Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
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Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.
Part III.
I need not explain that silk ^61 is originally spun from the
bowels of a caterpillar, and that it composes the golden tomb,
from whence a worm emerges in the form of a butterfly. Till the
reign of Justinian, the silk- worm who feed on the leaves of the
white mulberry-tree were confined to China; those of the pine,
the oak, and the ash, were common in the forests both of Asia and
Europe; but as their education is more difficult, and their
produce more uncertain, they were generally neglected, except in
the little island of Ceos, near the coast of Attica. A thin gauze
was procured from their webs, and this Cean manufacture, the
invention of a woman, for female use, was long admired both in
the East and at Rome. Whatever suspicions may be raised by the
garments of the Medes and Assyrians, Virgil is the most ancient
writer, who expressly mentions the soft wool which was combed
from the trees of the Seres or Chinese; ^62 and this natural
error, less marvellous than the truth, was slowly corrected by
the knowledge of a valuable insect, the first artificer of the
luxury of nations. That rare and elegant luxury was censured, in
the reign of Tiberius, by the gravest of the Romans; and Pliny,
in affected though forcible language, has condemned the thirst of
gain, which explores the last confines of the earth, for the
pernicious purpose of exposing to the public eye naked draperies
and transparent matrons. ^63 ^* A dress which showed the turn of
the limbs, and color of the skin, might gratify vanity, or
provoke desire; the silks which had been closely woven in China
were sometimes unravelled by the Phoenician women, and the
precious materials were multiplied by a looser texture, and the
intermixture of linen threads. ^64 Two hundred years after the
age of Pliny, the use of pure, or even of mixed silks, was
confined to the female sex, till the opulent citizens of Rome and
the provinces were insensibly familiarized with the example of
Elagabalus, the first who, by this effeminate habit, had sullied
the dignity of an emperor and a man. Aurelian complained, that a
pound of silk was sold at Rome for twelve ounces of gold; but the
supply increased with the demand, and the price diminished with
the supply. If accident or monopoly sometimes raised the value
even above the standard of Aurelian, the manufacturers of Tyre
and Berytus were sometimes compelled, by the operation of the
same causes, to content themselves with a ninth part of that
extravagant rate. ^65 A law was thought necessary to discriminate
the dress of comedians from that of senators; and of the silk
exported from its native country the far greater part was
consumed by the subjects of Justinian. They were still more
intimately acquainted with a shell-fish of the Mediterranean,
surnamed the silk-worm of the sea: the fine wool or hair by which
the mother-of-pearl affixes itself to the rock is now
manufactured for curiosity rather than use; and a robe obtained
from the same singular materials was the gift of the Roman
emperor to the satraps of Armenia. ^66
[Footnote 61: In the history of insects (far more wonderful than
Ovid's Metamorphoses) the silk-worm holds a conspicuous place.
The bombyx of the Isle of Ceos, as described by Pliny, (Hist.
Natur. xi. 26, 27, with the notes of the two learned Jesuits,
Hardouin and Brotier,) may be illustrated by a similar species in
China, (Memoires sur les Chinois, tom. ii. p. 575 - 598;) but our
silk-worm, as well as the white mulberry-tree, were unknown to
Theophrastus and Pliny.]
[Footnote 62: Georgic. ii. 121. Serica quando venerint in usum
planissime non acio: suspicor tamen in Julii Caesaris aevo, nam
ante non invenio, says Justus Lipsius, (Excursus i. ad Tacit.
Annal. ii. 32.) See Dion Cassius, (l. xliii. p. 358, edit.
Reimar,) and Pausanius, (l. vi. p. 519,) the first who describes,
however strangely, the Seric insect.]
[Footnote 63: Tam longinquo orbe petitur, ut in publico matrona
transluceat ...ut denudet foeminas vestis, (Plin. vi. 20, xi.
-
Varro and Publius Syrus had already played on the Toga
vitrea, ventus texilis, and nebula linen, (Horat. Sermon. i. 2,
101, with the notes of Torrentius and Dacier.)]
[Footnote *: Gibbon must have written transparent draperies and
naked matrons. Through sometimes affected, he is never
inaccurate. - M.]
[Footnote 64: On the texture, colors, names, and use of the silk,
half silk, and liuen garments of antiquity, see the profound,
diffuse, and obscure researches of the great Salmasius, (in Hist.
