 CHAPTER IV. Justinian I. AD 527-565 Justinian I. His aims, First Persian War, The Nica Sedition, Conquest of Vandals, First Conquest of Italy, Justinian's Legislative Works, His Buildings, Heavy Taxation, The Second Persian War, Ostrogothic Rally under Badulla, The Great Plague, Loss of Italy, Death of Theodora, Estimate of her Character, Lasik War, Final Conquest of Italy and Destruction of Ostrogoths, Defeat of Franks, Ruin of Italy, Conquest of Southern Spain, Decay in Justinian's later years, Hanish Invasion, Death of Justinian. On the death of his uncle, Justinian without opposition, though there was still a considerable party in favour of the nephews of Anastasius, quietly succeeded to the undivided exercise of the authority which he had shared with Justin for several years. The great object of his policy, in the pursuit of which he never wavered all through his long reign, was to reduce the West once more under the direct authority of the Empire. Theoretically, of course, no province with the exception of Britain had fallen away. Actually, the West was independent, and if in Italy the rule of the Great Theodoric had probably been highly beneficial, the other regions were more or less rapidly becoming barbarised. The government of such rulers as Giceric was probably unmitigatedly bad. Where its results, as under Theodoric, were good, they still depended entirely upon the personality of the king for the time being. The provincials had no guarantee for the continuance of peace and good government. To Justinian such a condition of things must have been intolerable, and quite apart from his natural desire as Roman emperor, to reunite the disintegrating heritage of Theodosius, the restoration of the lost regions to the blessings of Roman government and civilisation must have always appeared to him in the light of a sacred duty. Nor is it possible to urge against this view, which was probably that of the educated classes as a whole, the argument that the provinces would probably be wrecked in the reconquest. The obvious reply is that some short-lived suffering is better than irretrievable ruin and relapse into barbarism. As a matter of fact, Africa was recovered within a year at the slightest possible cost of life and property. And had a great military ruler directed the attack on Italy, it probably would have been won back in a couple of years, and the way cleared for the reconquest of Gaul and Spain. To an emperor of warlike ability wielding the great resources of the East, the recovery of the West was not a task of insurmountable difficulty. That it was only partially accomplished must be attributed largely to Justinian's limitations of character and ability, partly also to certain external circumstances over which he had no control. Since his foreign policy was the keystone of his designs, it was unfortunate in the last degree that he possessed no military talent. Further, he had not an unreasonable dread of the possible results of entrusting large powers to capable and ambitious generals. Justinian was also continually hampered by the hostility of Persia in the East and by barbarian raids on the Balkan Peninsula. At the very outset of his reign, Justinian had a foretaste of the trouble which Persia was to cause him. The new frontier fortress of Dara, or Anastasiopolis, where the Roman commander in the East now had his headquarters, was a standing eyesore to the Persians, and Justinian had perhaps already, as Justin's colleague, made evident his policy of conciliating the petty kingdoms on his eastern frontier, and so forming a line of buffer states against the Sassanids. In 527 he appointed a favourite young officer, Belisarius the Thracian, who had married his wife's friend Antonina, governor of Dara, and directed him to construct a fort close to Nisbis. This action appeared to threaten the Persian frontier fortress, and King Kobad declared war. Early in 528, a force of 30,000 Persians under Xerxes, a prince of the royal house, defeated the Roman troops which covered the new frontier post and captured and destroyed it. Xerxes followed up his blow by directing a raid into Syria which affected much damage, and which the Romans who were distracted by a revolt of the Samaritans in Palestine only feebly opposed, though they replied to it later in the year by making a counter-aid into Adia Bene. The revolt was suppressed, and late in the year Belisarius, quite possibly by petticoat influence for he was only 25, and had hardly distinguished himself so far, was appointed Magister Militum per Orientum. A veteran soldier, homogenes however, was appointed chief of staff. In 530, the Persians invaded Roman Mesopotamia 40,000 strong, including at least a part of the famed immortals. Belisarius and homogenes, with little more than 20,000 men, gave them battle under the walls of Dara and gained a complete victory, while a little later a second Persian force which had entered Armenia was routed by the general Dorotheus. The Persian plan of campaign had thus