dispute over a theological point could only be carried on by means of fights, murders, and assassinations. So that, when the greens carried their zeal to so great a height as to bring daggers into the hippodrome, and there murder 3,000 of the blues, it was felt by their own party that so strong a step was praiseworthy from a religious point of view: by the other side it was felt that this exhibition of zealous faith must be met by equal earnestness when an opportunity should come. Justinian favoured the blues. They were the orthodox party; they were stronger than their enemies. They began to parade the streets at night, plundering the houses of the greens, and murdering them wholesale. No justice could be had, and it seemed as if the cause of the greens would be extinguished by the massacre of the whole party.
On the occasion of the games held at the Ides of January, the emperor being himself present, the unfortunate greens broke out into open clamour, complaining, with some justice, that they were murdered and pillaged without power of getting redress, and calling on the emperor to grant them justice. For a long time Justinian sat in silence. Then, losing the habitual dignity of his manner, he ordered his crier to inform the greens that they were Jews, Samaritans, and Manicheans. Insulted thus as the worst of heretics, the greens burst into a tempest of rage; they renounced allegiance to Justinian; they cursed the hour of his birth; they loaded him with insults. The blues sprang to their feet; the greens remembered their own day of brief triumph, and, expectant of the daggers, fled from the
