XXVIII
There was a certain Priscus in the city of Emesa who had a great natural ability in imitating the handwriting of others, and he was a very clever artist at this evil business. [2] Now it happened that the Church of Emesa had a good many years before become the heir of one of the notables. [3] The man in question was of patrician rank, one Mammianus by name, a man of distinguished family and great wealth, [4] and during the reign of Justinian Priscus investigated all the families of the above-named city, and if he found any persons who both abounded in wealth and were capable of sustaining great losses of money, he would carefully trace out their ancestors, and when he chanced upon old letters of theirs, he made many documents purporting to have been written by them, in which they promised to pay to Mammianus large sums of money on the ground that they had received this as a deposit from him. [5] And the total amount acknowledged in these forged documents amounted to no less than a hundred centenaria. [6] And selecting the writing of a certain man who had been wont to have a seat in the market-place at the period when Mammianus was alive, a man who had a great reputation for truth and for virtue in general, and who used to execute all the documents of the citizens, sealing each personally with his own writing (such a person the Romans call tabellio), Priscus, after making a marvellous imitation of this man’s writing, delivered the documents to those who administered the affairs of the Church of Emesa, they having promised that a share of the money to be derived from that source should fall to him. [7] But since the law stood in the way, which provided that all ordinary cases should be subject to a thirty-year limitation, yet some few cases, including cases involving mortgages, should be extended to include a period of forty years, they hit upon the following expedient. [8] Coming to Byzantium and paying out great sums of money to this Emperor, they besought him to co-operate with them in accomplishing the destruction of the citizens who had been found guilty of nothing. [9] And he, after he had got the money, without the least hesitation published a law that Churches should be debarred from prosecuting their claims, not after the regular period of time, but after the lapse of full one hundred years, and providing that this should be valid, not in Emesa alone, but throughout the whole Roman Empire. [10] And to arbitrate this question for the people of Emesa he designated a certain Longinus, an energetic man and very powerful in body, who later also held the office of Mayor of Byzantium. [1] And those who managed the affairs of the Church lodged, to begin with, a case for two centenaria, based on the documents mentioned, against one of the citizens, and they immediately secured the man’s conviction, since he was utterly unable, both because of such a lapse of time and because of his ignorance of what had been done at the time in question, to make any defence whatever. [12] And all men were filled with great sorrow, and above all the most notable among the men of Emesa, as being all equally exposed to the denouncers. [13] And since the evil was by now spreading out over the majority of the citizens, it so happened that a providence of God, one may say, occurred as follows. [14] Longinus commanded Priscus, the author of this mischief, to bring together before him all the documents, and when he declined to do so, he struck him with great violence. [15] And he, unable to support the blow of a very strong man, fell on his back, and by this time trembling and in a state of panic he suspected that Longinus knew entirely what he had done and so confessed the truth; thus the entire deviltry was brought to light and the denouncing ceased.
[16] Yet these constant and daily tamperings with the laws of the Romans were not the only harm he did, but the Emperor also took pains to abolish the laws which the Hebrews honour. [17] If it ever happened, for instance, that the year in its recurring rounds brought on the Feast of the Passover before the festival of the Christians, he would not allow the Jews to celebrate this at the proper time nor to make any offering to God at that feast nor to perform any of the rites customary among them. [18] And many of them used to be brought to trial as having tasted the flesh of lambs at this time by those who were in positions of authority, and these punished them by heavy fines, arraigning them for violation of the laws of the State. [19] And though I know well of countless other such actions on the part of Justinian, I shall not add anything, for an end must be set to my discourse. For the man’s character will be disclosed with sufficient clearness by what has been said.
XXIX
That he was insincere and a dissembler I shall straightway make clear. The Liberius whom I have just mentioned he dismissed from the office he held and appointed in his place John surnamed Laxarion, an Egyptian by birth. [2] And when Pelagius, who was a very close friend of Liberius, learned of this, he enquired of the Emperor whether the report about Laxarion was true. [3] And he straightway denied the report, insisting that he had not done any such thing, and he put in his hands a letter to Liberius, instructing him to hold on to this office most firmly and by no means to relinquish it. [4] For it was not his will, he said, to remove him from the office at the present time. And John had an uncle in Byzantium named Eudaemon, who, having risen to senatorial rank and having acquired great wealth, was for a time administrator of the Emperor’s personal estate. [5] This Eudaemon, upon hearing the statements we have mentioned, also enquired of the Emperor whether his nephew’s office was secure. [6] Whereupon the Emperor denied what he had written to Liberius and wrote a letter to John instructing him to lay claim to the office with all his might; [7] for, he said, he on his part had not planned any change regarding it. And John, having been convinced by these statements, commanded Liberius to retire from his official quarters as having been dismissed from his office. [8] But Liberius refused absolutely to obey him, he also obviously having been led to do so by the Emperor’s letters. [9] So John armed his followers and proceeded to attack Liberius, while the latter, together with his supporters, prepared for resistance. And a fight took place in which many were killed, including John himself, the holder of the office. [10] Liberius was therefore immediately summoned to Byzantium, Eudaemon urging this step vigorously, and the Senate, making a determination of the facts in the case, acquitted the man on the ground that the outrage had occurred while he was not an aggressor, but was acting in self-defence. [11] But the Emperor did not drop the matter until he had punished him by a fine of money, imposed secretly.