completely miscarried, but there was great disagreement between the young Magister Militum and his subordinates, and the success was not followed up. Next year, taking advantage of these dissensions, the Persians turned the Roman position in Mesopotamia by crossing the Euphrates at Calinicum, and Belisarius came up with part of his forces in time only to receive a severe defeat. It was evident that whatever his ability might be, the young general could not control his officers, and he was superseded by the guepid leader Mundus, who retrieved the disgrace of Calinicum by completely defeating the Persians at Martyropolis in Mesopotamia. Both sides were now weary of the war. The Persians could make no headway, and Justinian, anxious to have his hands free for the prosecution of his designs in the West, was not averse to making one or two slight concessions for the sake of peace on the Euphrates. A treaty was concluded in 532, by which Persia undertook to keep the Caucasian defiles closed against barbarian eruptions into either Empire. While Justinian agreed to contribute 11,000 pounds of gold to provide for the maintenance of the necessary garrisons, and to withdraw the headquarters of the Eastern Army from Dara to Constantina some distance in the rear, thus relieving the Persians from the real or fancied menace of a Roman force constantly on the borderline. He doubtless considered peace in the east cheaply bought for a sum which was probably less than the cost of another campaign. But the money payment could be, and no doubt was, regarded by the Persians as blackmail. The First Persian War ended. Justinian hoped to be able to turn his attention to the West, but before he could do so he had to face a grave domestic peril in a revolt of the circus-named deems of the capital. These were neither more nor less than political factions which used the colors of the charioteers of the hippodrome as their badges and appellations. The outbreak has often been regarded as a last expiring flash of popular independence. The writer begs leave to question this. They will be reasoned hereafter to show that the populace of Constantinople was always ready to express its opinion in vigorous fashion at a crisis. Be that as it may, it threatened the existence of the Dardanian Imperial line. Justinian, being himself orthodox, was inclined to favor the blue faction against the greens who were monophysite, and in favor of the nephews of Anastasius. But for a constitutional monarch, and the Roman emperors were very decidedly such, despite their imposing semi-religious titles and pretensions, to be in sympathy with a political party is not to say that he must wink at their infractions of the law. Moreover, though the emperor was blue, Theodora in her dancing days had won the colors of the greens and was naturally inclined to sympathize with them. On Sunday, January 11, 532, the greens formally complained by their demarc to the emperor of the injustice of which they had had to endure at the hands of some officials. The complaint was made, as usual, in the hippodrome. The crowd assembled to witness the races always finishing a good opportunity for the people to state their grievances. The blues violently interrupted their rivals, and a tumult arose which was not quieted until blood had been shed. Seven ringleaders were arrested and condemned to death, and Justinian refused to exercise his prerogative of mercy in favor of those of them who belonged to the blue faction. The result was disastrous. The blues turned against an emperor who, unjustly as they considered, would not protect them against the consequences of their misdeeds, and began to make overtures towards reconciliation with the greens. Next day a vast sullen crowd collected to witness the execution of the ringleaders. The hangman lost his head and bungled his work, and two half-hanged men were rescued and placed in sanctuary. This open defiance of the law was followed by a formal union of the factions. They took as their war cry the word Nika, victory. Next day Justinian was confronted in the hippodrome by the entire mob of rioters which furiously demanded the dismissal of the city prefect Eudemius, the man immediately responsible for the late executions, of Tribonian, a famous lawyer, now Cuesto, and of John of Cappadocia, the finance minister. One touch of taxes makes the whole world kin, and evidently the exactions under Justinian were already more severe than in the days of Anastasius. Moreover, John and Tribonian had evil reputations for honesty in financial matters. Justinian had with him in the palace of reliable troops only one regiment of mailed horsemen and a force of Herul and Gepid Fodorati, probably not more than two thousand men in all. The five Scolay of the Guard were about four thousand strong, but under Justinian they had tended more and more to become a merely ornamental body. There were no doubt plenty of gallant gentlemen in their ranks, but mere undisciplined gallantry is not worth a great deal in