Avarice and profusion of Justinian gold and silver which he scattered with a lavish hand from Persia to France;[1] his reign was marked by the vicissitudes, or rather by the combat, of rapaciousness and avarice, of splendour and poverty; he lived with the reputation of hidden treasures,[2] and bequeathed to his successor the payment of his debts.[3] 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 demons, who had mischievously assumed the form of Justinian.[4]
After this precaution I shall briefly relate the anecdotes of avarice and rapine, under the following heads: Pernicious savings 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 as- cended by seniority to a station of affluence and repose; the annual pensions, of which the most honourable 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 insti-
82 Evagrius (l. iv. c. 30), in the next generation, was moderate and well-informed; and Zonaras (l. xiv. p. 61 [c. 6]), in the xiith century, had read with care, and thought without prejudice; yet their colours are almost as black as those of the Anecdotes.
83 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.
84 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 arms into the hippodrome:
"Debita genitoris persolvit, cauta recepit ".