Spain. Italy, with all the conquests of the Ostrogoths, was bequeathed to Athalaric, whose age did not exceed ten years, but who was cherished as the last male offspring of the line of Amali, by the short-lived marriage of his mother Amalasuntha with a royal fugitive of the same blood.105 In the presence of the dying monarch the Gothic chiefs and Italian magistrates mutually engaged their faith and loyalty to the young prince and to his guardian mother; and received, in the same awful moment, his last salutary advice to maintain the laws, to love the senate and people of Rome, and to cultivate with decent reverence the friendship of the emperor. 106 The monument of Theodoric was erected by his daughter Amalasuntha in a conspicuous situation, which commanded the city of Ravenna, the harbour, and the adjacent coast. A chapel of a circular form, thirty feet in diameter, is crowned by a dome of one entire piece of granite: from the centre of the dome four columns arose, which supported in a vase of porphyry the remains of the Gothic king, surrounded by the brazen statues of the twelve apostles.107 His spirit, after some previous expiation, might have been permitted to mingle with the benefactors of mankind, if an Italian hermit had not been witness in a vision to the damnation of Theodoric,108 whose soul was plunged by the ministers of divine vengeance into the volcano of Lipari, one of the flaming mouths of the infernal world. 109 105 Berimund, the third in descent from Hermanric, king of the Ostrogoths, had retired into Spain, where he lived and died in obscurity (Jornandes, c. 33, p. 202, edit. Muratori). See the discovery, nuptials, and death of his grandson Eutharic (c. 58, p. 220). His Roman games might render him popular (Cassiodor. in Chron.), but Eutharic was asper in religione (Anonym. Vales. p. 722, 723 [p. 313, ed. Bip.]). 106 See the counsels of Theodoric, and the professions of his successor, in Procopius (Goth. 1. i. c. 1, 2), Jornandes (c. 59 [p. 700, 701, ed. Grot.]), and Cassiodorus (Var. viii. 1-7). These epistles are the triumph of his ministerial eloquence. 107 Anonym. Vales. p. 724 [p. 316, ed. Bip.]. Agnellus de Vitis Pont. Raven. in Muratori Script. Rerum Ital. tom. ii. P. i. p. 67. Alberti Descrizione d'Italia, p. 311.a 108 This legend is related by Gregory I. (Dialog. iv. 30 [tom. ii. p. 420, ed. Bened.]), and approved by Baronius (A.D. 526, No. 28); and both the pope and cardinal are grave doctors, sufficient to establish a probable opinion. 109 Theodoric himself, or rather Cassiodorus, had described in tragic strains the volcanos of Lipari (Cluver. Sicilia, p. 406–410), and Vesuvius ([Var.] iv. 50). The Mausoleum of Theodoric, now D'Agincourt, Histoire de l'Art, p. xviii. Santa Maria della Rotonda, is engraved in of the Architectural Prints.-M. CHAPTER XL. ELEVATION OF JUSTIN THE ELDER. REIGN OF JUSTINIAN.-I. THE EMPRESS THEODORA. - II. FACTIONS OF THE CIRCUS, AND SEDITION OF CONSTANTINOPLE. III. TRADE AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. - IV. FINANCES AND TAXES.-V. EDIFICES OF JUSTINIAN. CHURCH OF ST. SOPHIA. FORTIFICATIONS AND FRONTIERS OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE. ABOLITION OF THE SCHOOLS OF ATHENS AND THE CONSULSHIP OF ROME. Birth of the Justinian, THE emperor Justinian was born1 near the ruins of Sardica (the modern Sophia), of an obscure race 2 of barbarians,3 the inhabitants of a wild and desolate country, to which the emperor names of Dardania, of Dacia, and of Bulgaria, have been successively applied. His elevation was prepared by the adventurous spirit of his uncle Justin, who, with two other a A.D. 482, May 5; or A.D. 483, May 11. There is some difficulty in the date of his birth (Ludewig in Vit. Justiniani, p. 125); none in the place-the district Bederiana-the village Tauresium, which he afterwards decorated with his name and splendour (D'Anville, Hist. de l'Acad. &c., tom. xxxi. p. 287-292). 2 The names of these Dardanian peasants are Gothic, and almost English: Justinian is a translation of uprauda (upright); his father Sabatius (in Græco-barbarous language stipes) was styled in his village Istock (Stock); his mother Bigleniza was softened into Vigilantia.b Ludewig (p. 127-135) attempts to justify the Anician name of Justinian and Theodora, and to connect them with a family from which the house of Austria has been derived. "The following table exhibits the most important persons of the family of Justinian: Justinian had several other nephews besides Justin II., the children both of his sister Vigilantia, and of his brother, whose name is unknown. See the genealogical table by Alemannus (Procop. vol. iii. p. 417, ed. Bonn).