street fighting, and many members of the Scolay were not even fighting men. Justinian evidently thought that the situation demanded conciliatory handling. On the fourteenth he dismissed the unpopular officials and replaced them by men acceptable to the people, but the rioting continued. The emperor had at his disposal both Belisarius and Mundus, and the former moved out against the rebels with the Teutonic troops. The next four days were marked by desperate street fighting in which the rebels held their own stoutly. Fires broke out everywhere as the fierce mercenaries and infuriated rioters contended for the mastery, and on the seventeenth the whole eastern portion of the city was a mass of ruins. Only the huge fabric of the hippodrome still stood amid the mournful desolation and formed the stronghold of the insurgents against the imperialists in the palace enclosure. Troops meanwhile had reached the palace by sea. The factions now had decided to crown as Augustus one of the nephews of Anastasias. They were however with Justinian in the palace. The part played by Hypatius is difficult of comprehension. The writer's opinion is that he was probably willing enough to be crowned but lacked the energy and determination requisite for an imperial claimant. Justinian seems to have thought that he was less dangerous at large than in the palace, where his presence would rather stimulate the eagerness of the rebels to come at him. A fresh sortie made by the troops on this day was repelled, and then the emperor ordered Hypatius and Pompeius to leave the palace. Next day Justinian opened a pali. Coming onto the platform of the Cathisma, the imperial grandstand, he addressed the rebels, swearing on the gospels that he would grant all their lawful demands and pardon all guilty of complicity in the revolt. No monarch could well do more. But he was greeted with jeers, missiles and yells of execration, and his guards had to protect him back to the palace. Hypatius had been discovered and recognised, and though his wife strode to dissuade him from exceeding to the insurgents' requests, he gave way. On the following morning he was crowned with her necklace wreathed diadem-wise in the Forum of Constantine. Whether he still attempted to remain faithful seems dubious. One account says that his course was finally determined by a false report that the emperor was in flight. Then he had no further doubts, and concentrating his fellowes in the Hypatrome received their homage before leading them against the palace. There there was something like a panic. The finest part of the city was in ruins, the rebels were triumphant, the troops had lost heavily in the fighting and their leaders were not confident. A council of war was held, and to it came the emperor and the empress, Belisarius and Mundus and the chief ministers. Justinian laid before it the alternatives of continuing the apparently hopeless defence of the palace, or a withdrawing to Heraklia Pontica to rally the Eastern Army. The consequences of this latter step might easily have been fatal. Justinian had tried all means to subdue the revolt, and all had so far failed. He was a beaten man. Had he left Constantinople, he would have confessed his defeat to the world. Adherence would have flocked to his rival. It is probable that he never would have seen his capital again. Nevertheless, John of Cappadocia directly advised the step and was supported by most of the ministers. Belisarius and Mundus appear to have concurred, perhaps because they thought that without the clogging responsibility of guarding the emperor they might do better. The impression given is that the sense of the council was practically unanimous. Then great-hearted Theodora rose in her wrath and fiercely denounced the project which was approved by all the wisest and bravest heads of the empire. At this terrible hour, when the fate of the realm literally balanced on a razor's edge, the fiery courage of a woman turned to the scale. Half Constantinople was in ruins, and the smoke of its burning was drifting over the Bosphorus. Tens of thousands of triumphant rebels were reclaiming a rival emperor hard at hand. The palace was full of beaten soldiery, and as she stood by the throne, storming her excited periods, her slim figure instinct with pride and contempt, her eyes glittering darkly in her little pale face, the ex-dancer looked down on defeated and disheartened men, wavering in the fatal irresolution that so often ends in crazy helpless panic. No time this, cried Theodora, to pay regard to antiquated maxims, and so, though a woman, I will speak. Our dearest interests are at stake, and we must think of the wisest plan of action and of nothing else. Of course our councilors advise flight, it is only natural, but if the natural course of action, even though it lead to safety, bring disgrace upon us, then it is but an evil one to follow. All men must die, but how much more terrible than death is it for a king to survive his kingship? Escape is very easy, my