August. p. 127, 309, 310, 339, 341, 342, 344, 388 - 391, 395,
513,) who was ignorant of the most common trades of Dijon or
Leyden.]
[Footnote 65: Flavius Vopiscus in Aurelian. c. 45, in Hist.
August. p. 224. See Salmasius ad Hist. Aug. p. 392, and Plinian.
Exercitat. in Solinum, p. 694, 695. The Anecdotes of Procopius
-
25) state a partial and imperfect rate of the price of silk
in the time of Justinian.]
[Footnote 66: Procopius de Edit. l. iii. c. 1. These pinnes de
mer are found near Smyrna, Sicily, Corsica, and Minorca; and a
pair of gloves of their silk was presented to Pope Benedict XIV.]
A valuable merchandise of small bulk is capable of defraying
the expense of land-carriage; and the caravans traversed the
whole latitude of Asia in two hundred and forty-three days from
the Chinese Ocean to the sea-coast of Syria. Silk was immediately
delivered to the Romans by the Persian merchants, ^67 who
frequented the fairs of Armenia and Nisibis; but this trade,
which in the intervals of truce was oppressed by avarice and
jealousy, was totally interrupted by the long wars of the rival
monarchies. The great king might proudly number Sogdiana, and
even Serica, among the provinces of his empire; but his real
dominion was bounded by the Oxus and his useful intercourse with
the Sogdoites, beyond the river, depended on the pleasure of
their conquerors, the white Huns, and the Turks, who successively
reigned over that industrious people. Yet the most savage
dominion has not extirpated the seeds of agriculture and
commerce, in a region which is celebrated as one of the four
gardens of Asia; the cities of Samarcand and Bochara are
advantageously seated for the exchange of its various
productions; and their merchants purchased from the Chinese, ^68
the raw or manufactured silk which they transported into Persia
for the use of the Roman empire. In the vain capital of China,
the Sogdian caravans were entertained as the suppliant embassies
of tributary kingdoms, and if they returned in safety, the bold
adventure was rewarded with exorbitant gain. But the difficult
and perilous march from Samarcand to the first town of Shensi,
could not be performed in less than sixty, eighty, or one hundred
days: as soon as they had passed the Jaxartes they entered the
desert; and the wandering hordes, unless they are restrained by
armies and garrisons, have always considered the citizen and the
traveller as the objects of lawful rapine. To escape the Tartar
robbers, and the tyrants of Persia, the silk caravans explored a
more southern road; they traversed the mountains of Thibet,
descended the streams of the Ganges or the Indus, and patiently
expected, in the ports of Guzerat and Malabar, the annual fleets
of the West. ^69 But the dangers of the desert were found less
intolerable than toil, hunger, and the loss of time; the attempt
was seldom renewed, and the only European who has passed that
unfrequented way, applauds his own diligence, that, in nine
months after his departure from Pekin, he reached the mouth of
the Indus. The ocean, however, was open to the free
communication of mankind. From the great river to the tropic of
Cancer, the provinces of China were subdued and civilized by the
emperors of the North; they were filled about the time of the
Christian aera with cities and men, mulberry- trees and their
precious inhabitants; and if the Chinese, with the knowledge of
the compass, had possessed the genius of the Greeks or
Phoenicians, they might have spread their discoveries over the
southern hemisphere. I am not qualified to examine, and I am not
disposed to believe, their distant voyages to the Persian Gulf,
or the Cape of Good Hope; but their ancestors might equal the
labors and success of the present race, and the sphere of their
navigation might extend from the Isles of Japan to the Straits of
Malacca, the pillars, if we may apply that name, of an Oriental
Hercules. ^70 Without losing sight of land, they might sail along
the coast to the extreme promontory of Achin, which is annually
visited by ten or twelve ships laden with the productions, the
manufactures, and even the artificers of China; the Island of
Sumatra and the opposite peninsula are faintly delineated ^71 as
the regions of gold and silver; and the trading cities named in
the geography of Ptolemy may indicate, that this wealth was not
solely derived from the mines. The direct interval between
Sumatra and Ceylon is about three hundred leagues: the Chinese
and Indian navigators were conducted by the flight of birds and
periodical winds; and the ocean might be securely traversed in
square-built ships, which, instead of iron, were sewed together
with the strong thread of the cocoanut. Ceylon, Serendib, or
Taprobana, was divided between two hostile princes; one of whom
possessed the mountains, the elephants, and the luminous
carbuncle, and the other enjoyed the more solid riches of
domestic industry, foreign trade, and the capacious harbor of
Trinquemale, which received and dismissed the fleets of the East
and West. In this hospitable isle, at an equal distance (as it
was computed) from their respective countries, the silk merchants
of China, who had collected in their voyages aloes, cloves,
nutmeg, and sandal wood, maintained a free and beneficial
commerce with the inhabitants of the Persian Gulf. The subjects
of the great king exalted, without a rival, his power and
magnificence: and the Roman, who confounded their vanity by
comparing his paltry coin with a gold medal of the emperor
Anastasius, had sailed to Ceylon, in an Aethiopian ship, as a
simple passenger. ^72
[Footnote 67: Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 20, l. ii. c. 25;
Gothic. l. iv. c. 17. Menander in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107. Of
the Parthian or Persian empire, Isidore of Charax (in Stathmis
Parthicis, p. 7, 8, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. ii.) has
marked the roads, and Ammianus Marcellinus (l. xxiii. c. 6, p.
