude of men. These achievements, however, are only one side of the picture. The successes and glories of his reign were to be purchased at a heavy cost, and the strain which he imposed on the resources of the State was followed by decline and disaster after his death. Perhaps no more scathing denunciation of the character, aims, and methods of a ruler has ever been written than the notorious indictment which the contemporary historian Procopius committed to the pages of a Secret History, wherein Justinian is represented as a malignant demon in human form.43 Though the exaggerations of the writer are so gross and manifest that his venomous pen defeats its own object, there is sufficient evidence from other sources to show that the reign of Justinian was, in many ways, far from being a blessing to his subjects.

The capital error of Justinian’s policy was due to a theory which, though not explicitly formulated till quite recent times, has misled many eminent and well-meaning sovrans and statesmen in all periods of history. It is the theory that the expansion of a state and the exaltation of its prestige and honour are ends in themselves, and valuable without any regard to the happiness of the men and women of whom the state consists. If this proposition had been presented nakedly either to Justinian or to Louis XIV, he would have indignantly repudiated it, but both these monarchs, like many another, acted on it, with most unhappy consequences for their subjects. Justinian possessed imagination. He had formed a high ideal of the might and majesty of the Empire of which he was the master. It humiliated him to contrast its moderate limits with the vast extent of territory over which the word of Constantine or Theodosius the Great had been law. He was dazzled by the idea of restoring the old boundaries of the Roman Empire. For though he only succeeded in recovering, as we shall see, Africa, Italy, and a small strip of Spain, his designs reached to Gaul, if not to Britain. After he had conquered the African provinces he announced his ambitious policy. “We have good hopes that God will grant us to restore our authority over the remaining countries which the ancient Romans possessed to the limits of both oceans and lost by subsequent neglect.”44 In drawing up this magnificent programme, Justinian did not consider whether such an extension of his government would make his subjects, who had to bear the costs of his campaigns, happier or better. He assumed that whatever increased the power and glory of the state must also increase the well-being of its members. The resources of the state were not more than sufficient to protect the eastern frontier against the Persians and the Danubian against the barbarians of the north; and if the Emperor had been content to perform these duties more efficiently than his predecessors, he would unquestionably have deserved better of his subjects.

His conception of the greatness of the Empire was indissolubly associated with his conception of the greatness of its sovran, and he asserted the absolutism of the autocrat in a degree which no Emperor had hitherto attempted.45 This was conspicuously shown in the dictatorship which he claimed over the Church. He was the first Emperor who studied dogmatic questions independently and systematically, and he had all the confidence of a professional theologian. A theologian on the throne is a public danger, and the principle of persecuting opinion, which had been fitfully and mildly pursued in the fifth century, was applied rigorously and systematically under Justinian. His determination to be supreme in all departments made him impatient of advice; he did not like his commands to be discussed, and he left to his ministers little latitude for decision. His passion for dealing personally with the minute details of government had the same unfortunate results as in the case of Philip II.46 Like other autocrats, he was jealous and suspicious, and ready to listen to calumnies against his most loyal servants. And there was a vein of weakness in his character. He faltered at one supremely critical moment of his reign, and his consort, Theodora, had an influence over him which no woman could have exercised over an Augustus or a Constantine.

§ 3. Theodora

It was probably before he had any prospect of the throne that Justinian formed a violent attachment to a girl of exceptional charms and talents, but of low birth and blemished reputation. Theodora had already borne at least one child to a lover47 when she captured the heart of the future Emperor. According to a tradition — and perhaps she countenanced this story herself, for she could not deny the humility of her birth — she had come from Paphlagonia to the capital, where she was discovered by Justinian, making a scanty living by spinning wool.48 But contemporary rumours which were circulated by her enemies assigned to her a less respectable origin, and told a circumstantial story of a girlhood spent in singular infamy. She was said to be the daughter of Acacius, who was employed by the Green Faction at Constantinople as keeper of the wild beasts,49 which they exhibited at public spectacles. When Acacius died his widow married his successor, but this man was soon deprived of the office in favour of another who paid a bribe to obtain it.50 The woman sent her three little daughters, Comito,51 Theodora, and Anastasia, in the guise of suppliants with fillets on their heads, to beg the Greens assembled in the Hippodrome to reinstate their stepfather who had been so unjustly treated. The Greens obdurately refused; but the Blues had compassion and appointed the man to be their own bear-keeper, as the post happened to be vacant. This incident of her childhood was said to be the explanation of the Empress Theodora’s implacable hostility towards the Greens. The three sisters, when they were older, went on the stage, and in those days an actress was almost synonymous with a prostitute. According to the scandalous gossip, which is recorded with malicious relish in the Secret History of Procopius, Theodora showed exceptional precocity and shamelessness in a career of vice. Her adventures were not confined to Constantinople. She went to the Libyan Pentapolis as the mistress of a new governor, but having quarrelled with him she betook herself to Alexandria, and worked her way back to the capital, where she entrapped Justinian.52

This chapter of her biography, which reposes solely on the testimony of enemies, has more value as a picture of contemporary manners than as an indictment of the morals of Theodora. It is difficult to believe that if her girlhood had been so steeped in vice and infamy as this scandalous document asserts, she could have so completely changed as to develop into a matron whose conjugal chastity the same enemies could not seriously impugn, although they were ready to insinuate suspicions.53 But it would be foolish to argue that the framework of the story is entirely fictitious. Theodora may have been the daughter of a bear-keeper, and she may have appeared on the stage. And her youth may have been stormy; we know that she was the mother of an illegitimate child.

After the rise in his fortunes through the accession of his uncle, Justinian seems to have secured for his mistress the rank of a patrician.54 He wished to marry her, but the Empress Euphemia resolutely opposed this step, and it was not till after her death55 that Theodora became the wife of Justinian. When he was raised to the throne, she was, as a matter of course, crowned Augusta.

Her beauty and charm were generally acknowledged. We may imagine her as a small pale brunette, with a delicate oval face and a solemn intense expression in her large black eyes.56 Portraits of her are preserved in marble, in mosaics, and on ivory. There is a life-size bust of her at Milan, which was originally coloured; the tip of the nose is broken off, but the rest is well preserved, and we can see the attractiveness of her face.57 Then we have two ivory tablets representing her in imperial robes.58 These three portraits show her probably as she was from the age of thirty to thirty-five. She is visibly an older woman in the mosaic picture in the church of S. Vitale at Ravenna (c. A.D. 547), but the resemblance to the bust can be discerned in the shape of the face, in the mouth, and in the eyes. But the dominion which she exercised over Justinian was due more to her mental qualities than to her physical charms. A contemporary writer praises her as “superior in intelligence to all the world,”59 and all that we know of her conduct as Empress shows that she was a woman of exceptional brain and courage. Her influence in the Emperor’s counsels was publicly acknowledged in a way which had no precedent in the past. In a law which aimed at suppressing corruption in the appointment of provincial governors, the Emperor declared that in framing it “we have taken as partner in our counsels our most pious consort given to us by God.”60 At the end of the law an oath of allegiance is prescribed. The official is to swear loyalty to “our divine and pious despots, Justinian, and Theodora, the consort of his throne.” But although Justinian’s devotion to his wife prompted him to increase her dignity and authority in the eyes of the Empire in unusual ways, it would be a mistake to suppose that legally she possessed powers which former Empresses had not enjoyed or that she was co-regent in the constitutional sense.61 Custom was strained to permit her unusual privileges. For instance, she is said to have received foreign envoys and presented them with gifts “as if the Roman Empire were under her rule.”62 Chosroes was amazed when his minister Zabergan showed him a letter which he had received from Theodora urging him to press his master to make peace.63 Such incidents might well give the impression that the Empire was ruled by two co-equal sovrans, and some thought that Theodora had greater power than Justinian himself.64 Such power as she possessed she owed to her personal influence over her husband and to his toleration of her intervention in public affairs.

She was not indeed content to pursue her aims merely by the legitimate means of persuading the monarch. When she knew that he had resolutely determined on a line of policy which was not in accordance with her own wishes, she did not scruple to act independently. The most important matter in which their views diverged was ecclesiastical policy. Theodora was a devoted Monophysite, and one of her constant preoccupations was to promote the Monophysitic doctrine and to protect its adherents from the penal consequences which they incurred under Justinian’s laws. Her husband must have been well aware that she had an intelligence department of her own and that secret intrigues were carried on of which he would not have approved. But she was clever enough to calculate just how far she could go.

