242 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xl green factions continued to afflict the reign of Justinian, and to disturb the tranquillity of the Eastern empire. 54 Agri- III. That empire, after Eome was barbarous, still embraced manufac- the nations whom she had conquered beyond the Hadriatic and Eastern as far as the frontiers of Ethiopia and Persia. Justinian reigned over sixty-four provinces and nine hundred and thirty-five cities ; 55 his dominions were blessed by nature with the advan- tages of soil, situation, and climate ; and the improvements of human art had been perpetually diffused along the coast of the Mediterranean and the banks of the Nile, from ancient Troy to the Egyptian Thebes. Abraham 50 had been relieved by the well-known plenty of Egypt ; the same country, a small and populous tract, was still capable of exporting each year two hundred and sixty thousand quarters of wheat for the use of Constantinople ; 57 and the capital of Justinian was supplied with the manufactures of Sidon, fifteen centuries after they had been celebrated in the poems of Homer. 58 The annual powers of vegetation, instead of being exhausted by two thousand harvests, were renewed and invigorated by skilful husbandry, rich manure, and seasonable repose. The breed of domestic animals was in- finitely multiplied. Plantations, buildings, and the instruments of labour and luxury, which are more durable than the term of human life, were accumulated by the care of successive gener- ations. Tradition preserved, and experience simplified, the 54 Marcellinus says in general terms, innumeris populis in circo trucidatis. Pro- copius numbers 30,000 victims [so Marius of Aventieum (ad ann.) who was probably drawing from Consularia Italica] ; and the 35,000 of Theophanes are swelled to 40,000 by the more recent Zonaras. Such is the usual progress of exaggeration. [This remark is blunted by the fact that John Lydus, a contemporary, gives a still higher number, 50,000. De Mag. iii. 70, p. 164, ed. Wuensch.] 55 Hierocles, a contemporary of Justinian, composed his SiW/cStj/uo* (Itineraria, p. 631), or review of the eastern provinces and cities, before the year 535 (Wesseling, in Prsefat. and Not. ad p. 623, &c). [Best edition by A. Burckhardt, 1893.] 56 See the book of Genesis (xii. 10), and the administration of Joseph. The annals of the Greeks and Hebrews agree in the early arts and plenty of Egypt ; but this antiquity supposes a long series of improvements ; and Warburton, who is almost stifled by the Hebrew, calls aloud for the Samaritan chronology (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 29, &c). 57 Eight millions of Boman modii, besides a contribution of 80,000 aurei for the expenses of water-carriage, from which the subject was graciously excused. See the xiiith Edict of Justinian ; the numbers are checked and verified by the agreement of the Greek and Latin texts. 88 Homer's Iliad, vi. 289. These veils, ir4iroi ira/j.TroiKioi, were the work of the Sidonian women. But this passage is more honourable to the manufactures than to the navigation of Phoenicia, from whence they had been imported to Troy in Phrygian bottoms.