[12] It was in this wise, in sooth, that Justinian knew how to tell the truth and practised straightforwardness of speech! But it is not, I think, inopportune to add a matter that is incidental to this narrative. For this Eudaemon died not long afterwards, having neither disposed of his estate by will nor made any statement whatever, although he had many relatives surviving. [13] And at about the same time a certain man, Euphratas by name, who had been overseer of the Palace eunuchs, departed this life, leaving a nephew but without having made any disposition of his estate, which was very great. [14] And the Emperor seized both these estates, of his own arbitrary act making himself the heir and giving not a farthing to any of the lawful heirs. [15] Such respect for the law and for the kinsmen of his intimates was shewn by this Emperor! [16] In the same way he had seized the property of Eirenaeus who had died a long time before, although he had not a shadow of a claim to it.
[17] And the incident directly connected with those just mentioned, which occurred at about the same time, I could not pass by in silence. There was a certain Anatolius who held chief place in the senatorial roster of Ascalon. This man’s daughter had been duly married by one of the Caesareans, Mamilianus by name, a man of a very notable house. [18] And the girl was an heiress, since she was the only child of Anatolius. [19] Now it had been prescribed by ancient law that whenever a Senator of any one of the cities should depart this life without leaving male children, the fourth part of the property left by this man should be given to the Council of the city, while the natural heirs of the deceased should enjoy the rest; but the Emperor here too gave evidence of his own true character, for he happened to have promulgated a law recently, which arranged matters in just the opposite way, providing, namely, that when a S
enator died without male issue, his natural heirs should receive the fourth part of his estate but that all the rest should be taken over by the Treasury and entered in the roster of the city’s Senate. [20] And yet never since the creation of man has either Treasurer or Emperor been empowered to share in senatorial property. [21] So while this law was in force, the final day of life came upon Anatolius, and his daughter divided the estate with the Treasury and the Council of the city in accordance with the law, and both the Emperor himself and the magistrates in charge of the roster of Ascalon wrote letters to her releasing her from the counter-claim in this matter, since they had received their due correctly and justly. [22] Later on Mamilianus also departed this life, the man who had been son-in-law to Anatolius, and he left a single daughter, who alone acquired her father’s estate, as was to be expected. [23] But later on she too, while her mother still survived, reached the term of her life, having been married to one of the notables but having become mother of neither female nor male child. [24] But Justinian seized upon all the property forthwith, letting fall the amazing statement that for the daughter of Anatolius, now an old woman, to be enriched by her husband’s and her father’s money was an impious thing! [25] But in order that the woman might not henceforth be assigned to the ranks of the beggars, he ordered that this woman should receive a gold stater each day, as long as she lived, inserting in the document by means of which he had plundered all this money the statement that he relinquished the stater for the sake of piety: “For it is my custom,” he said, “to do whatever is pious and righteous.”
[26] But concerning these matters it suffices to give these facts, that my account may not lead to surfeit, since it is not possible for any human being to mention them all. [27] But that he has taken no account even of any adherent of the Blues, who were supposed to be his favourites, when money was at stake, I shall now make clear. [28] There was a certain Malthanes in Cilicia, son-in-law of that Leon who held, as mentioned above, the office of Referendarius as it is called. [29] This man he directed to put a stop to the acts of violence in Cilicia. And laying hold of this pretext, Malthanes committed outrageous wrongs upon the majority of the Cilicians, and as he plundered their money, he sent some to the tyrant, while he saw fit to enrich himself with the remainder. [30] Now all the rest endured their misfortunes in silence, but such of the men of Tarsus as were Blues, being bold in the licence which the Emperor’s favour gave them, heaped many insults upon Malthanes in the public market-place when he was not present among them. [31] And when Malthanes learned this, he straightway came to Tarsus by night, bringing a large force of soldiers, and sending them around to the houses at early dawn, he ordered them to take lodgings therein. [32] And the Blues, thinking this to be a raid, defended themselves as well as they could. And many other mishaps took place in the darkness, but the worst was that Damianus, a member of the Senate, fell by a shot from a bow. [33] Now this Damianus was the patron of the Blues there. And when news of this came to Byzantium, the Blues were angry and raised a great tumult throughout the city, and they plagued the Emperor about the matter exceedingly, and they vilified Leon and Malthanes roundly together with most terrible threats. [34] And the Emperor pretended to be no less angry than they at what had happened. So he straightway wrote a letter ordering an investigation and punishment of the public acts of Malthanes. [35] But Leon, by handing over to him a vast quantity of gold, caused him to give up at once both his anger and his fondness for the Blues, and though the matter had remained uninvestigated, when Malthanes came into the Emperor’s presence in Byzantium, the latter received him with great friendliness and held him in honour. [36] But when he went out from the Emperor’s presence, the Blues, who had been watching for him, rained blows upon him in the Palace, and they would have destroyed him had not some of them prevented it, these being the men who chanced to have already received money in secret from Leon. [37] And yet who would not call that State most pitiable in which an Emperor, having accepted a bribe, left the briber’s crimes uninvestigated, and factionists, on the other hand, while the Emperor was there in the Palace, dared without any compunction to set upon one of the magistrates and to commit an unjust attack upon him? [38] As for punishment, however, none was inflicted on account of these misdeeds, either upon Malthanes or upon his assailants. From these things, if anyone should wish, let him estimate the character of the Emperor Justinian.