Her power of engaging in independent political action was due to her economic independence. She had large financial resources at her disposal, for which apparently she had to render no account. The personal expenses of an Emperor’s consort and the maintenance of her household were provided by estates in Asia Minor which were managed by a high steward known as the Curator of the House of Augusta,65 who was responsible to her. Justinian appears to have increased these estates considerably for the benefit of Theodora.66 He gave her large donations on the occasion of her marriage.67 The house known as the palace of Hormisdas, in which Justinian had resided before his elevation to the throne, was enlarged and enclosed within the precincts of the Great Palace, and placed at the disposal of the Empress.68

Theodora did much to deserve the reputation of a beneficent queen, always ready to use her influence for redressing wrongs,69 and particularly solicitous to assist the unhappy of her own sex.70 To her initiative are ascribed the stringent laws which were passed to suppress the traffic in young girls, which flourished as actively then as in modern Europe, and was conducted by similar methods, which the legislator graphically describes. Agents used to travel through the provinces to entice to the capital poor girls, sometimes under ten years of age, by the bait of fine clothes and an easy life. Indigent parents were easily persuaded by a few gold coins to consent to the ruin of their daughters. The victims, when they came to the city, were fed and clothed miserably, and kept shut up in the houses of ill-fame, and they were forced to sign written contracts with their infamous masters. Sometimes compassionate patrons of these establishments offered to deliver one of these slaves from her misery by marrying her, but the procurers generally refused to consent. The new edict forbade the trade and ordered that all procurers should be banished from Constantinople.71 The principle of compensation, however, seems to have been applied. The patrons were allowed to state on oath how much money they had given to the parents of each girl; the average price was five nomismata, and Theodora paid the total out of her private purse.72 To receive unfortunate women who abandoned a life of shame, a palace on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, not far from the Black Sea, was converted into a convent which was known as Metanoia or Repentance.73

Theodora was perhaps too eager to interfere, as a sort of beneficent providence, in the private affairs of individual persons, and her offices were not always appreciated. She is said to have forced two sisters, who belonged to an old senatorial family and had lost their husbands, to marry against their will vulgar men who were utterly unworthy of them.74 And her enemies alleged that in her readiness to espouse the cause of women she committed grave acts of injustice and did considerable harm. Wives who were divorced for adultery used to appeal to the Empress and bring accusations against their husbands, and she always took their part and compelled the unfortunate men to pay double the dowry, if she did not cause them to be whipped and thrown into prison. The result was that men put up with the infidelity of their wives rather than run such risks.75 It is impossible to decide how much truth there may be in these charges, but they illustrate Theodora’s desire to be the protectress and champion of her own sex.

There can be little doubt that the Empress used her position to exercise a patronage in appointments to offices, which was not always in the public interest, and that she had few scruples in elevating her favourites and disgracing men who displeased her.76 It must, however, be confessed that in the two cases in which we have good evidence that she intervened to ruin officials, her intervention was beneficial. Thus she procured the disgrace of an Imperial secretary named Priscus, an unprincipled man who had grown rich at the public expense. He was alleged to have spoken against her, and as she could not prevail on Justinian to take action, she caused the man to be put on board a ship and transported to Cyzicus, where he was tonsured. Justinian acquiesced in the accomplished fact and confiscated his property.77 Procopius, in his Secret History, has several stories to tell of cruel punishments which she inflicted privately on persons who had offended her. Lurid tales were whispered of the terrible secret dungeons of her palace in which men disappeared for ever,78 and the known fact that she had the means of maintaining heretics in concealment for years made gossip of this kind appear credible. Whatever may be the truth about her alleged vengefulness and cruelty, it is certain that she was feared.

There was no disguise in the attitude which she assumed as head of the ecclesiastical opposition to Justinian’s policy, and he must have been fully aware that secret intrigues were carried on which he would not have sanctioned. It seemed indeed difficult to believe that a man of his autocratic ideas would have tolerated an independent power beside his own; and the theory was put forward that this apparent discord between their aims and views was a political artifice deliberately planned to blind their subjects, and to facilitate the transactions which the emperors could not openly permit.79 This theory may contain a small measure of truth so far as ecclesiastical policy is concerned. It may have been convenient to the Emperor to allow the severities which his policy forced him to adopt against the Monophysites to be mitigated by the clandestine and illegal protection which the Empress afforded to them. But otherwise the theory can hardly be entertained seriously. We can only regard the latitude which was allowed to Theodora as due to Justinian’s weakness. And she was clever enough to know how far she could venture.

Her habits presented contrast to the temperance and simplicity of Justinian. She spent a long time in her bath. At her meals she indulged in every kind of food and drink. She slept long both at night and in her daily siesta.80 She spent many months of the year in the suburban palaces on the seashore, especially at Hêrion (on the coast of Bithynia, opposite the Islands of the Princes), which Justinian enlarged and improved.81 Sometimes she visited the hot springs of Pythia (in Bithynia), where Justinian also built an Imperial residence. On these occasions she was attended by an immense retinue of patricians and chamberlains.82 For Theodora had all a parvenue’s love of pomp and show, and she was probably encouraged by the Emperor, who, though simple in his own tastes, thought much of public splendour and elaborate ceremonial as a means of enhancing the Imperial majesty. We are told that new and abasing forms of etiquette were introduced at court. When the Senate appeared in the presence of the Emperor, it had been the custom for one of the patricians to kiss the sovran on the right breast, and the sovran replied to the salutation by kissing the head of the patrician. No corresponding ceremony was practised in the case of the Empress. Under Justinian and Theodora it became obligatory that all persons, of whatever rank, should prostrate themselves on entering the presence of the Emperor and of the Empress alike. The spirit of oriental servility in the Palace was shown by the fact that officials and members of the court who, in talking among themselves used to speak of the sovrans as the “Emperor” and the “Empress” (Basileus and Basilis), now began to designate them as the “Lord” and the “Lady” (Despotes and Despoina) and described themselves as their slaves; and any one who did not adopt these forms was considered to have committed an unpardonable solecism.83

It is not improbable that, if Justinian had wedded a daughter of one of the senatorial families, many people would have been happier, and the atmosphere of the Palace would have been less dangerously charged with suspicion and intrigue. But, if Theodora was greedy of power and often unscrupulous in her methods, her energy and determination on one occasion rescued the throne, and on another rendered a signal service to the community. And there is no reason to suppose that in her conduct generally she was not honestly convinced that, if she employed irregular means, she was acting in the true interests of the State.

§ 4. John the Cappadocian, Praetorian Prefect of the East

The brilliancy of Justinian’s reign did not bring happiness or contentment to his subjects. His determination to increase the power of the throne and retain his government more completely in his own hands caused dissatisfaction in the senatorial circles and inevitably led to tyranny; and his ambitious plans of expansion involved expenses that could only be met by increasing the financial burdens which already weighed too heavily on the people.

The frugal policy of Anastasius had bequeathed to his successor a reserve of 320,000 lbs. of gold (about 14½ millions sterling). In the reign of Justin these savings were dissipated, as well as a further amount of 400,000 lbs. which had come into the treasury in addition to the regular revenue.84 A heavy tax on the exchequer was caused by the terrible earthquake of May A.D. 526, which laid the city of Antioch in ruins and destroyed, it is said, 250,000 people.85 In the following year war broke out with Persia, and when Justinian came to the throne, the financial position was not such as to justify any extraordinary enterprises. It is asserted by a civil servant who had a long career in the office of the Praetorian Prefect of the East, that the unfavourable financial situation was chiefly caused by the incompetence of those who had held the Prefecture in the reign of Justin.86 Justinian after some time found a man for the post who knew how to fill the treasury.

John, a native of Caesarea in Cappadocia, began as a clerk in the office of a Master of Soldiers. In this capacity he became, by some chance, known to Justinian, and he was promoted to the post of logothete, a name which had now come into general use for those responsible officials who, under the Praetorian Prefect, controlled the operations of the subordinate assessors and collectors of taxes in the provinces.87 In the case of Marinus, this post had been a stepping-stone to the Prefecture itself, and John had the same luck. He was first raised to the rank of an illustris, and became Praetorian Prefect before A.D. 531.88 He had not the qualifications which might have been thought indispensable for the duties of this ministry, for he had not received a liberal education, and could barely read and write; but he had the qualification which was most essential in the eyes of the Emperor, talent and resourcefulness in raising money. His physical strength and energy were enormous, and in difficulties he was never at a loss.89 He is described as the boldest and cleverest man of his time.90 But he was absolutely unscrupulous in his methods, and while he supplied the Emperor with the funds which he required, he also became himself enormously rich and spent his money on gluttony and debauchery. “He did not fear God, nor regard man.” The provinces of Lydia and Cilicia were a conspicuous scene of his operations. He procured the appointment of another Cappadocian, also named John, to the governorship of Lydia — a man after his own heart, enormously fat and popularly known as Maxilloplumacius (Flabby-jaw). With the help of this lieutenant, the Prefect ruined Lydia and its capital, Philadelphia. He visited the province himself, and we are told that when he had done with it, he had left not a vessel in a house, nor a wife, a virgin, or a youth unviolated. The exaggeration is pardonable, for our informant was born at Philadelphia. The same writer gives particular instances — some of which had come under his own observation — of the violent means to which John the Cappadocian resorted to extort money from rich persons. He had dark dungeons in the Prefect’s residence, and he made use of torture and painful fetters.91

While contemporary writers agree in painting John as a coarse monster, without a single redeeming quality, we must make some allowance for exaggeration. It is unlikely that he would have enjoyed so long the confidence of the Emperor if his sole recommendation had been skill in plundering the provinces. As a matter of fact, we shall see that during his second tenure of the Prefecture, which lasted about nine years, a series of provincial reforms was carried through which intimately concerned his own sphere of administration and in some respects diminished his power. This could not have been done without his co-operation, and we cannot fairly withhold from him part of whatever credit the legislation deserves. We may conjecture that he won and retained his influence over the Emperor, not only through his success in replenishing the treasury, but also partly through his independence, which was displayed when he openly opposed the project of conquering Africa, and partly through the fact that he was not hampered by conservative prejudices. It was chiefly his indifference to the traditions of the civil service that made him unpopular among the officials of the Prefecture.