400) has enumerated the provinces.
Note: See St. Martin, Mem. sur l'Armenie, vol. ii. p. 41. -
-
[Footnote 68: The blind admiration of the Jesuits confounds the
different periods of the Chinese history. They are more
critically distinguished by M. de Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom.
-
part i. in the Tables, part ii. in the Geography. Memoires de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxii. xxxvi. xlii. xliii.,)
who discovers the gradual progress of the truth of the annals and
the extent of the monarchy, till the Christian aera. He has
searched, with a curious eye, the connections of the Chinese with
the nations of the West; but these connections are slight,
casual, and obscure; nor did the Romans entertain a suspicion
that the Seres or Sinae possessed an empire not inferior to their
own.
Note: An abstract of the various opinions of the learned
modern writers, Gosselin, Mannert, Lelewel, Malte-Brun, Heeren,
and La Treille, on the Serica and the Thinae of the ancients, may
be found in the new edition of Malte-Brun, vol. vi. p. 368, 382.
[Footnote 69: The roads from China to Persia and Hindostan may be
investigated in the relations of Hackluyt and Thevenot, the
ambassadors of Sharokh, Anthony Jenkinson, the Pere Greuber, &c.
See likewise Hanway's Travels, vol. i. p. 345 - 357. A
communication through Thibet has been lately explored by the
English sovereigns of Bengal.]
[Footnote 70: For the Chinese navigation to Malacca and Achin,
perhaps to Ceylon, see Renaudot, (on the two Mahometan
Travellers, p. 8 - 11, 13 - 17, 141 - 157;) Dampier, (vol. ii. p.
136;) the Hist. Philosophique des deux Indes, (tom. i. p. 98,)
and Hist. Generale des Voyages, (tom. vi. p. 201.)]
[Footnote 71: The knowledge, or rather ignorance, of Strabo,
Pliny, Ptolemy, Arrian, Marcian, &c., of the countries eastward
of Cape Comorin, is finely illustrated by D'Anville, (Antiquite
Geographique de l'Inde, especially p. 161 - 198.) Our geography
of India is improved by commerce and conquest; and has been
illustrated by the excellent maps and memoirs of Major Rennel.
If he extends the sphere of his inquiries with the same critical
knowledge and sagacity, he will succeed, and may surpass, the
first of modern geographers.]
[Footnote 72: The Taprobane of Pliny, (vi. 24,) Solinus, (c. 53,)
and Salmas. Plinianae Exercitat., (p. 781, 782,) and most of the
ancients, who often confound the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra,
is more clearly described by Cosmas Indicopleustes; yet even the
Christian topographer has exaggerated its dimensions. His
information on the Indian and Chinese trade is rare and curious,
-
ii. p. 138, l. xi. p. 337, 338, edit. Montfaucon.)]
As silk became of indispensable use, the emperor Justinian
saw with concern that the Persians had occupied by land and sea
the monopoly of this important supply, and that the wealth of his
subjects was continually drained by a nation of enemies and
idolaters. An active government would have restored the trade of
Egypt and the navigation of the Red Sea, which had decayed with
the prosperity of the empire; and the Roman vessels might have
sailed, for the purchase of silk, to the ports of Ceylon, of
Malacca, or even of China. Justinian embraced a more humble
expedient, and solicited the aid of his Christian allies, the
Aethiopians of Abyssinia, who had recently acquired the arts of
navigation, the spirit of trade, and the seaport of Adulis, ^73
^* still decorated with the trophies of a Grecian conqueror.