-S. b These names are Slavonic rather than Gothic. Uprawda, or Wprawda (Orgaovda), the name by which the future emperor was called by his countrymen, agrees in meaning with the Latin Justinian; prawda in old Slavic signifying jus, justitia, and w being a breathing frequently prefixed to Slavonic names. Iztok (Sol oriens), the name of Justinian's father, is a Slavonic translation of the Thracian-Phrygian name of Sabatius; and in the year 1171 we find mention of a Slavonic chief of the name of Iztok. See Schafarik, Slawische Alterthümer, vol. ii. p. 160.-S. 4 peasants of the same village, deserted for the profession of arms the more useful employment of husbandmen or shepherds. On foot, with a scanty provision of biscuit in their knapsacks, the three youths followed the high road of Constantinople, and were soon enrolled, for their strength and stature, among the guards of the emperor Leo. Under the two succeeding reigns, the fortunate peasant emerged to wealth and honours; and his escape from some dangers which threatened his life was afterwards ascribed to the guardian angel who watches over the fate of kings. His long and laudable service in the Isaurian and Persian wars would not have preserved from oblivion the name of Justin; yet they might warrant the military promotion which, in the course of fifty years, he gradually obtained -the rank of tribune, of count, and of general, the dignity of senator, and the command of the guards, who obeyed him as their chief at the important crisis when the emperor Anastasius was removed from the world. The powerful kinsmen whom he had raised and enriched were excluded from the throne; and the eunuch Amantius, who reigned in the palace, had secretly resolved to fix the diadem on the head of the most obsequious of his creatures. A liberal donative, to conciliate the suffrage of the guards, was intrusted for that purpose in the hands of their commander. But these weighty arguments were treacherously employed by Justin and reign of in his own favour; and as no competitor presumed to appear, the Dacian peasant was invested with the purple by the unanimous consent of the soldiers, who knew him to be brave and gentle; of the clergy and people, who believed him to be orthodox; and of the provincials, who yielded a blind and implicit submission to the will of the capital. The elder Justin, as he is distinguished from another emperor of the same family and name, ascended the Byzantine throne at the age of sixty-eight years; and, had he been left to his own guidance, every moment of a nine-years' reign must have exposed to his subjects the impropriety of their choice. His ignorance was similar to that of Theodoric; and it is remarkable that, in an age not destitute of learning, two contemporary monarchs had never been instructed in the knowledge of the alphabet. But the genius of Justin was far inferior to that of Elevation his uncle Justin I., See the Anecdotes of Procopius (c. 6) with the notes of N. Alemannus. The satirist would not have sunk, in the vague and decent appellation of yiwpyos, the Bouxoλos and rúpoglos of Zonaras. Yet why are those names disgraceful?-and what German baron would not be proud to descend from the Eumæus cf the Odyssey? a St. Martin questions the fact in both The ignorance of Justin rests on the secret history of Procopius. St. Mar cases. tin's notes on Le Beau, vol. viii. p. 8. -M. the Gothic king: the experience of a soldier had not qualified him for the government of an empire; and though personally brave, the consciousness of his own weakness was naturally attended with doubt, distrust, and political apprehension. But the official business of the state was diligently and faithfully transacted by the quæstor Proclus ;5 and the aged emperor adopted the talents and ambition of his nephew Justinian, an aspiring youth, whom his uncle had drawn from the rustic solitude of Dacia, and educated at Constantinople as the heir of his private fortune, and at length of the Eastern empire. Adoption sion of A.D. 520-527. Since the eunuch Amantius had been defrauded of his money, it became necessary to deprive him of his life. The task was easily accomplished by the charge of a real or fictitious and succesconspiracy; and the judges were informed, as an accumu- Justinian, lation of guilt, that he was secretly addicted to the Manichæan heresy. Amantius lost his head; three of his companions, the first domestics of the palace, were punished either with death or exile; and their unfortunate candidate for the purple was cast into a deep dungeon, overwhelmed with stones, and ignominiously thrown without burial into the sea. The ruin of Vitalian was a work of more difficulty and danger. That Gothic chief had rendered himself popular by the civil war which he boldly waged against Anastasius for the defence of the orthodox faith; and after the conclusion of an advantageous treaty, he still remained in the