Besides increasing the revenue by fair means and foul, John had recourse to economies which were stigmatised by contemporary opinion as injurious to the public interest. He cut off or reduced the service of the State post, with the exception of the main line to the Persian frontier. The post from Chalcedon to Dakibiza was abolished, and replaced by a service of boats to Helenopolis, while in southern Asia Minor and Syria asses were substituted for horses and the speed of travelling was diminished. The results were twofold. The news of disasters in the provinces, which demanded prompt action, was slow in reaching Constantinople. More serious was the consequence for the farmers in the inland provinces, who, deprived of the public means of transport, were obliged to provide for the transmission of their produce to the ports to be conveyed to the capital. Large quantities of corn rotted in the granaries; the husbandmen were impoverished; and the Prefect’s officials pressed for payment of the taxes in gold.92 Multitudes of destitute people left their homes and went to Constantinople.93

Justinian was well satisfied with the fruits of John’s administration, and only too ready to shut his eyes to the methods by which the funds he needed were procured. How far he was really innocent it is impossible to determine, but we are assured that the ministers and courtiers always praised the Prefect to the Emperor, even though they had personal grievances against him. At length Theodora, who disliked the Cappadocian and was well acquainted with his iniquities, endeavoured to open Justinian’s eyes and to show him that, if the tyrannical administration were allowed to continue, his own position would be endangered. If her arguments produced any effect on his mind, he wavered and postponed action94 until action was suddenly forced on him by a revolutionary outbreak which well-nigh cost him his throne.

§ 5. The Nika Revolt (A.D. 532)

The famous rising at Constantinople, which occurred in the first month of A.D. 532 and wrecked the city, was the result of widely prevailing discontent with the administration, but it began with a riot of the Hippodrome factions which in ordinary circumstances would have been easily suppressed.95 We saw how Justinian in his uncle’s reign patronised the Blues and made use of them as a political support. But when he was safely seated on the throne, he resolved no longer to tolerate the licence of the factions, from the consequences of which he had formerly protected the Blues. Immediately after his accession he laid injunctions on the authorities in every city that the disorders and crimes of the factions should be punished impartially.96

A number of persons belonging to both factions had been arrested for a riot in which there had been loss of life. Eudaemon, the Prefect of the City, held an inquiry, and finding seven of the prisoners guilty of murder, he condemned four to be beheaded, and three to be hanged. But in the case of two the hangman blundered and twice the bodies fell, still alive, to the ground. Then the monks of St. Conon, which was close to the place of execution, interfered, and taking up the two criminals, one of whom was a Blue, the other a Green, put them in a boat and rowed them across the Golden Horn to the asylum of the church of St. Laurentius.97 The Prefect, on hearing what had occurred, sent soldiers to guard the church.98

The ides of January fell three days later (Tuesday), and, according to custom, horse races were held in the Hippodrome, and the Emperor was present. Both the Blues and the Greens importuned the Emperor with loud prayers to show mercy to the two culprits who had been rescued by accident from the gallows. No answer was accorded, and at the twenty-second race the spectators were amazed to hear the unexpected exclamation, “Long live the humane Greens and Blues!” The cry announced that the two parties would act in concert to force the government to grant a pardon, and it is probable that their leaders had previously arranged to co-operate. When the races were over, the factions agreed on a watchword, nika, “conquer,” and the rising which followed was known as the Nika Revolt. The united factions were known for the time as the Green-Blues (Prasino-venetoi).

In the evening the mob of rioters assembled at the Praetorium and demanded from the Prefect of the City what he intended to do with the refugees in St. Laurentius. No answer was given, and the rioters broke into the prison, released the criminals who were confined in it, killed some of the officials, and set fire to the building, which was partly burned. Elated by success they rushed eastward to the Augusteum and committed graver acts of incendiarism. They fired the Chalke, the entrance of the Great Palace, and not only was this consumed, but the flames spread northward to the Senate-house and the church of St. Sophia. These buildings were burned down.99

On the following morning (Wednesday, January 14) the Emperor ordered the races to be renewed. But the Blues and Greens were not in the humour for witnessing races. They set on fire the buildings at the northern end of the Hippodrome, and the conflagration destroyed the neighbouring baths of Zeuxippus with the portico of the Augusteum. It is probable that on this occasion Justinian did not appear in the Kathisma, or face the multitudes who were now clamouring in the Hippodrome, no longer interceding for the lives of the two wretches who had escaped the hangman, but demanding that three unpopular ministers should be deprived of their offices. The demonstration was directed against Eudaemon, Prefect of the City, Tribonian the Quaestor, and John of Cappadocia, and the situation had become so serious that the Emperor decided to yield.100 Tryphon was appointed Prefect of the City, Basilides Quaestor, and Phocas, a man of the highest probity, was persuaded to undertake the office of Praetorian Prefect.

These concessions would probably have satisfied the factions and ended the trouble, like similar concessions in previous reigns, if the decision had depended solely on the leaders of the Blues and Greens. But the movement now wore an aspect totally different from that of the previous day. We saw how the city had been filled by throngs of miserable country folk from the provinces who had been ruined by the fiscal administration of the Praetorian Prefect and were naturally animated by bitter resentment against the Emperor and the government. It was inevitable that they should take part in the disturbances;101 it was at least a good opportunity to compass the fall of the detested Cappadocian; and the riot thus assured the character and proportions of a popular rising. But there were other forces in the background, forces which aimed not merely at a reform of the administration, but at a change in the dynasty. The policy of Justinian in seeking to make his power completely independent of the Senate and the Imperial Council had caused deep animosity in the senatorial class, and the disaffected senators seized the opportunity to direct the rising against the throne.102 We must attribute to the secret agitation of these men and their agents the fact that the removal of the obnoxious ministers, especially of John, failed to pacify the people.

The plan was to set on the throne one of the nephews of Anastasius, unfortunate victims of their kinship to an Emperor. For we must acquit them of any ambitious designs of their own. They had been well treated by Justin and Justinian, and their only desire was to live in peace. Pompeius and Hypatius were out of the reach of the insurgents; they and many other senators were with Justinian in the Palace. It was therefore decided to proclaim Probus Emperor, and the mob rushed to his house. But they did not find him, for, fearing what might happen, he had left the city. In their angry disappointment they burned his house.

It was assuredly high time for the Emperor to employ military force to restore order. But the Palace guards, the Scholarians and Excubitors, were unwilling to do anything to defend the throne. They had no feeling of personal devotion to Justinian, and they decided to do nothing and await events. Fortunately for Justinian there happened to be troops of a more irregular kind in the city, and two loyal and experienced commanders. Belisarius, who as Master of Soldiers in the East had been conducting the war against Persia, had recently been recalled, and he had in his service a considerable body of armed retainers, chiefly of Gothic103 race. Mundus, a general who had done good service in the defence of the Danube, was also in the capital with a force of Heruls. But all the soldiers on whom the Emperor could count can hardly have reached the number of 1500.

It was perhaps on Thursday (January 15)104 that Belisarius rode forth at the head of Goths and Heruls to suppress the revolution. There was a battle, possibly in the Augusteum; many were killed; but the soldiers were too few to win a decisive victory, and the attack only exasperated the people. The clergy, it may be noted, seem to have made some vain attempts to restore order.105

During the two following days there was desultory street fighting, and another series of conflagrations. On Friday the mob again set fire to the Praetorium, which had only been partly damaged, but there was a strong north wind which blew the flames away from the building. They also set fire to the baths of Alexander, and the same wind carried the conflagration to the neighbouring hospice of Eubulus and hence to the church of St. Irene and the hospice of Sampson. On Saturday there was a conflict between the soldiers and the insurgents in the street which led northward from Middle Street to the Basilica and the quarter of Chalkoprateia.106 It would appear that some of the mob had occupied the Octagon, a building close to the Basilica, and the soldiers set it on fire. The same fatal north wind was blowing, and the flames, wafted southwards, spread to the church of St. Theodore Sphoracius and to the palace of Lausus, which was consumed with all its treasures, and thence raged along Middle Street, in the direction of the Forum of Constantine, destroying the colonnades and the church of St. Aquilina.107 We can imagine how great must have been the alarm in the Palace, which was almost in a state of siege.108 Justinian could not trust his guards, and he had strong and not unjustified suspicions that many of the senators who surrounded him were traitors. Fearing their treachery, he ordered them all to leave the Palace on Saturday at nightfall,109 except a few like the Cappadocian, whose loyalty was certain or whose interests were bound up with his own. He particularly suspected Hypatius and Pompeius, and when they protested against deserting him, his suspicions only grew stronger, and he committed the blunder of dismissing them.

On Sunday morning (January 18) the Emperor made an effort in person to pacify the people. He appeared in the Kathisma of the Hippodrome with a copy of the gospels in his hands, and a large crowd assembled. He swore on the holy book that he would grant an amnesty without any reservations and comply with the demands of his subjects. But the great part of the crowd was bitterly hostile. They cried, “You are perjuring yourself,”110 and “You would keep this oath to us as you kept your oath to vitalian.” And there were shouts of “Long live Hypatius!” Meanwhile it had become known that the nephews of Anastasius had left the Palace. The people thronged to the house of Hypatius, and in spite of his own reluctance and the entreaties of his wife Maria, who cried that he was being taken to his death, carried him to the Forum of Constantine, where he was crowned with a golden chain wreathed like a diadem.