Along the African coast, they penetrated to the equator in search
of gold, emeralds, and aromatics; but they wisely declined an
unequal competition, in which they must be always prevented by
the vicinity of the Persians to the markets of India; and the
emperor submitted to the disappointment, till his wishes were
gratified by an unexpected event. The gospel had been preached
to the Indians: a bishop already governed the Christians of St.
Thomas on the pepper-coast of Malabar; a church was planted in
Ceylon, and the missionaries pursued the footsteps of commerce to
the extremities of Asia. ^74 Two Persian monks had long resided
in China, perhaps in the royal city of Nankin, the seat of a
monarch addicted to foreign superstitions, and who actually
received an embassy from the Isle of Ceylon. Amidst their pious
occupations, they viewed with a curious eye the common dress of
the Chinese, the manufactures of silk, and the myriads of
silk-worms, whose education (either on trees or in houses) had
once been considered as the labor of queens. ^75 They soon
discovered that it was impracticable to transport the short-lived
insect, but that in the eggs a numerous progeny might be
preserved and multiplied in a distant climate. Religion or
interest had more power over the Persian monks than the love of
their country: after a long journey, they arrived at
Constantinople, imparted their project to the emperor, and were
liberally encouraged by the gifts and promises of Justinian. To
the historians of that prince, a campaign at the foot of Mount
Caucasus has seemed more deserving of a minute relation than the
labors of these missionaries of commerce, who again entered
China, deceived a jealous people by concealing the eggs of the
silk-worm in a hollow cane, and returned in triumph with the
spoils of the East. Under their direction, the eggs were hatched
at the proper season by the artificial heat of dung; the worms
were fed with mulberry leaves; they lived and labored in a
foreign climate; a sufficient number of butterflies was saved to
propagate the race, and trees were planted to supply the
nourishment of the rising generations. Experience and reflection
corrected the errors of a new attempt, and the Sogdoite
ambassadors acknowledged, in the succeeding reign, that the
Romans were not inferior to the natives of China in the education
of the insects, and the manufactures of silk, ^76 in which both
China and Constantinople have been surpassed by the industry of
modern Europe. I am not insensible of the benefits of elegant
luxury; yet I reflect with some pain, that if the importers of
silk had introduced the art of printing, already practised by the
Chinese, the comedies of Menander and the entire decads of Livy
would have been perpetuated in the editions of the sixth century.
A larger view of the globe might at least have promoted the
improvement of speculative science, but the Christian geography
was forcibly extracted from texts of Scripture, and the study of
nature was the surest symptom of an unbelieving mind. The
orthodox faith confined the habitable world to one temperate
zone, and represented the earth as an oblong surface, four
hundred days' journey in length, two hundred in breadth,
encompassed by the ocean, and covered by the solid crystal of the
firmament. ^77
[Footnote 73: See Procopius, Persic. (l. ii. c. 20.) Cosmas
affords some interesting knowledge of the port and inscription of
Adulis, (Topograph. Christ. l. ii. p. 138, 140 - 143,) and of the
trade of the Axumites along the African coast of Barbaria or
Zingi, (p. 138, 139,) and as far as Taprobane, (l. xi. p. 339.)]
[Footnote *: Mr. Salt obtained information of considerable ruins
of an ancient town near Zulla, called Azoole, which answers to
the position of Adulis. Mr. Salt was prevented by illness, Mr.
Stuart, whom he sent, by the jealousy of the natives, from
investigating these ruins: of their existence there seems no
doubt. Salt's 2d Journey, p. 452. - M.]
[Footnote 74: See the Christian missions in India, in Cosmas, (l.
-
p. 178, 179, l. xi. p. 337,) and consult Asseman. Bibliot.
Orient. (tom. iv. p. 413 - 548.)]
[Footnote 75: The invention, manufacture, and general use of silk
in China, may be seen in Duhalde, (Description Generale de la
Chine, tom. ii. p. 165, 205 - 223.) The province of Chekian is
the most renowned both for quantity and quality.]
[Footnote 76: Procopius, (l. viii. Gothic. iv. c. 17. Theophanes
Byzant. apud Phot. Cod. lxxxiv. p. 38. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv.
-
69. Pagi (tom. ii. p. 602) assigns to the year 552 this
memorable importation. Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107)
mentions the admiration of the Sogdoites; and Theophylact
Simocatta (l. vii. c. 9) darkly represents the two rival kingdoms
in (China) the country of silk.]
