Delphi Complete Works of Procopius

by Procopius of Caesarea

  [23] All these evils kept constantly afflicting the people during the reign of Justinian and Theodora, for it so happened that neither war nor any other of the greatest calamities subsided during this time. [24] And since we have made mention of rooms for billeting, we must not pass over the fact that the owners of the houses in Byzantium, having to turn over their dwellings there as lodgings for barbarians to the number of about seventy thousand, not only could derive no benefit from their own property, but were also afflicted by these other disagreeable conditions.

  XXIV

  Nor assuredly is his treatment of the soldiers to be consigned to silence; for over them he put in authority the most villainous of all men, bidding them collect from this source as much as they could, and these officers were well aware that the twelfth part of what they should thus procure should fall to them. [2] And he gave them the title of “Logothetes.” And these each year devised the following scheme. According to a law the military pay is not given to all alike year after year, but when the men are still young and have only recently joined the army, the rate is lower, while for those who have been in service and are now at about the middle of the muster-roll, it grows larger. [3] But when they have grown old and are on the point of being discharged from the army, the pay is very much more imposing, to the end not only that they may, when in future they are living as private citizens, have sufficient for their own maintenance, but may also, when it is their lot to have completely measured out the term of life, be able to leave from their own property some consolation to the members of their households. [4] Thus time, by continuously promoting the soldiers who are lower down in the scale to the rank of those who have died or been discharged from the army, regulates on the basis of seniority the payments to be made from the Treasury to each man. [5] But the Logothetes, as they are called, would not allow the names of the deceased to be removed from the rolls, even when great numbers died at one time from other causes, and especially, as was the case with the most, in the course of the numerous wars. Furthermore, they would no longer fill out the muster-rolls, and that too for a long period. [6] And the result of this practice has proved unfortunate for all concerned — first, for the State in that the number of soldiers in active service is always deficient; secondly, for the surviving soldiers, in that they are elbowed out by those who have died long before and so find themselves left in a position inferior to what they deserve, and that they receive a pay which is lower than if they had the rank to which they are entitled; and, finally, for the Logothetes, who all this time have had to apportion to Justinian a share of the soldiers’ money.

  [7] Furthermore, they kept grinding down the soldiers with many other forms of penalties, as though to requite them thus for the dangers incurred in the wars, charging some with being “Greeks,” as though it were wholly impossible for any man from Greece to be a decent man, others with being in the service without an order from the Emperor, even though they could shew, on this point, an imperial order, which, however, the Logothetes with no hesitation had the effrontery to denounce; and others still they accused on the ground that for some days they had chanced to be absent from their comrades. [8] Later on also some of the Palace Guards were sent out through the whole Roman Empire, and ostensibly they were in search of any among the armies who were quite unsuitable for active service; and they dared to strip the belts from some of these as being unfit or too old, and these thereafter had to beg their bread from the pious in the public square of the market-place, so that they became a constant cause for tears and lamentation on the part of all who met them; and from the rest they exacted great sums of money, to the end that they might not suffer the same fate, so that the soldiers, broken in manifold ways, had become the poorest of all men and had not the slightest zest for warfare. [9] It was for just this reason that the Roman power came to be destroyed in Italy. Indeed, when Alexander the Logothete was sent thither, he had the effrontery to lay these charges without compunction upon the soldiers, and he tried to exact money from the Italians, alleging that he was punishing them for their behaviour during the reign of Theoderic and the Goths. [10] And it was not alone the soldiers who were oppressed by destitution and poverty through the conduct of the Logothetes, but also the subordinates who served all the generals, formerly a numerous and highly esteemed group, laboured under the burden of starvation and dire poverty. [11] For they had not the means wherewith to provide themselves with their customary necessities.

  [12] And I shall add one further item to those I have mentioned, since the subject of the soldiers leads me thereto. The Roman Emperors in earlier times stationed a very great multitude of soldiers at all points of the Empire’s frontier in order to guard the boundaries of the Roman domain, particularly in the eastern portion, thus checking the inroads of the Persians and the Saracens; these troops they used to call limitanei. [13] These the Emperor Justinian at first treated so casually and so meanly that their paymasters were four or five years behind in their payments to them, and whenever peace was made between the Romans and the Persians, these wretches were compelled, on the supposition that they too would profit by the blessings of peace, to make a present to the Treasury of the pay which was owing to them for a specified period. And later on, for no good reason, he took away from them the very name of regular troops. [14] Thereafter the frontiers of the Roman Empire remained destitute of guards and the soldiers suddenly found themselves obliged to look to the hands of those accustomed to works of piety.