emperor. You have but to go on board ship and sail away, nor need you want, for you have gold in plenty. But I tell you, that when you have deserted your poster's emperor, you will taste the very bitterness of death, and I, your wife, will not fly. I will not live to see the day when my purple robes are torn from me, and I am queen and mistress no more. Let us remain at our post and fight to the last. If we die, we meet our fate as becomes us, for empire is a glorious winding sheet. Theodora's fiery words and fiery gestures swept opposition before them. Her despondent husband and his timid councilors caught courage from her speech. The failing hearts of the soldiers kindled again at the glance of the brave dancing girl, who perchance did hide in her bosom the recollection of past days that she feign would have forgotten, but who now, innocent or guilty, showed herself well worthy of the crown that her husband and sovereign had given her, a veritable queen of men. What further discussion there was is not known, but the results of the conference are certain. The eunuch Nasis was sent out into the city, well provided with money, to endeavour to sow dissension among the not too solidly united factions, and every available man in the palace marched under Bellisarius and Mundus to attack the rebels massed in the hippodrome. Bellisarius made a direct attack upon the Cathisma, where Hypatias was now receiving the tumultuous homage of his supporters, while Mundus moved against the eastern side of the huge enclosure. Bellisarius was repelled from the Cathisma, where the picked men of the factions made a desperate and successful resistance. So leaving the portion of his force to mask it, he turned the remainder upon the western entrances, which he finally succeeded in carrying, just as the column of Mundus fought its way in by the gate of the dead on the east. The insurgents fought desperately, but were at a hopeless disadvantage before the trained soldiers, cooped up in an enclosure of which all the main exits were occupied, and a frightful massacre was made of them by the furious troops, who had a weak of ill success to avenge. The loss of life has been rated as high as fifty thousand, it must in any case have been enormous. Hypatias and Pompeius were taken and executed. The extent of their guilt is difficult to estimate, but Hypatias had allowed himself to be crowned as a rival to the emperor. It does not appear that Justinian could in the circumstances have acted otherwise. The Persian trouble got rid of, only temporarily as it proved, an internal disaffection quelled by the terrible lesson of the Nica revolt. Justinian was at last able to turn his attention to the west. There the circumstances were extremely favourable. Theodoric the Great had died in five twenty-six, and his successor, Athalaric, followed in five thirty-three. Athalaric's mother, Amala Suntha, the Romanizing daughter of Theodoric, succeeded him, but was murdered by the worthless husband, Theodohat, whom she had taken in deference to the prejudice that no woman could rule alone over Goths, a prejudice probably well justified in the present case. In Africa, Hilderic, King of the Vandals, had been dethroned by his cousin Gylemia, perhaps the most thoroughly incapable monarch who had sat so far on any of the kingly thrones in the Teutonic West. Justinian declared war upon him as soon as peace had been made with Persia, and with diplomatic astuteness alleged at his reason that Gylemia had wrongfully deposed Hilderic, the friend and ally of Rome. The premature disclosure of the great design of recovery of all the west would probably have united Frank's Goths and Vandals in a solid phalanx of resistance. In July 533, Belisarius, now in high favour for his services in the Nykos edition, sailed from Constantinople for Africa, with 10,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, on 500 transports escorted by 92 men of war. The armament put in at Tripolis, the easternmost vandal town, which was at once betrayed by its inhabitants, and whence the army advanced cautiously along the coast on Carthage. Gylemia was utterly unprepared. His best general, his brother Tzazzo, was in Sardinia. He sent to recall him and gathered his levies, but so great was the confusion and unreadiness of these erstwhile terrors of the empire, that not until Belisarius's slow advance had reached the 10th milestone from Carthage were the Vandals able to offer battle. They made a poor resistance, were routed and scattered, and the Roman army marched into Carthage the next day. Gylemia would probably have submitted there and then, but Tzazzo had now reached Africa from Sardinia. He rallied the disheartened levies of his brother and advanced with him to retake Carthage. Belisarius moved out from the city to deal with the Vandal rally, and the opposing forces blended into each other at Tricameron, on the road from the capital to Bula. The Vandals were once more routed and Tzazzo slain. Gylemia fled into the mountains, but the