[Footnote 77: Cosmas, surnamed Indicopleustes, or the Indian
navigator, performed his voyage about the year 522, and composed
at Alexandria, between 535, and 547, Christian Topography,
(Montfaucon, Praefat. c. i.,) in which he refutes the impious
opinion, that the earth is a globe; and Photius had read this
work, (Cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10,) which displays the prejudices of a
monk, with the knowledge of a merchant; the most valuable part
has been given in French and in Greek by Melchisedec Thevenot,
(Relations Curieuses, part i.,) and the whole is since published
in a splendid edition by Pere Montfaucon, (Nova Collectio Patrum,
Paris, 1707, 2 vols. in fol., tom. ii. p. 113 - 346.) But the
editor, a theologian, might blush at not discovering the
Nestorian heresy of Cosmas, which has been detected by La Croz
(Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 40 - 56.)]
-
The subjects of Justinian were dissatisfied with the
times, and with the government. Europe was overrun by the
Barbarians, and Asia by the monks: the poverty of the West
discouraged the trade and manufactures of the East: the produce
of labor was consumed by the unprofitable servants of the church,
the state, and the army; and a rapid decrease was felt in the
fixed and circulating capitals which constitute the national
wealth. The public distress had been alleviated by the economy
of Anastasius, and that prudent emperor accumulated an immense
treasure, while he delivered his people from the most odious or
oppressive taxes. ^* Their gratitude universally applauded the
abolition of the gold of affliction, a personal tribute on the
industry of the poor, ^78 but more intolerable, as it should
seem, in the form than in the substance, since the flourishing
city of Edessa paid only one hundred and forty pounds of gold,
which was collected in four years from ten thousand artificers.
^79 Yet such was the parsimony which supported this liberal
disposition, that, in a reign of twenty-seven years, Anastasius
saved, from his annual revenue, the enormous sum of thirteen
millions sterling, or three hundred and twenty thousand pounds of
gold. ^80 His example was neglected, and his treasure was abused,
by the nephew of Justin. The riches of Justinian were speedily
exhausted by alms and buildings, by ambitious wars, and
ignominious treaties. His revenues were found inadequate to his
expenses. Every art was tried to extort from the people the gold
and silver which he scattered with a lavish hand from Persia to
France: ^81 his reign was marked by the vicissitudes or rather by
the combat, of rapaciousness and avarice, of splendor and
poverty; he lived with the reputation of hidden treasures, ^82
and bequeathed to his successor the payment of his debts. ^83
Such a character has been justly accused by the voice of the
people and of posterity: but public discontent is credulous;
private malice is bold; and a lover of truth will peruse with a
suspicious eye the instructive anecdotes of Procopius. The
secret historian represents only the vices of Justinian, and
those vices are darkened by his malevolent pencil. Ambiguous
actions are imputed to the worst motives; error is confounded
with guilt, accident with design, and laws with abuses; the
partial injustice of a moment is dexterously applied as the
general maxim of a reign of thirty-two years; the emperor alone
is made responsible for the faults of his officers, the disorders
of the times, and the corruption of his subjects; and even the
calamities of nature, plagues, earthquakes, and inundations, are
imputed to the prince of the daemons, who had mischievously
assumed the form of Justinian. ^84
[Footnote *: See the character of Anastasius in Joannes Lydus de
Magistratibus, iii. c. 45, 46, p. 230 - 232. His economy is
there said to have degenerated into parsimony. He is accused of
having taken away the levying of taxes and payment of the troops
from the municipal authorities, (the decurionate) in the Eastern
cities, and intrusted it to an extortionate officer named Mannus.
But he admits that the imperial revenue was enormously increased
by this measure. A statue of iron had been erected to Anastasius
in the Hippodrome, on which appeared one morning this pasquinade.
This epigram is also found in the Anthology. Jacobs, vol.
-
p. 114 with some better readings.
This iron statue meetly do we place To thee, world-wasting king,
than brass more base; For all the death, the penury, famine, woe,
That from thy wide-destroying avarice flow, This fell Charybdis,
Scylla, near to thee, This fierce devouring Anastasius, see; And
tremble, Scylla! on thee, too, his greed, Coining thy brazen
deity, may feed.