A council was then held by Hypatius and the senators who were supporting his cause.111 Here we can see clearly that the insurrection was guided and fomented by men of high position who were determined to overthrow Justinian. The question was debated whether the Palace should be attacked immediately. One of the senators, Origen, advised delay. He proposed that the new Emperor should occupy for the moment one of the smaller Imperial palaces112 and prosecute the war against his rival with deliberation, leaving nothing to chance. But his advice did not prevail, and Hypatius, who was himself in favour of prompt action, proceeded to the Hippodrome and was installed in the Kathisma. The insurgents crowded the huge building in dense masses, and reviled Justinian and Theodora.113

In the meantime, another council was being held in the Palace. The situation seemed desperate. To many, including the Emperor himself, there seemed no resource but escape by sea. John the Cappadocian recommended flight to Heraclea, and Belisarius agreed. This course would have been adopted had it not been for the intervention of the Empress Theodora, whose indomitable courage mastered the wavering spirits of her husband and his councillors. A writer, who may well have heard the scene described by Belisarius himself, professes to reproduce her short speech, and even his sophisticated style hardly spoils the effect of her vigorous words:

The present occasion is, I think, too grave to take regard of the convention that it is not meet for a woman to speak among men. Those whose dearest interests are exposed to extreme danger are justified in thinking only of the wisest course of action. Now in my opinion, on the present occasion, if ever, flight is inexpedient even if it should bring us safety. It is impossible for a man, when he has come into the world, not to die; but for one who has reigned it is intolerable to be an exile. May I never exist without this purple robe and may I never live to see the day on which those who meet me shall not address me as “Queen.”114 If you wish, O Emperor, to save yourself, there is no difficulty; we have ample funds. Yonder is the sea, and there are the ships. Yet reflect whether, when you have once escaped to a place of security, you will not prefer death to safety. I agree with an old saying that “Empire is a fair winding-sheet.”115 Theodora’s dauntless energy communicated itself to her hearers, and they resolved to remain and fight.

In the Hippodrome it was believed that they had already fled. Hypatius, we are told, still doubtful of his chances of success, had secretly sent a message to the Palace, advising Justinian to attack the people crowded in the Hippodrome. Ephraem, the messenger, gave the message to Thomas, an Imperial secretary, who, ignorantly or designedly, informed him that Justinian had taken to flight.116 Ephraem proclaimed the news in the Hippodrome, and Hypatius now played the Imperial part with confidence, but the people were soon undeceived.

Justinian sent out a trusted eunuch, named Narses, with a well-filled purse to sow dissensions and attempt to detach the Blue faction from the rebellion.117 He could insinuate that Hypatius, like his uncle, would be sure to protect their rivals the Greens, and remind them of the favour which Justinian had shown them in time past and of the unwavering goodwill of Theodora. While Narses fulfilled this mission, Belisarius and Mundus prepared to attack. At first Belisarius thought it would be feasible to reach the Kathisma directly from the Palace and pluck the tyrant from his throne. But the way lay through a building occupied by a portion of the guards, and they refused to let him pass.118 The Emperor then ordered him to lead his troops, as best he could, through the ruins of the Chalke into the Augusteum. With great difficulty, climbing through the debris of half-burnt buildings, they made their way round to the western entrance of the Hippodrome and stationed themselves just inside, at the portico of the Blues, which was immediately to the right of the Kathisma.119 In order to gain access to the Kathisma itself, it would have been necessary to pass though a small gate on the left, which was shut and guarded. If Belisarius attempted to force this gate, his men would have been exposed to an attack from the crowd in the rear. He therefore determined to charge the people. He drew his sword and gave the word. Though many of the populace had arms, there was no room in the dense throng to attempt an orderly resistance, and confronted by the band of disciplined soldiers the mob was intimidated and gave way. Moreover there were dissensions among them, for the bribes of Narses had not been fruitless. They were cut down without mercy, and then Mundus appeared with his Heruls to help Belisarius in the work of slaughter. Mundus had left the Palace by another way, and he now entered the Hippodrome by a gate known as Nekra. The insurgents were between two fires, and there was a great carnage. It was said that the number of the slain exceeded 30,000.120

Two nephews of Justinian, Boraides and Justus, then entered the Kathisma without meeting resistance.121 They seized Hypatius, who had witnessed the battle from his throne, and secured Pompeius, who was with him. The brothers were taken into the Palace, and, notwithstanding the tears of Pompeius and the pleadings of Hypatius that he had acted under compulsion,122 they were executed on the following day and their bodies were cast into the sea. The Emperor, suspicious though he was, probably believed that they were not morally guilty, but feared that they would be used as tools in future conspiracies. They were too dangerous to be allowed to live, but their children were spared.

The throne of Justinian was saved through the moral energy of Theodora and the loyal efforts of Belisarius. It was not only saved, but it rested now on firmer foundations, for it gave the Emperor the opportunity of taking vigorous measures to break down the opposition of the senatorial nobles to his autocracy. There were no more executions, but eighteen senators who had taken a leading part in the conspiracy were punished by the confiscation of their property and banishment.123 At a later time, when he felt quite secure, Justinian pardoned them and restored to them any of their possessions which he had not already bestowed on others, and a similar restitution was even made to the children of Hypatius and Pompeius.

The news of the Emperor’s victory over his enemies and the execution of the usurper was proclaimed in the cities throughout the Empire. For a long time after this event the factions of the Hippodrome seem to have been on their good behaviour, if we may judge by the silence of the chroniclers. During the last twenty years of the reign riots and faction fights occurred from time to time, but the rival parties did not combine again and the disorders were easily put down.124

§ 6. St. Sophia

After the suppression of this formidable rebellion, one of the first anxieties of the Emperor was to set about rebuilding the edifices which had been destroyed by fire, above all the church of St. Sophia. He was sitting amidst ruin and devastation, and it would be natural if he had thought of nothing but restoring the wrecked buildings as rapidly as possible; but he saw in the calamity an opportunity for making his capital more magnificent, and constructing a church which would be the wonder of the world. The damage might well have been made good in two years if he had been content to rebuild on the same scale; the work he designed took five years, and considering what was accomplished the time seems incredibly short.

Forty days after the tumult had subsided, the ruins of the church were cleared away, neighbouring houses were bought up, and space was provided for a new temple of the Divine Wisdom. The plans were prepared by Anthemius of Tralles, an architect and engineer who possessed imagination as well as mastery of his craft, and to him was entrusted the direction of the work, with Isidore of Miletus as his assistant. It is to be noted that both these architects were natives of Asia Minor. We cannot doubt that Anthemius had already given proofs of his skill as a builder, and it is not bold to conjecture that he was the architect of the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, which Justinian and Theodora had caused to be erected at the beginning of their reign. Justinian had extended the precincts of the Great Palace to take in the house of Hormisdas — on the seashore, south of the Hippodrome — which had been his residence before he ascended the throne; and close to it he built two churches side by side with a common court, a basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, which has disappeared,125 and the octagonal domed church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, which has survived, converted by the Turks into a mosque which they call the Little St. Sophia. The names of the Emperor and Empress are associated in the metrical inscription which is still to be seen on the frieze and their monograms can be read on the beautiful “melon” capitals. Modern architects have paid tribute to the remarkable skill with which the dome has been buttressed and weighted, and we may divine that it was the skill of Anthemius, of whom a contemporary said that he “designed wonderful works both in the city and in many other places which would suffice to win him everlasting glory in the memory of men so long as they stand and endure.”126

His plan of St. Sophia was different. It is a Greek cross (about 250 by 225 feet) with a dome rising above the quadrilateral space between the arms to the height of 180 feet. He undertook to solve the problem of placing a great aerial cupola, 100 feet in diameter, over this space which was 100 feet square. Hitherto cupolas had been set over round spaces. At each angle of the square Anthemius erected a massive pier, in which the settings of the stones were strengthened by special methods. These piers supported the four arches and pendentives on which the ribbed dome rested, and he calculated on securing stability by the semi-domes on the east and west and buttresses on the north and south. To diminish the weight of the dome very light materials were used, tiles of a white spongy earth manufactured at Rhodes.127

The material of St. Sophia, as of most Byzantine churches, was brick. Its exterior appearance, seen from below, does not give a true impression of its dimensions. The soaring cupola is lost and buried amid the surrounding buttresses that were added to secure it in later ages. From afar one can realise its proportions, lifted high above all the other buildings and dominating the whole city like a watch-tower, as Procopius described it. But in it, as in other Byzantine churches, the contrast between the plainness of the exterior and the richness of the interior decoration is striking. Although the mosaic pictures, including the great cross on a starry heaven at the summit of the dome, are now concealed from the eyes of faithful Moslems by whitewash, the marbles of the floor, the walls, and the pillars show us that the rapturous enthusiasm of Justinian’s contemporaries as to the total effect was not excessive. The roof was covered with pure gold, but the beauty of the effect lay, it was observed, rather in the answering reflexions from the marbles than from the gold itself. The marbles from which were hewn the pillars and the slabs that covered the walls and floor were brought from all quarters of the world. There was the white stone from the quarries in the Proconnesian islands near at hand, green cipollino from Carystus in Euboea, verde antico from Laconia and Thessaly, Numidian marble glinting with the gold of yellow crocuses, red and white from Caria, white-misted rose from Phrygia, porphyry from Upper Egypt. To Procopius the building gave the impression of a flowering meadow.

