(124)
less then it ought to have been, whilst in the mean time the Commissaries conveyed to Justinian all the Money that they purloind from the Army, which suffered besides that, a thousand other injustices, in recompence of the dangers they had run, and the Wounds they had received in their almost daily Rencounters and Engagements. For example, some were despised for being Greeks, as if Greece never had produced any one person that was worthy of the Name of a Souldier: some were cashierd, as being in service without the Emperors Order; The Certificates of others were with great difficulty allow’d, and others disbanded for having been absent some small time from their Quarters. After all this, certain of the Pretorian Bands were chosen to take an exact: review, quite through the Roman Empire, of all the Souldiers which were capable of bearing Armes. Some who had been a long time in the Service, were cashiered, as unfit for the War, and were to be seen begging about the Streets, as having nothing to sustain them but the Charity of the people, which to good Men, was a sad object, and well worthy of Compassion. Others to defend themselves against those Extremities, gave great sums of Money to the Commissaries by way of Redemption: So that the Army being grown feeble and weak, by a hundred such practices, and destitute of necessaries, began to conceive such a hatred against the service, that the affairs of the Empire went very ill on all sides, and especially in Italy: For