But Lydus, with no uncommon inconsistency in such writers,
proceeds to paint the character of Anastasius as endowed with
almost every virtue, not excepting the utmost liberality. He was
only prevented by death from relieving his subjects altogether
from the capitation tax, which he greatly diminished. - M.]
[Footnote 78: Evagrius (l. ii. c. 39, 40) is minute and grateful,
but angry with Zosimus for calumniating the great Constantine.
In collecting all the bonds and records of the tax, the humanity
of Anastasius was diligent and artful: fathers were sometimes
compelled to prostitute their daughters, (Zosim. Hist. l. ii. c.
38, p. 165, 166, Lipsiae, 1784.) Timotheus of Gaza chose such an
event for the subject of a tragedy, (Suidas, tom. iii. p. 475,)
which contributed to the abolition of the tax, (Cedrenus, p. 35,)
- a happy instance (if it be true) of the use of the theatre.]
[Footnote 79: See Josua Stylites, in the Bibliotheca Orientalis
of Asseman, (tom. p. 268.) This capitation tax is slightly
mentioned in the Chronicle of Edessa.]
[Footnote 80: Procopius (Anecdot. c. 19) fixes this sum from the
report of the treasurers themselves. Tiberias had vicies ter
millies; but far different was his empire from that of
Anastasius.]
[Footnote 81: Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 30,) in the next generation,
was moderate and well informed; and Zonaras, (l. xiv. c. 61,) in
the xiith century, had read with care, and thought without
prejudice; yet their colors are almost as black as those of the
anecdotes.]
[Footnote 82: Procopius (Anecdot. c. 30) relates the idle
conjectures of the times. The death of Justinian, says the
secret historian, will expose his wealth or poverty.]
[Footnote 83: See Corippus de Laudibus Justini Aug. l. ii. 260,
&c., 384, &c
"Plurima sunt vivo nimium neglecta parenti, Unde tot exhaustus
contraxit debita fiscus."
Centenaries of gold were brought by strong men into the
Hippodrome,
"Debita persolvit, genitoris cauta recepit."]
[Footnote 84: The Anecdotes (c. 11 - 14, 18, 20 - 30) supply many
facts and more complaints.
Note: The work of Lydus de Magistratibus (published by Hase
at Paris, 1812, and reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine
Historians,) was written during the reign of Justinian. This
work of Lydus throws no great light on the earlier history of the
Roman magistracy, but gives some curious details of the changes
and retrenchments in the offices of state, which took place at
this time. The personal history of the author, with the account
of his early and rapid advancement, and the emoluments of the
posts which he successively held, with the bitter disappointment
which he expresses, at finding himself, at the height of his
ambition, in an unpaid place, is an excellent illustration of
this statement. Gibbon has before, c. iv. n. 45, and c. xvii. n.
112, traced the progress of a Roman citizen to the highest honors
of the state under the empire; the steps by which Lydus reached
his humbler eminence may likewise throw light on the civil
service at this period. He was first received into the office of
the Praetorian praefect; became a notary in that office, and made
in one year 1000 golden solidi, and that without extortion. His
place and the influence of his relatives obtained him a wife with
400 pounds of gold for her dowry. He became chief chartularius,
with an annual stipend of twenty-four solidi, and considerable
emoluments for all the various services which he performed. He
rose to an Augustalis, and finally to the dignity of Corniculus,
the highest, and at one time the most lucrative office in the
department. But the Praetorian praefect had gradually been
deprived of his powers and his honors. He lost the
superintendence of the supply and manufacture of arms; the
uncontrolled charge of the public posts; the levying of the
troops; the command of the army in war when the emperors ceased
nominally to command in person, but really through the Praetorian
praefect; that of the household troops, which fell to the
magister aulae. At length the office was so completely stripped
of its power, as to be virtually abolished, (see de Magist. l.
-
c. 40, p. 220, &c.) This diminution of the office of the
praefect destroyed the emoluments of his subordinate officers,
and Lydus not only drew no revenue from his dignity, but expended
upon it all the gains of his former services.
Lydus gravely refers this calamitous, and, as he considers
it, fatal degradation of the Praetorian office to the alteration
in the style of the official documents from Latin to Greek; and
refers to a prophecy of a certain Fonteius, which connected the
ruin of the Roman empire with its abandonment of its language.
Lydus chiefly owed his promotion to his knowledge of Latin! - M.]