While the artists of the time showed skill and study in blending and harmonising colours, the sculptured decoration of the curves of the arches with acanthus and vine tendrils, and the beauty of the capitals of white Proconnesian marble, are not less wonderful. The manufacture of capitals for export had long been an industry at Constantinople, and we can trace the evolution of their forms. The old Corinthian capital, altered by the substitution of the thorny for the soft acanthus, had become what is known as the “Theodosian” capital.128 But it was found that this was not suitable for receiving and supporting the arch, and the device was introduced of placing above it an intermediate “impost,” in the form of a truncated and reversed pyramid, which was usually ornamented with vine or acanthus, a cross or a monogram. Then, apparently early in the sixth century, the Theodosian capital and the impost were combined into a single block, the “capital impost,” which assumed many varieties of form.129

The building was completed in A.D. 537, and on December 26 the Emperor and the Patriarch Menas drove together from St. Anastasia to celebrate the inaugural ceremonies.130 But Anthemius had been overbold in the execution of his architectural design, and had not allowed a sufficient margin of safety for the support of the dome. Twenty years later the dome came crashing down, destroying in its fall the ambo and the altar (May, A.D. 558).131 Anthemius was dead, and the restoration was undertaken by Isidore the Younger. He left the semi-domes on the east and west as they were, but widened the arches on the north and south, making “the equilateral symmetry” more perfect, and raised the height of the dome by more than twenty feet. The work was finished in A.D. 562, and on Christmas Eve the Emperor solemnly entered it. The poet Paul, the silentiary, was commanded to celebrate the event in verse, and a few days later132 he recited in the Palace the proem of his long poem describing the beauties of the church. Justinian then proceeded in solemn procession to St. Sophia, and in the Patriarch’s palace, which adjoined the church, he recited the rest. It was a second inauguration, and the effort of Paul was not unworthy of the occasion.

Terrible, thought a writer of the day, as well as marvellous, the dome of St. Sophia “seems to float in the air.” It was pierced by forty windows, the half-domes by five, and men were impressed by the light which flooded the church. “You would say that sunlight grew in it.” Lavish arrangements were made for artificial illumination for the evening services. A central chandelier was suspended by chains from the cornice round the dome over the ambo; the poet compared it to a circular dance of lights:

εὐσελάων δὲ κύκλιος ἐκ φαέων χορὸς ἵσταται.

And in other parts of the building there were rows of lamps in the form of silver bowls and boats.

Justinian did not regard expense in decorating with gold and precious stones the ambo which stood in the centre under the dome. Similar sumptuousness distinguished the sanctuary of the apse — the iconostasis and the altar which was of solid gold. The Patriarch’s throne was of gilded silver and weighed 40,000 lbs. A late record states that the total cost of the building and furnishing of St. Sophia amounted to 320,000 lbs. of gold, which sent to our mint to-day would mean nearly fourteen and a half million sterling,133 a figure which is plainly incredible.

But this, though it was the greatest item in the Emperor’s expenditure on restoring and beautifying the city, was only one. The neighbouring church of St. Irene also rose from its ashes, as a great domed basilica, the largest church in Constantinople except St. Sophia itself.134 The monograms of Justinian and Theodora are still to be read on the capitals of its pillars. More important as a public and Imperial monument was the Church of the Holy Apostles in the centre of the city, which had not been injured by fire, but had suffered from earthquakes and was considered structurally unstable. Justinian pulled it down and rebuilt it larger and more splendid, as a cruciform church with four equal arms and five domes. Though it was destroyed by the Turks to make room for the mosque of Mohammed the Conqueror, descriptions are preserved which enable us to restore its plan.135 San Marco at Venice was built on a very similar design and gives the best idea of what it was like. It may have been begun after the completion of St. Sophia, for it was dedicated in A.D. 546; but the mosaic decoration, of which full accounts have come down to us, was not executed till after Justinian’s death, and it has been shown that these pictures, which may belong to the time of his immediate successors, were designed and selected with a dogmatic motif. “The two natures of Christ in one person are the theme of the whole cycle.”136 The use of pictures for propagating theological doctrine was understood in the sixth century; we shall see another example at Ravenna.137

The principal secular buildings which had been destroyed by the fires of the Nika riot and were immediately rebuilt were the Senate-house, the baths of Zeuxippus, the porticoes of the Augusteum, and the adjacent parts of the Palace. The Chalke had been burnt down, and the contiguous quarters behind it — the portico of the Scholarian guards and the porticoes of the Protectors and Candidates. All these had to be rebuilt.138 But at the same time Justinian seems to have made extensive changes and improvements throughout the Palace; we are told that he renovated it altogether.139 Of the details we hear nothing, except as to the Chalke itself. You go through the great gate of the Chalke from the Augusteum, and then through an inner bronze gate into a domed rectangular room, decorated by mosaic pictures showing the Vandal and Italian conquests, with Justinian and Theodora in the centre, triumphing and surrounded by the Senate.140

If the Emperor spent much on the restoration and improvement of the great Palace, he appears to have been no less lavish in enlarging and embellishing his palatial villa at Hêrion, on the peninsula which to-day bears the name of Pharanaki, to the south-east of Chalcedon.141 It was the favourite resort of Theodora in summer; she used to transport her court there every year.142 Here Justinian created a small town, with a splendid church dedicated to the Mother of God, baths, market-places, and porticoes; and constructed a sheltered landing-place by building two large moles into the sea.143

§ 7. The Fall of John the Cappadocian (A.D. 541)

The nine or ten years following the suppression of the Nika revolt were the most glorious period of Justinian’s reign. He was at peace with Persia; Africa and Italy were restored to his dominion. The great legal works which he had undertaken were brought to a successful conclusion; and Constantinople, as we have just seen, arose from its ashes more magnificent than ever.

But the period was hardly as happy for the subjects as it was satisfactory to their ruler. For a short time the fiscal exactions under which they had groaned may have been alleviated under the milder administration of the popular Phocas, who had succeeded the Cappadocian, and who at least had no thought of using his office to enrich himself.144 But Phocas was soon removed, probably because his methods failed to meet the financial needs of the Emperor, engaged in preparations for the African expedition and in plans for rebuilding the city on a more splendid scale. In less than a twelvemonth John the Cappadocian was once more installed in the Prefecture, and was permitted for eight or nine years to oppress the provinces of the East.145 Justinian did not feel himself bound by the promises he had made to the insurgents, seeing that they had been made in vain. He also restored to the post of Quaestor the great jurist Tribonian, who, otherwise most fitted to adorn the office, seems to have been somewhat unscrupulous in indulging his leading passion, a love of money.

The only person whom John the Cappadocian feared was the Empress. He knew that she was determined to ruin him. He was unable to undermine her influence with Justinian, but that influence did not go far enough to shake Justinian’s confidence in him. He dreaded that her emissaries might attempt to assassinate him, and he kept around him a large band of armed retainers, a measure to which no Praetorian Prefect except Rufinus had resorted before. He was exceedingly superstitious, and impostors who professed to foretell the future encouraged him in the hope that he would one day sit on the Imperial throne. In A.D. 538 he enjoyed the expensive honour of the consulship.146

If there was one man whom John detested and envied it was the general Belisarius, who in A.D. 540 arrived at Constantinople, bringing the king of the Ostrogoths as a captive in his train. If any man was likely to be a dangerous rival in a contest for the throne, it was the conqueror of Africa and Italy, who was as popular and highly respected as John himself was unpopular and hated. As a matter of fact, thoughts of disloyalty were far from the heart of Belisarius, but he was not always credited with unswerving fidelity to Justinian, even by Justinian himself.

Belisarius, like his master, was born in an Illyrian town,147 and, like his master, he had married a woman whose parents were associated with the circus and the theatre and who was the mother of children before she married the soldier.148 Unlike Theodora, she did not mend her morals after her marriage, and her amours led to breaches with her husband. But notwithstanding temporary estrangements she preserved the affection of her husband, who had a weak side to his character, and she faithfully accompanied him on his campaigns and worked energetically in his interests. She often protected him, when he was out of favour with the Emperor, through her influence with Theodora, who found her a useful ally and resourceful agent.