rough fare of the moors with whom he took refuge soon became intolerable to his weak, luxurious nature, and he surrendered, asking only for a harp with which to sing the dirge for the Vandals, a sponge with which to dry his tears, and a loaf of bread, a delicacy which he had not tasted among the moors. If the fallen monarch really did send this miserable message, he could hardly have done anything better calculated to make him an object of utter contempt. The conquest of the African coast to the Pillars of Hercules was rapidly and easily accomplished, and Belisarius returned to Constantinople with his royal prisoner, a long train of noble captives, and the vast treasures of the Vandal King, the fruits of many years of unrestrained piracy on land and sea. In 535 Justinian declared war on Theodor Hatt of Ostrogothia, using as a pretext this time the king's murder of his wife. Theodor Hatt was a sufficiently poor creature, and the collapse of the Vandals cowed him. He made no preparation for war, but spent much time in consulting astrologers and sorcerers. He was ready to resign his great heritage without a blow, but there was plenty of good material in his nation, and the noble Ostrogothic race was not to fall without a desperate struggle. Two invasions of the Ostrogothic kingdom were planned. Belisarius, sole consul for the year 535, was to invade Italy with a force of only 7,500 men. This seemed so utterly insignificant that it must be supposed that it was exclusive of the general's huge cometatus of 7,000 troops. Even so, it was sufficiently weak for the task before it. Mundus, now governor of Illyricum, was to reconquer Dalmatia and Pannonia. Belisarius landed in Sicily, and by the end of the year had conquered the island. Only Paranormus seems to have made any resistance. Mundus, meanwhile, had taken Salona and conquered Dalmatia, but in the midst of his successes he was attacked by a large Gothic army defeated in Slain. This victory, however, did not benefit the Goths. They were forced to retreat before the successor of Mundus, and ultimately Dalmatia was firmly held by the imperialists. Such success as the Goths had gained was not owing to the exertions of Theodohat, who appears to have been really crazy with fright. When early in 536 Belisarius crossed the straits of Messina and took Peridium, the Gothic host could bear no more. They promptly slew the miserable creature who sat on the throne of Theodoric the Great, and elected an elderly chief named Witagus, a respectable warrior of the drill sergeant type, and a man of integrity, but not the leader for a great occasion. Belisarius for the time did not advance. The newly conquered province of Africa was in a ferment. Part of the troops had mutinied and had been joined by the remnant of the vandals. Belisarius hastened to Carthage and defeated the rebels on the Bagratus. Then, having apparently reduced the revolt to manageable proportions, he returned to Italy. Meanwhile the Franks, possibly stirred up by Justinian's diplomacy, were threatening the Ostrogoths from the north, and King Witagus was drawn away to oppose them. Belisarius, marching northward from Regium, was very feebly opposed. There were only four thousand Goths under Ludaris, even in Rome itself. Naples was taken by surprise after a blockade of three weeks, and then Belisarius advanced on Rome. His army was reduced to a shadow by the numerous garrisons which he had been forced to leave behind, but the very stars in their courses seemed to fight for him. His advance was unopposed. Ludarius lost his head and gave the order for a treat, and Belisarius marched triumphantly into Rome from the southeast, just as the Goths were leaving it on the north on December the 10th, 536. Witagus, having bought off the Franks by ceding Provence, could now turn against the Romans. In the spring of 537 he arrived before Rome with the whole host of the Ostrogoths over one hundred thousand strong, and beleaguered the city for twelve months. Belisarius had only some five thousand troops, wherewith to defend the vast circuit of the walls of Aurelian and Honorius. And that, with such feeble resources he was able to repel assault after assault, and to hold out until famine and pestilence broke up the siege, speaks volumes for the helplessness of the Goths and the incapacity of their leader. The blockade was never complete or effective, and reinforcements and convoys of supplies were able to find their way in. The final column of reinforcement, which arrived in February of 538, was five thousand strong. Success on the part of the Goths was now not to be hoped for. In March they abandoned the siege and retreated northward. Belisarius caught their rearguard at Ponds Milvius and totally defeated it. Later in the year, a fresh force of seven thousand men under John, the son of Count Vitalian, took our minimum. The imperial troops now concentrated in Rome. Besides Belisarius, there were John and Narsis, the eunuch whom we have already met in the Nica sedition, and