After this precaution, I shall briefly relate the anecdotes
of avarice and rapine under the following heads: I. Justinian
was so profuse that he could not be liberal. The civil and
military officers, when they were admitted into the service of
the palace, obtained an humble rank and a moderate stipend; they
ascended by seniority to a station of affluence and repose; the
annual pensions, of which the most honorable class was abolished
by Justinian, amounted to four hundred thousand pounds; and this
domestic economy was deplored by the venal or indigent courtiers
as the last outrage on the majesty of the empire. The posts, the
salaries of physicians, and the nocturnal illuminations, were
objects of more general concern; and the cities might justly
complain, that he usurped the municipal revenues which had been
appropriated to these useful institutions. Even the soldiers
were injured; and such was the decay of military spirit, that
they were injured with impunity. The emperor refused, at the
return of each fifth year, the customary donative of five pieces
of gold, reduced his veterans to beg their bread, and suffered
unpaid armies to melt away in the wars of Italy and Persia. II.
The humanity of his predecessors had always remitted, in some
auspicious circumstance of their reign, the arrears of the public
tribute, and they dexterously assumed the merit of resigning
those claims which it was impracticable to enforce. "Justinian,
in the space of thirty-two years, has never granted a similar
indulgence; and many of his subjects have renounced the
possession of those lands whose value is insufficient to satisfy
the demands of the treasury. To the cities which had suffered by
hostile inroads Anastasius promised a general exemption of seven
years: the provinces of Justinian have been ravaged by the
Persians and Arabs, the Huns and Sclavonians; but his vain and
ridiculous dispensation of a single year has been confined to
those places which were actually taken by the enemy." Such is the
language of the secret historian, who expressly denies that any
indulgence was granted to Palestine after the revolt of the
Samaritans; a false and odious charge, confuted by the authentic
record which attests a relief of thirteen centenaries of gold
(fifty-two thousand pounds) obtained for that desolate province
by the intercession of St. Sabas. ^85 III. Procopius has not
condescended to explain the system of taxation, which fell like a
hail-storm upon the land, like a devouring pestilence on its
inhabitants: but we should become the accomplices of his
malignity, if we imputed to Justinian alone the ancient though
rigorous principle, that a whole district should be condemned to
sustain the partial loss of the persons or property of
individuals. The Annona, or supply of corn for the use of the
army and capital, was a grievous and arbitrary exaction, which
exceeded, perhaps in a tenfold proportion, the ability of the
farmer; and his distress was aggravated by the partial injustice
of weights and measures, and the expense and labor of distant
carriage. In a time of scarcity, an extraordinary requisition
was made to the adjacent provinces of Thrace, Bithynia, and
Phrygia: but the proprietors, after a wearisome journey and
perilous navigation, received so inadequate a compensation, that
they would have chosen the alternative of delivering both the
corn and price at the doors of their granaries. These
precautions might indicate a tender solicitude for the welfare of
the capital; yet Constantinople did not escape the rapacious
despotism of Justinian. Till his reign, the Straits of the
Bosphorus and Hellespont were open to the freedom of trade, and
nothing was prohibited except the exportation of arms for the
service of the Barbarians. At each of these gates of the city, a
praetor was stationed, the minister of Imperial avarice; heavy
customs were imposed on the vessels and their merchandise; the
oppression was retaliated on the helpless consumer; the poor were
afflicted by the artificial scarcity, and exorbitant price of the
market; and a people, accustomed to depend on the liberality of
their prince, might sometimes complain of the deficiency of water
and bread. ^86 The aerial tribute, without a name, a law, or a
definite object, was an annual gift of one hundred and twenty
thousand pounds, which the emperor accepted from his Praetorian
praefect; and the means of payment were abandoned to the
discretion of that powerful magistrate. IV. Even such a tax was
less intolerable than the privilege of monopolies, ^* which
checked the fair competition of industry, and, for the sake of a
small and dishonest gain, imposed an arbitrary burden on the
wants and luxury of the subject. "As soon" (I transcribe the
Anecdotes) "as the exclusive sale of silk was usurped by the
Imperial treasurer, a whole people, the manufacturers of Tyre and
Berytus, was reduced to extreme misery, and either perished with
hunger, or fled to the hostile dominions of Persia." A province
might suffer by the decay of its manufactures, but in this
example of silk, Procopius has partially overlooked the
