chap, xliii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 461 contemporary praise ; and, while he laboured to fix the admira- tion, he forfeited the esteem and affection, of the Komans. The design of the African and Italian wars was boldly conceived and executed; and his penetration discovered the talents of Beli- sarius in the camp, of Narses in the palace. But the name of the emperor is eclipsed by the names of his victorious generals ; and Belisarius still lives, to upbraid the envy and ingratitude of his sovereign. The partial favour of mankind applauds the genius of a conqueror, who leads and directs his subjects in the exercise of arms. The characters of Philip the Second and of Justinian are distinguished by the cold ambition which delights in war and declines the dangers of the field. Yet a colossal statue of bronze represented the emperor on horseback, preparing to march against the Persians in the habit and armour of Achilles. In the great square before the church of St. Sophia, this monument was raised on a brass column and a stone pedestal of seven steps; and the pillar of Theodosius, which weighed seven thousand four hundred pounds of silver, was removed from the same place by the avarice and vanity of Justinian. Future princes were more just or indulgent to his memory ; the elder Andronicus, in the beginning of the four- teenth century, repaired and beautified his equestrian statue; since the fall of the empire, it has been melted into cannon by the victorious Turks. 113 I shall conclude this chapter with the comets, the earth- quakes, and the plague, which astonished or afflicted the age of Justinian. I. In the fifth year of his reign, and in the month of Septem- comets. ber, a comet 114 was seen during twenty days in the western quarter of the heavens, and which shot its rays into the north, u.d. 530] Eight years afterwards, while the sun was in Capricorn, another comet appeared to follow in the Sagittary : the size was gradually 113 See in the C. P. Christiana of Duoange (1. i. c. 24, No. 1) a ohain of original testimonies, from Procopius in the vith, to Gyllius in the xvith, century. [For a drawing of the statue, made in a.d. 1340, in a Ms. in the library of the Seraglio, see Mordtmann, Esquisse topographique de Constantinople, p. 65 ; and for an inscrip- tion which may belong to it, ib. p. 55.] 114 The first comet is mentioned by John Malala (torn. ii. p. 190, 219 [454, 477, ed. Bonn]) and Theophanes (p. 154 [a.m. 6028]) ; the second by Procopius (Persic. 1. ii. c. 4). Yet I strongly suspect their identity. The paleness of the sun (Vandal. 1. o. ii. 14) is applied by Theophanes (p. 158) to a different year [a.m. 6024 = a.d. 531-2].