  [15] Another group of soldiers, no fewer than three thousand five hundred in number, had been assigned originally to the guarding of the Palace; these are called Scholarii. [16] And the Treasury has been accustomed from earliest times always to pay these higher wages than all others. These men were picked for their excellence by earlier Emperors, being recruited for this honour from among the Armenians. [17] But since the time when Zeno succeeded to the throne, the way has been open for all, both cowards and wholly unwarlike men, to achieve the honour of this title. [18] And as time went on, even slaves, by putting up a bribe, could purchase admission to this service. So when Justinus took over the Empire, this Justinian appointed many to this honourable service, thus securing for himself great amounts of money. [19] But when at length he observed that there was no longer any vacancy in these ranks, he added to their number two thousand recruits, and these they used to call “supernumeraries.” [20] But when he himself took over the Empire, he shook off these supernumeraries with great speed, giving them no payment whatever.

  [21] But for those included in the regular body of the Scholarii he devised the following. When it was to be expected that an army would be sent against Libya or Italy or Persia, he would issue orders to them to pack up as though to take part in the expedition, though he knew well that they were not at all fit for active service, and they, in terror, remitted their pay to him for a specified period in order that this might not be done. And it so happened that this befell the Scholarii many times. [22] And Peter also, during the whole time while he held the office of Magister, as it is called, was constantly harassing them every day with unheard-of thefts. [23] For while he was indeed a mild man and not at all versed in offering insult, at the same time he was the biggest thief in the world and absolutely filled with shameful avarice. This Peter has been mentioned also in the previous books as having carried out the murder of Amalasuntha, daughter of Theoderic.

  [24] And there are also others in the Palace held in much higher esteem, for the Treasury is accustomed to allow them a higher wage on the ground that they on their part have paid larger amounts for the name of belonging to the service; these are called Domestici and Protectores, and from ancient times they have been unpractised in deeds of war. [25] For it is only for the sake of rank and for the appearance of the position that they are wont to have themselves enrolled among the Palace corps. And from ancient times some of these have had their residence in Byzantium, some in Galatia and some in other places. [26] But these too Justinian was constantly intimi
dating in the manner described, thus compelling them to relinquish the pay which belonged to them. And this shall be explained in summary. [27] There was a law that every four years the Emperor should present to each one of the soldiers a specified sum of gold. [28] So every fourth year they used to send messengers throughout every part of the Roman Empire and present five gold staters to each soldier. [29] And there could not be any failure in this matter at any time or by any means. But since the time when this man took over the administration of the State, he has neither done such a thing nor purposed to do it, though a period of thirty-two years has passed already, so that men have even come to forget this practice to some extent.

  [30] And I shall pass on to explain still another of his methods of plundering his subjects. Those who mount guard or handle dispatches for the Emperor and the officials in Byzantium, or who perform any other service whatsoever, are assigned at first to the lowest ranks, and as time goes on they advance steadily to fill the places of those who have died or retired, and each of them keeps moving up from the rank he has held until such time as he mounts the topmost step and attains to the highest attainable point of this career. [31] For those who have achieved this high rank a salary has been assigned from of old, so huge that each year they gather in more than one hundred centenaria of gold, and it has come about that not only they themselves are cared for in old age but that many others also share with them, as a general thing, the assistance derived from this source, and the affairs of the State have in this way advanced to a high point of prosperity. [32] But this Emperor, by depriving them of practically all these revenues, has brought woes upon them and the rest of mankind. For poverty laid hold upon them first and then passed on through the rest who previously had had some share of their benefit. [33] And if anyone should calculate the loss which fell upon them from this source over a period of thirty-two years, he would arrive at the measure of the amount of which it was their misfortune to be deprived.

  XXV

  Thus were the men in service mishandled by this tyrant. And I shall now proceed to tell of his treatment of merchants and sailors and craftsmen and traders in the market-place and, through these, of all the others. [2] There are two straits on the two sides of Byzantium, the one at the Hellespont between Sestus and Abydus and the other at the mouth of the sea called Euxine, where is the place named Hieron. [3] Now on the Strait of the Hellespont there was no public Customs House at all, but a certain magistrate commissioned by the Emperor was stationed at Abydus, watching to see whether any ship bearing arms went towards Byzantium without the Emperor’s permission, and also whether anyone was putting out from Byzantium without carrying a permit and seals from the men who have this function (for it is illegal for anyone to put out from Byzantium without being released by the men who serve the office of the official known as the “Magister”), and collecting from the masters of the ships a toll which was felt by no one, but which was, as it were, a sort of payment claimed by the man who held this office as compensation for his labour. [4] But the man dispatched to the other strait had always received his salary from the Emperor, and he watched with great care for the things which I have mentioned and, in addition, to see whether anything was being conveyed to the barbarians who are settled along the Euxine Sea, of a sort which it is not permitted to export from the land of the Romans to their enemies. This man, however, was not permitted to accept anything from those who sailed that way. [5] But since the time when the Emperor Justinian took over the Empire, he has established a public Customs House on each strait, and sending out regularly two salaried officials, although he did provide the salary agreed upon, yet he directed them to use every means in their power to make a return to him from that source of as much money as possible. [6] And they, being concerned only with demonstrating to him their loyalty towards him, finished by plundering from the shippers the entire value of their cargoes.