The cunning of this unscrupulous woman compassed the fall of John of Cappadocia. She was interested in destroying him as the enemy both of her husband and of her Imperial mistress. The only hope of damaging him irretrievably in the eyes of the Emperor was to produce clear evidence that he entertained treasonable designs, and for this purpose Antonina resorted to the vile arts of an agent provocateur. The Prefect had a daughter, his only child, whom he loved passionately; it was the one amiable trait in his repulsive character. His enemies could cast no reproach on the virtue of Euphemia, but she was very young and fell an easy victim to the craft of Antonina. It was in April or May A.D. 541 that the treacherous scheme was executed. Belisarius had set out in the spring to take command in the Persian war, and his wife had remained for a short time at Constantinople before she followed him to the East. She employed herself in cultivating the acquaintance of Euphemia, and having fully won her friendship she persuaded the inexperienced girl that Belisarius was secretly disaffected towards Justinian. It is Belisarius, she said, who has extended the borders of the Empire, and taken captive two kings, and the Emperor has shown little gratitude for his services. Euphemia, who, taught to see things through her father’s eyes, feared Theodora and distrusted the government, listened sympathetically to the confidences of her friend. “Why,” she asked, “does Belisarius not use his power with the army to set things right?” “It would be useless,” said Antonina, “to attempt a revolution in the camp without the support of civilian ministers in the capital. If your father were willing to help, it would be different.” Euphemia eagerly undertook to broach the matter to her father. John, when he heard his daughter’s communication, thought that a way was opened for realising the vague dreams of power which he had been cherishing. It was arranged that he should meet Antonina secretly. She was about to start for the East, and she would halt for a night near Chalcedon at the palace of Rufinianae, which belonged to her husband.149 Hither John agreed to come secretly, and the day and hour were arranged. Antonina then informed the Empress of all she had done and the details of the scheme. It was essential that the treasonable conversation should be overheard by witnesses, whose testimony would convince Justinian. Theodora, who entered eagerly into the plot, chose for this part the eunuch Narses, and Marcellus, commander of the Palace guards, a man of the highest integrity, who stood aloof from all political parties, and never, throughout a long tenure of his command, forfeited the Emperor’s respect.150 Theodora did not wait for the execution of the scheme to tell Justinian of what was on feet, and it was said that he warned John secretly not to keep the appointment. This may not be true. In any case, John arrived at Rufinianae at midnight, only taking the precaution of bringing some of his armed retainers. Antonina met him outside the house near a wall behind which she had posted Marcellus and Narses. He spoke, without any reserve, of plans to attempt the Emperor’s life. When he had fully committed himself, Narses and Marcellus emerged from their hiding-place to seize him. His men, who were not far off, rushed up and one of them wounded Marcellus. In the fray John succeeded in escaping, and reaching the city he sought refuge in a sanctuary.151 The historian who tells the tale thought that if he had gone boldly to the Palace he would have been pardoned by Justinian. But the Empress now had the Emperor’s ear. John was deprived of the office which he had so terribly abused and banished to Cyzicus, where he was ordained a deacon against his will. His large ill-gained possessions were forfeited as a matter of course, but the Emperor showed his weakness for the man by letting him retain a considerable portion, which enabled him to live in great luxury in his retirement.152

But he was not long suffered to enjoy his exile in peace. The bishop of Cyzicus, Eusebius, was hated by the inhabitants. They had preferred charges against him at Constantinople, but his influence there was so great that he was able to defy Cyzicus. At last some young men, who belonged to the local circus factions, murdered him in the market-place. As it happened that John and Eusebius were enemies, it was suspected that John was accessory to the crime, and, considering his reputation, the suspicion was not unnatural. Senators were sent to Cyzicus to investigate the murder. John’s guilt was not proved;153 but the commission of inquiry must have received secret orders to punish him rightly or wrongly, for he was stripped and scourged like a common highwayman, and then put on board ship, clad in a rough cloak. The ship bore him to Egypt, and on the voyage he was obliged to support life by begging in the seaports at which it called. When he reached Egypt he was imprisoned at Antinoopolis. For these illegal proceedings the Emperor, we may be sure, was not responsible, and no private enemy could have ventured to resort to them. The hand of Theodora could plainly be discerned. But she was not yet satisfied with his punishment; she desired to have him legally done to death.154 Some years later she got into her power two young men of the Green faction who were said to have been concerned in the murder of the bishop. By promises and threats she sought to extract a confession implicating John the Cappadocian. One of them yielded, but the other, even under torture, refused. Baffled in her design she is said to have cut off the hands of both the youths.155 John remained in prison till her death, after which he was allowed by the Emperor to return to Constantinople, a free man, but a priest. Yet it was said that he still dreamed of ascending the throne.156

It is incontestable that Theodora performed a public service by delivering the eastern provinces from the government of an exceptionally unscrupulous oppressor, and that his sufferings, although they were illegally inflicted, were richly deserved. But the revolting means imagined by her unprincipled satellite Antonina and approved by herself, the employment of the innocent girl to entrap her father,157 do not raise her high in our estimation. It must be observed, however, that the public opinion of that time found nothing repulsive in a stratagem which to the more delicate feelings of the present age seems unspeakably base and cruel. For the story is told openly in a work which the author could not have ventured to publish if it had contained anything reflecting injuriously on the character of the Empress.158

It was not long before the Empress had an opportunity of repaying her friend for her dexterous service. Belisarius and Antonina had adopted a youth named Theodosius, for whom Antonina conceived an ungovernable passion. Their guilty intrigue was discovered by Belisarius in Sicily (A.D. 535-536), and he sent some of his retainers to slay the paramour, who, however, escaped to Ephesus.159 But Antonina persuaded her uxorious husband that she was not guilty, regained his affection, and induced him to hand over to her the servants who had betrayed her amour. It was reported that having cut out their tongues she chopped their bodies in small pieces and threw them into the sea. Her desire for Theodosius was not cooled by an absence of five years, and while she was preparing her intrigue against John the Cappadocian she was planning to recall her lover to her side when Belisarius departed for the East. But her son Photius, who had always been jealous of the favourite preferred to himself, penetrated her design and revealed the matter to his stepfather, and they bound themselves by solemn oaths to punish Theodosius. They decided, however, that nothing could be done immediately; they must wait till Antonia followed her husband to the East. Photius accompanied Belisarius in the campaign, and for some months Antonina enjoyed the society of her paramour at Constantinople. When, in the summer of the year, she set out for Persia, Theodosius returned to Ephesus. The general met his wife, showed his anger, but had not the heart to slay her. Photius hastened to Ephesus, seized Theodosius, and sent him under a guard of retainers to be imprisoned in a secret place in Cilicia. He proceeded himself to Constantinople, in possession of the wealth which Theodosius had been allowed to appropriate from the spoils of Carthage.160 But the danger of her favourite had come to the ears of Theodora. She caused Belisarius and his wife to be summoned to the capital and she forced a reconciliation upon the reluctant husband. Then she seized Photius and sought by torture to make him reveal the place where he had concealed Theodosius. The secret was disclosed, however, through another channel and Theodosius was rescued; the Empress concealed him in the Palace, and presented him to Antonina as a delightful surprise.

The unhappy Photius, who showed greater force of character than Belisarius, was kept a captive in the dungeons of Theodora. He escaped twice, but was dragged back from the sanctuaries in which he had sought refuge. His third attempt at the end of three years was successful; he reached Jerusalem, became a monk, and escaped the vengeance of the Empress. He survived Justinian, and in the following reign was appointed, notwithstanding his religious quality, to suppress a revolt of the Samaritans, a task which he carried out, we are told, with the utmost cruelty, taking advantage of his powers to extort money from all the Syrian provinces.161

§ 8. The Great Pestilence (A.D. 542-543)

Justinian had been fourteen years on the throne when the Empire was visited by one of those immense but rare calamities in the presence of which human beings could only succumb helpless and resourceless until the science of the nineteenth century began to probe the causes and supply the means of preventing and checking them. The devastating plague, which began its course in the summer of A.D. 542 and seems to have invaded and ransacked nearly every corner of the Empire, was, if not more malignant, far more destructive, through the vast range of its ravages, than the pestilences which visited ancient Athens in the days of Pericles and London in the reign of Charles II; and perhaps even than the plague which travelled from the East to Rome in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. It probably caused as large a mortality in the Empire as the Black Death of the fourteenth century in the same countries.162

The infection first attacked Pelusium, on the borders of Egypt, with deadly effect, and spread thence to Alexandria and throughout Egypt, and northward to Palestine and Syria. In the following year it reached Constantinople, in the middle of spring,163 and spread over Asia Minor and through Mesopotamia into the kingdom of Persia.164 Travelling by sea, whether from Africa or across the Adriatic, it invaded Italy and Sicily.165

It was observed that the infection always started from the coast and went up to the interior, and that those who survived it had become immune. The historian Procopius, who witnessed its course at Constantinople, as Thucydides had studied the plague at Athens, has detailed the nature and effects of the bubonic disease, as it might be called, for the most striking feature was a swelling in the groin or in the armpit, sometimes behind the ear or on the thighs. Hallucinations occasionally preceded the attack. The victims were seized by a sudden fever, which did not affect the colour of the skin nor make it as hot as might be expected.