neighbourhood of Constantinople at the head of a formidable and victorious army of barbarians. By the frail security of oaths he was tempted to relinquish this advantageous situation, and to trust his person within the walls of a city whose inhabitants, particularly the blue faction, were artfully incensed against him by the remembrance even of his pious hostilities. The emperor and his nephew embraced him as the faithful and worthy champion of the church and state, and gratefully adorned their favourite with the titles of consul and general; but in the seventh month of his consulship Vitalian was stabbed with seventeen wounds at the royal banquet," and Justinian, who inherited the spoil, was accused as the assassin of a spiritual brother, to whom he had recently pledged his faith in the participation of the Christian 5 His virtues are praised by Procopius (Persic. 1. i. c. 11 [tom. i. p. 52, ed. Bonn]). The quæstor Proclus was the friend of Justinian and the enemy of every other adoption. Manichæan signifies Eutychian. Hear the furious acclamations of Constantinople and Tyre, the former no more than six days after the decease of Anastasius. They produced, the latter applauded, the eunuch's death (Baronius, A.D. 518, P. ii. No. 15; Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. vii. p. 200, 205, from the Councils, tom. v. p. 182, 207). 7 His power, character, and intentions are perfectly explained by the Count de Buat (tom. ix. p. 54-81). He was great-grandson of Aspar, hereditary prince in the Lesser Scythia, and count of the Gothic fœderati of Thrace. The Bessi, whom he could influence, are the minor Goths of Jornandes (c. 51). mysteries. After the fall of his rival, he was promoted, without any claim of military service, to the office of master-general of the Eastern armies, whom it was his duty to lead into the field against the public enemy. But, in the pursuit of fame, Justinian might have lost his present dominion over the age and weakness of his uncle; and instead of acquiring by Scythian or Persian trophies the applause of his countrymen, the prudent warrior solicited their favour in the churches, the circus, and the senate of Constantinople. The catholics were attached to the nephew of Justin, who, between the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies, trod the narrow path of inflexible and intolerant orthodoxy.10 In the first days of the new reign he prompted and gratified the popular enthusiasm against the memory of the deceased emperor. After a schism of thirty-four years, he reconciled the proud and angry spirit of the Roman pontiff, and spread among the Latins a favourable report of his pious respect for the apostolic see. The thrones of the East were filled with catholic bishops devoted to his interest, the clergy and the monks were gained by his liberality, and the people were taught to pray for their future sovereign, the hope and pillar of the true religion. The magnificence of Justinian was displayed in the superior pomp of his public spectacles, an object not less sacred and important in the eyes of the multitude than the creed of Nice or Chalcedon: the expense of his consulship was esteemed at two hundred and eighty-eight thousand pieces of gold; twenty lions and thirty leopards were produced at the same time in the amphitheatre; and a numerous train of horses, with their rich trappings, was bestowed as an extraordinary gift on the victorious charioteers of the circus. While he indulged the people of Constantinople, and received the addresses of foreign kings, the nephew of Justin assiduously cultivated the friendship of the senate. That venerable name seemed to qualify its members to declare the sense of the nation, and to regulate the succession of the Imperial throne. The feeble Anastasius had permitted the vigour of government to degenerate into the form or substance of an aristocracy, and the military officers who had obtained the senatorial rank were followed by their domestic guards, a band of veterans whose Justiniani patricii factione dicitur interfectus fuisse (Victor Tununensis, Chron. in Thesaur. Temp. Scaliger, P. ii. p. 7). Procopius (Anecdot. c. 7 [c. 6, tom. iii. p. 46, ed. Bonn]) styles him a tyrant, but acknowledges the adsaporiria, which is well explained by Alemannus. In his earliest youth (plane adolescens) he had passed some time as an hostage with Theodoric. For this curious fact Alemannus (ad Procop. Anecdot. c. 9, p. 34 [tom. iii. p. 383, ed. Bonn] of the first edition) quotes a MS. history of Justinian, by his preceptor Theophilus. Ludewig (p. 143) wishes to make him a soldier. 10 The ecclesiastical history of Justinian will be shown hereafter. See Baronius, A.D. 518-521, and the copious article Justinianus in the index to the viith volume of his Annals, |