none had any definite primacy. Finally, however, Narsis was recalled, and Belisarius, left in chief command, captured Fersule and Orcsimium, and cautiously felt his way towards Ravenna. The Franks had broken the peace, made in 536, and again invaded Italy. The Goths were defeated, the plane of the Poe wasted. Wittiges seemed helpless. In May 540 Belisarius occupied Ravenna, having starved the city into submission. There fell into his hands King Wittiges, many nobles, and a great horde of treasure. The admiring Goths offered the regality to the victorious general. But whatever his private ambition may have been, Belisarius had no thought of disloyalty. He returned to Constantinople with his captives and spoil, and so twice within seven years Justinian saw a conquered king at the foot of his throne. Italy seemed conquered. Only a small Gothic force still remained in the Valley of the Poe, and yet almost all that had been conquered was to be lost again, and 12 years were to elapse before the final victory was won. The Gothic remnant was led in quick succession by two chiefs, Hildebold and Eraric. Then, in 541, the leadership passed to Badulla, a man to be named with all honor and reverence, possessed of all the qualities that make for true nobility. Badulla quickly showed that the Gothic spirit was not extinct. When in 542 the imperialists began to collect for the conquest of the Poe Valley, he boldly advanced against them and defeated them at Faenza. Following up his success, he routed John, son of Vitalian, at Magillo, and shut up the remains of his army in Ravenna. He then pushed forward the work of reconquest and met with little opposition. The year 540 marks the highest point of Justinian's reign. While his foreign policy was everywhere meeting with brilliant success, he was busy with great works at home. In 528 a commission, including the great jurist Tribonian, began to codify the laws. It had the Theodosian Code upon which to work, and in little more than a twelve month, had completed its labours. This was only a beginning. On December 15530 a second commission, presided over by Tribonian, set to work on a digest of the entire body of the laws of Rome. It was a gigantic task, but in three years it was completed. Then to facilitate study, the commission compiled a manual of the law in four volumes, the Institutes. It was really a new edition of the earlier commentaries of Gaius, with the alterations and notes necessitated by the changed times. At the same time a course of study for intending lawyers was carefully examined and revised. Justinian was a builder on a gigantic scale. He had a fair field for his operations in Constantinople after the Nica sedition, but the capital was but one of the cities which he embellished or strengthened. In Anthemius of Trolls he had at his disposal one of the greatest of architects. Churches, basilicas, monasteries, fortresses, hospitals arose everywhere. The greatest of his monuments was the splendid Church of the Divine Wisdom in Constantinople, which has been more than once characterised as the most perfect specimen of a Christian temple that the world has ever seen. On its many glories we need not dwell. It is now a mosque of the Turks, but all their vandalism, all the effects of their wasting hand have been unable to hide or destroy its majestic splendour. Sanctus Sophia was but one of the many churches built or restored by Justinian, though by far the greatest. Even in newly conquered Ravenna the imperial architects and builders were soon busy and produced for the emperor San Vitale and San Apollonare in class. The former containing only attempts at likenesses, if such they can be called, of himself and his wife that we possess. His civil and military works were enormous. He built basilicas by the score and fortresses and military towers literally by the hundred, two hundred and ninety-four in the Balkan provinces alone. But all these works, combined with the cost of administration and of continual warfare, required an enormous outlay. Justinian apparently never seriously trenched upon his huge treasury reserve, but paid for everything out of revenue. He was probably guiltless himself of any desire to oppress his people, but his agents carried on a continual process of grinding extortion, John of Cappadocia especially earning a terrible reputation. As early as 532 we find the Nica rioters complaining of severe taxation. It is not likely to have been diminished after the suppression of the revolt. There was war in Italy, in Africa the moors, the remnant of the vandals and disaffected troops, gave trouble until 545. There were also hostilities in Illyricum when in 540 Cusru Anoushivan, son of Kobat King of Persia, very likely owing in some measure to gothic intrigues, invaded Syria. Cusru did not care to waste his host on the walls of Dara and Odessa. He crossed the Euphrates at once into Syria and marched straight on Antioch. The apparent strength of the great city so impressed him that he offered to