The fever was of such a languid sort from its commencement and up till evening that neither to the sick themselves nor a physician who touched them would it afford any suspicion of danger… . But on the same day in some cases, in others on the following day, and in the rest not many days later a bubonic swelling developed… . Up to this point everything went in about the same way with all who had taken the disease. But from then on very marked differences developed… . There ensued with some a deep coma, with others a violent delirium, and in either case they suffered the characteristic symptoms of the disease. For those who were under the spell of the coma forgot all those who were familiar to them and seemed to be sleeping constantly. And if any one cared for them, they would eat without waking, but some also were neglected and these would die directly through lack of sustenance. But those who were seized with delirium suffered from insomnia and were victims of a distorted imagination; for they suspected that men were coming upon them to destroy them, and they would become excited and rush off in flight, crying out at the top of their voices. And those who were attending them were in a state of constant exhaustion and had a most difficult time… . Neither the physicians nor other persons were found to contract this malady through contact with the sick or with the dead, for many who were constantly engaged either in burying or in attending those in no way connected with them held out in the performance of this service beyond all expectation… . [The patients] had great difficulty in the matter of eating, for they could not easily take food. And many perished through lack of any man to care for them, for they were either overcome with hunger, or threw themselves from a height. And in those cases where neither coma nor delirium came on, the bubonic swelling became mortified and the sufferer, no longer able to endure the pain, died. And we would suppose that in all cases the same thing would have been true, but since they were not at all in their senses, some were quite unable to feel the pain; for owing to the troubled condition of their minds they lost all sense of feeling. Now some of the physicians who were at a loss because the symptoms were not understood, supposing that the disease centred in the bubonic swellings, decided to investigate the bodies of the dead. And upon opening some of the swellings they found a strange sort of carbuncle [ἄνθραξ] that had grown inside them. Death came in some cases immediately, in others after many days; and with some the body broke out with black pustules about as large as a lentil, and these did not survive even one day, but all succumbed immediately. With many also a vomiting of blood ensued without visible cause and straightway brought death. Moreover I am able to declare this, that the most illustrious physicians predicted that many would die, who unexpectedly escaped entirely from suffering shortly afterwards, and that they declared that many would be saved who were destined to be carried off almost immediately… . While some were helped by bathing others were harmed in no less degree. And of those who received no care many died, but others, contrary to reason, were saved. And again, methods of treatment showed different results with different patients… . And in the case of women who were pregnant death could be certainly foreseen if they were taken with the disease. For some died through miscarriage, but others perished immediately at the time of birth with the infants they bore. However they say that three women survived though their children perished, and that one woman died at the very time of child-birth but that the child was born and survived.

Now in those cases where the swelling rose to an unusual size and a discharge of pus had set in, it came about that they escaped from the disease and survived, for clearly the acute condition of the carbuncle had found relief in this direction, and this proved to be in general an indication of returning health… . And with some of them it came about that the thigh was withered, in which case, though the swelling was there, it did not develop the least suppuration. With others who survived the tongue did not remain unaffected, and they lived on either lisping or speaking incoherently and with difficulty.166 This description167 shows that the disease closely resembled in character the terrible oriental plague which devastated Europe and parts of Asia in the fourteenth century. In the case of the Black Death too the chief symptom was the pestboils, but the malady was generally accompanied by inflammation of the lungs and the spitting of blood, which Procopius does not mention.168

In Constantinople the visitation lasted for four months altogether, and during three of these the mortality was enormous. At first the deaths were only a little above the usual number, but as the infection spread 5000 died daily, and when it was at its worst 10,000 or upward.169 This figures are too vague to enable us to conjecture how many of the population were swept away; but we may feel sceptical when another writer who witnessed the plague assures us that the number of those who died in the streets and public places exceeded 300,000.170 If we could trust the recorded statistics of the mortality in some of the large cities which were stricken by the Black Death — in London, for instance, 100,000, in Venice 100,000, in Avignon 60,000 — then, considering the much larger population of Constantinople, we might regard 300,000 as not an excessive figure for the total destruction. For the general mortality throughout the Empire we have no data for conjecture; but it is interesting to note that a physician who made a careful study of all the accounts of the Black Death came to the conclusion that, without exaggeration, Europe (including Russia) lost twenty-five millions of her inhabitants through that calamity.171

At first, relatives and domestics attended to the burial of the dead, but as the violence of the plague increased this duty was neglected, and corpses lay forlorn not only in the streets, but even in the houses of notable men whose servants were sick or dead. Aware of this, Justinian placed considerable sums at the disposal of Theodore, one of his private secretaries,172 to take measures for the disposal of the dead. Huge pits were dug at Sycae, on the other side of the Golden Horn, in which the bodies were laid in rows and tramped down tightly; but the men who were engaged on this work, unable to keep up with the number of the dying, mounted the towers of the wall of the suburb, tore off their roofs, and threw the bodies in. Virtually all the towers were filled with corpses, and as a result “an evil stench pervaded the city and distressed the inhabitants still more, and especially whenever the wind blew fresh from that quarter.”173 It is particularly noted that members of the Blue and Green parties laid aside their mutual enmity and co-operated in the labour of burying the dead.

During these months all work ceased; the artisans abandoned their trades. “Indeed in a city which was simply abounding in all good things starvation almost absolute was running riot. Certainly it seemed a difficult and very notable thing to have a sufficiency of bread or of anything else.”174 All court functions were discontinued, and no one was to be seen in official dress, especially when the Emperor fell ill. For he, too, was stricken by the plague, though the attack did not prove fatal.175

Our historian observed the moral effects of the visitation. Men whose lives had been base and dissolute changed their habits and punctiliously practised the duties of religion,176 not from any real change of heart, but from terror and because they supposed they were to die immediately. But their conversion to respectability was only transient. When the pestilence abated and they thought themselves safe they recurred to their old evil ways of life. It may be confidently asserted, adds the cynical writer, that the disease selected precisely the worst men and let them go free.

Fifteen years later there was a second outbreak of the plague in Constantinople (spring A.D. 558), but evidently much less virulent and destructive. It was noticed in the case of this visitation that females suffered less than males.177

§ 9. The Conspiracy of Artabanes (A.D. 548)

The Empress Theodora died of cancer of June 28, A.D. 548.178 Her death was a relief to her numerous enemies, but to Justinian it must have been a severe blow. We would give much to have a glimpse into their private life or a record of one of their intimate conversations. We have no means of lifting even a corner of the veil. But it is a significant fact that, though they disagreed on various questions of policy, scandal, which had many evil things to tell of them both, never found any pretext to suggest that they quarrelled or were living on bad terms.

Soon after this event a conspiracy was formed against the Emperor’s life, which had little political significance but created a great sensation because men of his own family were indirectly involved.179 A general named Artabanes, of Armenian race, whom we shall meet as a commander in Africa, had conceived the ambition of marrying the Emperor’s niece Praejecta, but the plan had been thwarted by Theodora, who compelled him to live again with the wife whom he had put away.180 After her death he repudiated his wife for the second time, but Praejecta, who had been given to another, was lost to him, and he bore no goodwill towards the Emperor. His disaffected feelings would not have prompted him to initiate any sinister design, but a kinsman of his, one Arsaces, was animated by a bitter desire of revenge upon Justinian, who, when he was found guilty of a treacherous correspondence with the king of Persia, had ordered him to be scourged lightly and paraded through the streets on the back of a camel. Arsaces fanned into flame the smouldering resentment of Artabanes, and showed him how easy it would be to kill the Emperor, “who is accustomed to sit without guards till late hours in the night, in the company of old priests, deep in the study of the holy books of the Christians.” But perhaps what did most to secure the adhesion of Artabanes was the prospect that Germanus, Justinian’s cousin, and his two sons181 would sanction, if they did not take an active part in, the design.

For Germanus, at this time, had a personal grievance against the Emperor. His brother Boraides had died, leaving almost all his property to Germanus, allowing his daughter to receive only so much as was required by the law. But Justinian, deeming the arrangement unfair, overrode the will in the daughter’s favour.182 relying on the indignation which this arbitrary act had aroused in the family, Arsaces opened communications with Justin, the elder son of Germanus. Having bound him by oath not to reveal the conversation to any person except his father, he enlarged on the manner in which the Emperor ill-treated and passed over his relatives, and expressed his conviction that it would go still harder with them when Belisarius returned from Italy. He then revealed the plan of assassination which he had formed in conjunction with Artabanes and Chanaranges, a young and frivolous Armenian who had been admitted to their counsels.

Justin, terrified at this revelation, laid it before his father, who immediately consulted with Marcellus, the Count of the Excubitors, whether it would be wise to inform the Emperor immediately. Marcellus, an honourable, austere, and wary man, dissuaded Germanus from taking that course, on the ground that such a communication, necessitating a private interview with the Emperor, would inevitably become known to the conspirators and lead to the escape of Arsaces. He proposed to investigate the matter himself, and it was arranged that one of the conspirators should be lured to speak in the presence of a concealed witness. Justin appointed a day and hour for an interview between Germanus and Chanaranges, and the compromising revelations were overheard by Leontius, a friend of Marcellus, who was hidden behind a curtain. The programme of the matured plot was to wait for the arrival of Belisarius and slay the Emperor and his general at the same time; for if Justinian were slain beforehand, the conspirators might not be able to contend against the soldiers of Belisarius. When the deed was done, Germanus was to be proclaimed Emperor.