  [7] Such were the measures he took at each of the two straits. And at Byzantium he hit upon the following plan. He gave a commission to one of his intimates, a Syrian by birth named Addaeus, instructing him to secure for him some profit from the ships which put in at that port. [8] And he from that time on would not allow any boat which put in to the harbour of Byzantium to depart from there unmolested, but he either penalized the ship-masters the value of their ships or else compelled them to put back to Libya and Italy. [9] And some of them were unwilling either to take on a return cargo or to continue any longer in the maritime business, but were glad enough to get off by burning their own boats straightway. [10] All those, however, who were obliged to make their living from just this occupation would first collect treble charges from the importing merchants and thereafter continue to take on cargoes; and as for the merchants, their way out of the difficulty was to make good their own loss at the expense of those who purchased the goods; and thus it came about that the Romans were being starved to death by every device.

  [11] Such is the way things were going as regards the administration of affairs. But I think that I should not omit to mention also what was done by the imperial pair with reference to the small coinage. [12] For while the money-changers formerly were accustomed to give to those who bargained with them in exchange for one gold stater two hundred and ten obols, which they call pholleis, these persons, contriving private gain for themselves, had it arranged that only one hundred and eighty obols should be given for the stater. In this way they cut off a seventh part of the value of every gold coin . . . of all men.

  [13] But when these sovereigns had brought most of the merchandise under the control of the monopolies, as they are called, and every single day were strangling those who wished to buy anything, and only the shops where clothing is sold were left untouched by them, they devised this scheme for that business also. [14] Garments made of silk had been wont from ancient times to be produced in the cities of Beirut and Tyre in Phoenicia. [15] And the merchants and craftsmen and artisans of these stuffs had lived there from ancient times, and this merchandise was carried thence to the whole world. [16] And when, in the reign of Justinian, those engaged in this trade both in Byzantium and in the other cities were selling this fabric at an excessive price, excusing themselves with the statement that at the time in question they were paying the Persians a higher price than formerly, and that the customs-houses were now more numerous in the land of the Romans, the Emperor gave everyone the impression that he was vexed with this, and he made a general provision by law that one pound of this stuff should not cost more than eight gold pieces. [17] And the penalty appointed for those who should transgress this law was to be deprived of all the money they had. This seemed to the people altogether impossible and out of the question. For it was not possible for the importing merchants, having bought these cargoes at a higher price, to sell them to the dealers for less. [18] Therefore they no longer cared to engage in the importation of this stuff, and they gradually disposed of the remainder of their cargoes by rather furtive methods, selling no doubt to certain of the notables who found a satisfaction in making a shew of such finery through the lavish expenditure of their money — or, in a certain sense, they were obliged to do so. [19] And when the Empress became aware of these transactions through the whisperings of certain persons, though she did not investigate the gossip that was going round, she immediately took the entire cargoes away from the men and, in addition, imposed upon them a fine of a centenarium of gold. . . . But this particular business is under the control, among the Romans at least, of the official in charge of the imperial treasures. [20] Consequently, having appointed Peter surnamed Barsymes to this position not long afterwards, they indulged him in doing execrable things. [21] For while he required all other men strictly to observe the law, the craftsmen of this trade he required to work for himself alone, and he would sell dyes, no longer furtively but in the public square of the market-place, at the rate of no less than six gold pieces the ounce for the ordinary quality, but more than twenty-four pieces for the imperial dye which they are wont t
o call holoverum. [22] And while he produced large sums from that source for the Emperor, he himself gained still more without being observed, and this practice, which began with him, has always continued. [23] For he alone, up to the present time, is established, with no attempt at concealment, as both importer and retailer of this merchandise. [24] Consequently the importers who in former times had engaged in this trade both at Byzantium and in the other cities, on sea and on land, now had to endure, as was to be expected, the hardships arising from this procedure. [25] And in the other cities practically the whole population found itself suddenly reduced to beggary. For the mechanics and the hand-workers were naturally compelled to struggle with hunger, and many in consequence changed their citizenship and went off as fugitives to the land of Persia. [26] But always the Master of the Treasures stood alone as sole manager of this business, and while he did consent to deliver to the Emperor a portion of its profits, as has been said, he carried off the greater portion for himself and was enriching himself through public calamities. So much then for this.