inestimable and lasting benefit which the empire received from
the curiosity of Justinian. His addition of one seventh to the
ordinary price of copper money may be interpreted with the same
candor; and the alteration, which might be wise, appears to have
been innocent; since he neither alloyed the purity, nor enhanced
the value, of the gold coin, ^87 the legal measure of public and
private payments. V. The ample jurisdiction required by the
farmers of the revenue to accomplish their engagements might be
placed in an odious light, as if they had purchased from the
emperor the lives and fortunes of their fellow-citizens. And a
more direct sale of honors and offices was transacted in the
palace, with the permission, or at least with the connivance, of
Justinian and Theodora. The claims of merit, even those of
favor, were disregarded, and it was almost reasonable to expect,
that the bold adventurer, who had undertaken the trade of a
magistrate, should find a rich compensation for infamy, labor,
danger, the debts which he had contracted, and the heavy interest
which he paid. A sense of the disgrace and mischief of this
venal practice, at length awakened the slumbering virtue of
Justinian; and he attempted, by the sanction of oaths ^88 and
penalties, to guard the integrity of his government: but at the
end of a year of perjury, his rigorous edict was suspended, and
corruption licentiously abused her triumph over the impotence of
the laws. VI. The testament of Eulalius, count of the
domestics, declared the emperor his sole heir, on condition,
however, that he should discharge his debts and legacies, allow
to his three daughters a decent maintenance, and bestow each of
them in marriage, with a portion of ten pounds of gold. But the
splendid fortune of Eulalius had been consumed by fire, and the
inventory of his goods did not exceed the trifling sum of five
hundred and sixty-four pieces of gold. A similar instance, in
Grecian history, admonished the emperor of the honorable part
prescribed for his imitation. He checked the selfish murmurs of
the treasury, applauded the confidence of his friend, discharged
the legacies and debts, educated the three virgins under the eye
of the empress Theodora, and doubled the marriage portion which
had satisfied the tenderness of their father. ^89 The humanity of
a prince (for princes cannot be generous) is entitled to some
praise; yet even in this act of virtue we may discover the
inveterate custom of supplanting the legal or natural heirs,
which Procopius imputes to the reign of Justinian. His charge is
supported by eminent names and scandalous examples; neither
widows nor orphans were spared; and the art of soliciting, or
extorting, or supposing testaments, was beneficially practised by
the agents of the palace. This base and mischievous tyranny
invades the security of private life; and the monarch who has
indulged an appetite for gain, will soon be tempted to anticipate
the moment of succession, to interpret wealth as an evidence of
guilt, and to proceed, from the claim of inheritance, to the
power of confiscation. VII. Among the forms of rapine, a
philosopher may be permitted to name the conversion of Pagan or
heretical riches to the use of the faithful; but in the time of
Justinian this holy plunder was condemned by the sectaries alone,
who became the victims of his orthodox avarice. ^90
[Footnote 85: One to Scythopolis, capital of the second
Palestine, and twelve for the rest of the province. Aleman. (p.
-
honestly produces this fact from a Ms. life of St. Sabas, by
his disciple Cyril, in the Vatican Library, and since published
by Cotelerius.]
[Footnote 86: John Malala (tom. ii. p. 232) mentions the want of
bread, and Zonaras (l. xiv. p. 63) the leaden pipes, which
Justinian, or his servants, stole from the aqueducts.]
[Footnote *: Hullman (Geschichte des Byzantinischen Handels. p.
-
shows that the despotism of the government was aggravated by
the unchecked rapenity of the officers. This state monopoly,
even of corn, wine, and oil, was to force at the time of the
first crusade. - M.]
[Footnote 87: For an aureus, one sixth of an ounce of gold,
instead of 210, he gave no more than 180 folles, or ounces of
copper. A disproportion of the mint, below the market price,
must have soon produced a scarcity of small money. In England
twelve pence in copper would sell for no more than seven pence,
(Smith's Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 49.) For
Justinian's gold coin, see Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 30.)]
[Footnote 88: The oath is conceived in the most formidable words,
(Novell. viii. tit. 3.) The defaulters imprecate on themselves,
quicquid haben: telorum armamentaria coeli: the part of Judas,
the leprosy of Gieza, the tremor of Cain, &c., besides all
temporal pains.]
[Footnote 89: A similar or more generous act of friendship is
related by Lucian of Eudamidas of Corinth, (in Toxare, c. 22, 23,
tom. ii. p. 530,) and the story has produced an ingenious, though
feeble, comedy of Fontenelle.]
[Footnote 90: John Malala, tom. ii. p. 101, 102, 103.]
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