withdraw for one thousand pounds of gold. But when his terms were ejected he made a virtue of necessity, and probably rather to his surprise, stormed Antioch. Part of the garrison cut its way out, but the city was sacked and thousands of inhabitants carried off to Persia. Cusru made no attempt to hold Antioch, but at once turned homeward. He went by way of Mesopotamia, and on his march attempted to crown his campaign by storming the Persian Isor of Dara, but was handsomely repulsed by the garrison. In 541 Belisarius was appointed to the eastern command. Cusru advanced into Armenia, and attacked the thin slip of Roman territory along the southeastern shore of the Yuxin. He stormed the fortress of Petra, south of Farsis, but before he could do more, he was recalled by the news that Belisarius had fallen on Mesopotamia. The campaign ended without result. The war dragged on for some three years longer, but its history is devoid of interest. In 542 and 543 the great king gained one or two trifling successes, chiefly as it would seem, because Belisarius was ill-supported. He captured Kalinicum in 543. In 544 a Roman corps was defeated in Pers Armenia. But in 545 the Persian Grand Army sustained a very bloody and humiliating repulse before Odessa. There upon the great king made overtures, and once more Justinian to free his hands for operations in Italy, where matters were very serious, preferred to buy a truce at the rate of two thousand pounds of gold. The peace, after all, was only partial. In Lazica, the Colchian inland, hostilities were expressly permitted to continue. Cusru had shown by his expedition in 542 that he had designs on this region. They appear to have aimed at pushing the Persian border through to an outlet on the Yuxin. While the Persian war lasted, hostilities in Italy were little regarded. The troops there were left unreinforced and unsupplied. The pressure of taxation was cruel. In 542 a blow which could not be parried fell upon the empire in the form of a terrible outbreak of the plague. It was an epoch-making disaster. There could be no doubt that it so weakened the state as to make it practically powerless before a great shock from without. The population was probably nearly stationary at the best of times. The burden of taxation, the prevalence of monasticism, continual barbarian ravages in the Balkan provinces, not to mention other causes, must have tended to retard any increase. And the wasting hand of the pestilence made havoc that could only have been repaired under the most favourable circumstances. The mortality in Constantinople at the height of the scourge is said to have exceeded 5,000 a day. If so, the population of the capital can hardly have been diminished by less than 100,000 souls. The details, the all-searching and all-destroying infection, the helplessness of the pseudoscience of the day before it, the craven terror and panic, the general apathy and despair, are those of all similar visitations. Procopius naively says that its one marked characteristic was that it carefully spared the wicked. The plague almost paralysed Justinian's efforts for some time. The war in the East languished. Italy was left almost to itself, and Badulla gained ground fast. The emperor himself had had an attack of the disease, and it seems to have left him weakened both in body and mind. By 543 Badulla was master of most of northern Italy, accepting Ravenna and one or two isolated strongholds. He then crossed the Tiber, and avoiding Rome, where a strong force was stationed under Bessus, an able but harsh and avaricious officer. Overran the southern provinces almost without resistance. Plague and lack of reinforcements rendered the imperialists helpless. He besieged and took Neapolis, and pushing onto the south captured most of the Roman troops remaining in the fortress of Hydrontum. Then in 544 he turned back to besiege Rome, though he had only 15,000 men available for the great task. Late in the year Belisarius reached Italy, having again been appointed to the command. He re-took Hydrontum and relieved Oximium, and in 545 proceeded evidently by sea to Ostia to do the same for Rome. Justinian had begun to distrust him. He was stinted in every way. His great veteran Cometatus was withheld from him. His army was small and raw. Bessus had alienated the Romans by his harshness, and before Belisarius could obtain reinforcements with which to attempt the relief, for which he had sent home John, son of Vitalian, Rome fell by treachery. John, meanwhile, had come back with fresh troops and an independent command. He reconquered Apulia and Lucania without difficulty. Badulla thereupon abandoned Rome, breaching its walls and deporting such of the population as remained, and marched to meet him. But as soon as he was gone, Belisarius reoccupied the city, and when the king turned back to retake it he was repulsed. Beyond this Belisarius could do nothing. For some two years he lay entrenched in the ruins of the great city, holding his own but unable to