XXX
And as to the question whether Justinian had any consideration for the welfare of the State, the things he did to the public post and to the spies will be illuminating. [2] For the Roman Emperors of earlier times, by way of making provision that everything should be reported to them speedily and be subject to no delay, — such as the damage inflicted by the enemy upon each several country, whatever befell the cities in the course of civil conflict or of some unforeseen calamity, the acts of the magistrates and of all others in every part of the Roman Empire — and also, to the end that those who conveyed the annual taxes might reach the capital safely and without either delay or risk, had created a swift public post extending everywhere, in the following manner. [3] Within the distance included in each day’s journey for an unencumbered traveller they established stations, sometimes eight, sometimes less, but as a general thing not less than five. [4] And horses to the number of forty stood ready at each station. And grooms in proportion to the number of horses were detailed to all stations. [5] And always travelling with frequent changes of the horses, which were of the most approved breeds, those to whom this duty was assigned covered, on occasion, a ten-days’ journey in a single day, and accomplished all those things which have just been mentioned; and furthermore, the owners of the land everywhere, and particularly if their lands happened to lie in the interior, were exceedingly prosperous because of this system. [6] For every year they sold the surplus of their crops to the Government for the maintenance of horses and grooms, and thus earned much money. [7] And the result of all this was that while the treasury regularly received the taxes assessed upon each man, yet those who paid the taxes received their money but also again immediately, and there was the further advantage that the State business has been accomplished.
[8] Now in earlier times this was the situation. But this Emperor first of all abolished the post from Chalcedon as far as Daciviza and compelled all the couriers, much against their will, to proceed from Byzantium directly to Helenopolis by sea. [9] When they make the passage, then, in small boats of the kind the folk are accustomed to use in crossing the strait, in case a storm happens to descend upon them, they come into great danger. For since the haste which is obligatory keeps urging them on, it is impossible for them to watch for the right weather and wait for the next calm. [10] And, in the second place, while on the route leading into Persia he did allow the previous arrangement to stand, yet for all the rest of the East as far as Egypt he allowed one station only for each day’s journey, using not horses, however, but mules and only a few of them. [11] It is no wonder, consequently, that the things which take place in each country, being reported both with difficulty and too late to give opportunity for action and behind the course of events, cannot be dealt with at all, and the owners of the lands, with crops rotting on their hands and going to waste, continually lose all their profits.
[12] And the matter of the spies is as follows. Many men from ancient times were maintained by the State, men who would go into the enemy’s country and get into the Palace of the Persians, either on the pretext of selling something of by some other device, and after making a thorough investigation of everything, they would return to the land of the Romans, where they were able to report all the secrets of the enemy to the magistrates. [13] And they, furnished with this advance information, would be on their guard and nothing unforeseen would befall them. And this practice had existed among the Medes also from ancient times. Indeed Chosroes, as they say, increased the salaries of his spies and profited by this forethought. [14] For nothing that was happening among the Romans escaped him. Justin
ian, on the other hand, by refusing to spend anything at all on them blotted out from the land of the Romans even the very name of spies, and in consequence of this action many mistakes were made and Lazica was captured by the enemy, the Romans having utterly failed to discover where in the world the Persian king and his army were. [15] Nay more, the State had also been wont from ancient times to maintain a great number of camels, which followed the Roman army as it moved against an enemy and carried all the provisions. [16] And in those days neither were the farmers obliged to provide transportation nor did the soldiers find themselves in want of any of the necessities; but Justinian abolished these too, practically all of them. So now-a-days, when a Roman army proceeds against the enemy, none of the needful measures can possibly be taken.
[17] Now the most important affairs of the State were going on badly in this fashion. And there is no harm in mentioning also one of Justinian’s absurdities. [18] There was among the orators of Caesarea a certain Evangelus, a man of no little distinction, who, since the breeze of fortune had blown favourably for him, had become owner of other property and especially of much land. [19] And later on he even purchased a village on the seashore, Porphyreon by name, paying three centenaria of gold. Learning of this, the Emperor Justinian immediately took the place away from him, giving him some small portion of its value, with the remark that it would never comport with the dignity of Evangelus, an orator, to be the owner of such a town. [20] But I shall say nothing more about these matters, now that I have, after a fashion, made mention of them.
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