Marcellus still hesitated to reveal the plot to the Emperor, through friendship or pity for Artabanes. But when Belisarius was drawing nigh to the capital he could hesitate no longer, and Justinian ordered the conspirators to be arrested. Germanus and Justin were at first not exempted from suspicion, but when the Senate inquired into the case, the testimony of Marcellus and Leontius, and two other officers to whom Germanus had prudently disclosed the affair, completely cleared them. Even then Justinian was still indignant that they had concealed the treason so long, and was not mollified until the candid Marcellus took all the blame of the delay upon himself. The conspirators were treated with clemency, being confined in the Palace and not in the public prison. Artabanes was not only soon pardoned but was created Master of Soldiers in Thrace and sent to take part in the Ostrogothic war.183

Another plot to assassinate Justinian was organised by a number of obscure persons in November A.D. 562,184 and would hardly merit to be recorded if it had not injured Belisarius. One of the conspirators talked indiscreetly to Eusebius, Count of the Federates, and they were all arrested. Their confessions involved two followers of Belisarius, who, seized and examined by the Prefect of the City and the quaestor, asserted that Belisarius was privy to the plot. The Emperor convoked a meeting of the Senate and Imperial Council; the depositions of the prisoner were read; and suspicion weighed heavily on the veteran general. He made no resistance when he was ordered to dismiss all his armed retainers, and he remained in disgrace till July A.D. 563, when he was restored to favour.185 His character and the whole record of his life make it highly improbable that he was guilty of disloyalty in his old age. He died in March A.D. 565.186 His disgrace, though it was brief, made such an impression on popular imagination in later times that a Belisarius legend was formed, which represented the conqueror of Africa and Italy as ending his days as a blind beggar in the streets of Constantinople.187

§ 10. The Succession to the Throne

As Justinian had no children of his own, it was incumbent on him to avert the possibility of a struggle for the throne after his death by designating a successor. So long as Theodora was alive the importance of providing for the future was not so serious, as it might be reasonably supposed that she would be able to control the situation as successfully as Pulcheria and Ariadne. But after her death it was a dereliction of duty on the part of Justinian, as it had been on the part of Anastasius, not to arrange definitely the question of the succession. His failure to do so was probably due partly to his suspicious and jealous temper, and partly to an inability to decide between the two obvious choices.

Of his three cousins, Germanus, Boraides, and Justus,188 only Germanus survived Theodora, but he, who was an able man and whom the popular wish would have called to the throne, died two years later. His two sons, Justin and Justinian, were competent officers. We have seen them occupying important military posts, and if they were not trusted with the highest commands, it is probable that they did not display ability of the first rank. They were both unreservedly loyal to the sovran, and Justin seems, like his father, to have enjoyed general respect and popularity.189 If Justinian had decided to create him Caesar or Augustus, the act would have been universally applauded.

The influence of Theodora had rendered it impossible for the Emperor, in her lifetime, to show any special preference for this branch of his kin. Germanus, whose amiable qualities and sense of justice endeared him to others, was hated and suspected by her. She resolved that his family should not multiply. He had children, but he should have no grandchildren. In this design she so far succeeded that neither of his sons married till after her death. All her efforts, however, did not prevent his daughter Justina from espousing the general John, nephew of Vitalian, but she threatened that she would destroy John and he went in fear of his life.190

Justinian had nephews, sons of his sister Vigilantia,191 and on the eldest of these, Justin, the Empress bestowed her favour. Her desire was that her own blood should be perpetuated in the dynasty, and she married her niece Sophia, a woman who possessed qualities resembling her own, to Justin. After her death, Justinian seems to have been convinced that the conspicuous merits of Germanus entitled him to the succession, but he was unable to bring himself to take a definite decision. When Germanus died the choice lay between the two Justins, the nephew and the cousin, and we may divine that there was a constant conflict between their interests at court. The Emperor’s preference inclined, on the whole, to Justin, the husband of Sophia. He created him Curopalates, a new title of rank which raised him above the other Patricians, yet did not give him the status of an heir apparent which would have been conferred by the title of Caesar or even Nobilissimus.192 But Justin enjoyed the great advantage of living in the Palace and having every opportunity to prepare his way to the throne; while the services of his rival and namesake were employed in distant Colchis.

Not the least of Theodora’s triumphs was the posthumous realisation of her plan for the succession. Justinian died on Nov. 14, A.D. 565,193 and Justin, the son of Vigilantia, supported by the Senate and the Excubitors, secured the throne without a struggle.

APPENDIX:

A SCENE IN THE HIPPODROME

The chronicle of Theophanes contains a remarkable record of a conversation between Justinian and the Green party in the Hippodrome. It is apparently an official record (preserved in the archives of the Greens?), under the title Ἄκτα διὰ Καλοπόδιον τὸν κουβικουλάριον καὶ σπαθάριον, and is inserted after the short summary of the Nika riot which the chronicler has prefixed to his detailed narrative. But it exhibits no connexion whatever with the causes of that event, and may record an incident which occurred at some other period of the reign.194 It seems likely that Calopodius who had offended the Greens is the same as Calopodius who was praepositus s. cub. in A.D. 558 (John Mal. XVIII p490).

As we are totally ignorant of the circumstances, a great part of this allusive dialogue is very obscure. Some act on the part of the chamberlain Calopodius had excited the anger of the Greens; they begin by complaining of this in respectful tones, and obtaining no satisfaction go on to air their grievances as an oppressed party, with violent invective. A mandator or herald speaks for the Emperor, standing in front of the kathisma, and the Greeks evidently have a single spokesman.

Greens. Long may you live, Justinian Augustus! Tu vincas. I am oppressed, O best of sovrans, and my grievances, God knows, have become intolerable. I fear to name the oppressor, lest he prosper the more and I endanger my own safety. Mandator. Who is he? I know him not. Greens. My oppressor, O thrice august! is to be found in the quarter of the shoemakers.195 Mandator. No one does you wrong. Greens. One man and one only does me wrong. Mother of God, may he be humbled (μὴ ἀνακεφαλίσῃ)! Mandator. Who is he? We know him not. Greens. Nay, you know well, O thrice august! I am oppressed this day. Mandator. We know not that anyone oppresses you. Greens. It is Calopodius, the spathar, who wrongs me, O lord of all! Mandator. Calopodius has no concern with you.196 Greens. My oppressor will perish like Judas; God will requite him quickly. Mandator. You come, not to see the games, but to insult your rulers. Greens. If anyone wrongs me, he will perish like Judas. Mandator. Silence, Jews, Manichaeans, and Samaritans! Greens. Do you disparage us with the name of Jews and Samaritans? The Mother of God is with all of us. Mandator. When will ye cease cursing yourselves? Greens. If anyone denies that our lord the Emperor is orthodox, let him be anathema, as Judas. Mandator. I would have you all baptized in the name of one God.

Greens. I am baptized in One God.197 Mandator. Verily, if you refuse to be silent, I shall have you beheaded. Greens. Every person seeks a post of authority, to secure his personal safety. Your Majesty must not be indignant at what I say in my tribulation, for the Deity listens to all complaints. We have good reason, O Emperor! to mention all things now.198 For we do not even know where the palace is, nor what is the government. If I come into the city once, it is sitting on a mule;199 and I wish I had not to come then, your Majesty.200 Mandator. Every one is free to move in public, where he wishes, without danger. Greens. I am told I am free, yet I am not allowed to use my freedom. If a man is free but is suspected as a Green, he is sure to be publicly punished. Mandator. Have ye no care for your lives that ye thus brave death? Greens. Let this (green) colour be once uplifted201 — then justice disappears. Put an end to the scenes of murder, and let us be lawfully punished. Behold, an abundant fountain; punish as many as you like. Verily, human nature cannot tolerate these two (contradictory) things. Would that Sabbatis had never been born, to have a son who is a murderer. It is the twenty-sixth murder that has been committed in the Zeugma;202 the victim was a spectator in the morning, in the afternoon, O lord of all! he was butchered. Blues. Yourselves are the only party in the hippodrome that has murderers among their number. Greens. When ye commit murder ye leave the city in flight. Blues. Ye shed blood, and debate. Ye are the only party here with murderers among them. Greens. O lord Justinian! they challenge us and yet no one slays them. Truth will compel assent.203 Who slew the woodseller in the Zeugma, O Emperor? Mandator. Ye slew him. Greens. Who slew the son of Epagathus, Emperor? Mandator. Ye slew him too, and ye slander the Blues. Greens. Now have pity, O Lord God! The truth is suppressed. I should like to argue with them who say that affairs are managed by God. Whence comes this misery? Mandator. God cannot be tempted with evil.

Greens. God, you say, cannot be tempted with evil? Who is it then who wrongs me? Let some philosopher or hermit explain the distinction. Mandator. Accursed blasphemers, when will ye hold your peace? Greens. If it is the pleasure of your Majesty, I hold my peace, albeit unwillingly. I know all — all, but I say nothing. Good-bye, Justice! you are no longer in fashion. I shall turn and become a Jew. Better to be a “Greek” (pagan) than a Blue, God knows. Blues. You are detestable, I cannot abide the sight of you. Your enmity dismays me. Greens. Let the bones of the spectators be exhumed.204 The language of this astonishing dialogue obeys metrical laws, which concern not quantity but the number of the syllables and the accentuation of the last word in each clause. The most frequently occurring form is five syllables with the penultimate accented + four with the antepenultimate (or ultimate?) accented, e.g.: οὐδὲ τὸ παλάτιν τρισαύγουστε.

It is evident that to converse in metrical chant both the Imperial mandator and the spokesmen of the demes must have had a special training in the art of improvising.205