advance. Elsewhere the imperialists were confined to the walls of Ravenna, Oximium, Hydrontum and Croton, and could not meet Badulla in the field. The deadlock lasted for two years. Belisarius appealed in vain for supplies and reinforcements. He could only hold Rome, and Badulla fitted out a fleet at Ancona which ravaged the coast of Dalmatia, and sailing boldly to the west wasted Sardinia. Then Belisarius heard of an event which he evidently regarded as fatal to all his hopes and prospects. He applied for permission to resign. It was granted, and he left Italy for the last time in 549. To the event which ruined his hopes we now turn. On July 27, 548 Theodora died. Her influence as Empress appears to have been wholly for good. The stories of the secret history of Procopius are so contradictory that they cannot be believed. She doggedly opposed the evil finance minister, John of Cappadocia, and finally asked it and ruined him. She probably saw the bad effects of his measures better than her husband obviously because she had personal experience of the hardships of poverty. Whenever she made her influence felt, it seems to have been exerted on the side of justice and wisdom. She was generous, pitiful to the oppressed, and if she were vain her vanity is hardly to be put against her care for fallen woman. Charity, to the sinful of their own sex, is certainly not a female virtue. To the last, Justinian's affection for her never seems to have wavered. In Sanctus Sophia we still may see the monogram of the Imperial pair in the gallery, where they sat at public worship. His love-episode is the one sympathetic trait in the character of the Emperor, and with his brave wife the best of him lay dead. In the same unhappy year the Slavs ravaged Illyricum, up to the walls of Diracium, and in 550 they made a fresh raid and sacked Tupyrus in Thrace. The Imperial troops seemed helpless to stay them. In 551 they were again raiding in Illyricum and Thrace, and defeated a small Roman force in the open field near Adrianople. Next year the raid was repeated. Justinian's attention was fixed on Lazica. He made hardly any attempt to succor Illyricum or Italy, where Badulla recaptured Rome after the recall of Belisarius, and thenceforth held the entire country, except a few fortresses. For some time after Theodora's death the Emperor seems to have remained in a state of apathy, like that which paralysed the energies of a somewhat similar monarch Philip II of Spain in 1596. However in 549 he roused himself, and decided to end the partisan warfare in Lazica. A strong force was dispatched thither, which failed to take Petra, but routed a Persian division nearby. Next year the Persians were again defeated. Bessas, the general whom we have already met at Rome, put down a rising of the Abusci in Colchis, and in 551 stormed Petra, and routed the Persians at Archaeopolis. These successes were not continued in 552, though all went well for a time. The Roman army retreated in a panic when menaced with attack by a new Persian general, and was forced to the coast at Faces. The Persians, 60,000 strong, followed it there in 553, and besieged it in its lines, but making an assault were totally defeated. There was further desultory fighting, but the Romans were now firmly established in Colchis, and in 556 peace was concluded for fifty years, Cusru receiving in Lyu of Lazica four hundred pounds of gold a year. Once again the bad practice of money payments was adopted, but the fruits of the war lay with Justinian. The Persian hopes of pushing their border to the Yixin had been bought. In 552 Justinian had resolved on a final attempt to subdue Italy. A fleet and army were collected in Dalmatia under the command of Narsis. Justinian would employ Belisarius no more. In justice it must be said that though the great general's second command in Italy was a failure, he came home wealthier than ever. We can hardly blame Justinian for distrusting him. Narsis marched by land with his army and entered Italy from the north. The fleet defeated that of the Ostrogoths off Senegalica, and Narsis reached Ravenna without opposition. He then, AD 553, advanced on Rome. At Targinna in the Eponines, he met the great king of the Goths and a desperate battle was fought. The Roman victory was complete. Six thousand Gothic knights perished, and worst of all Badulla was slain. The end was nigh. Yet that sad end of a noble race had a tragic splendour. Narsis occupied Rome and moved on into Campania where the broken army had rallied for a last stand under Tea, the best and bravest of Badulla's captains. Beneath Vesuvius Narsis came upon the last forlorn hope of Ostrogothia and crushed it into all but total annihilation. Only one thousand Ostrogoths stood to their arms after the battle, and Narsis, with something we may believe of true admiration in his soul, gave them permission to leave Italy and go with her they would. So with dead Tea on his shield at their head, as in life he had led them, the sad little column passed the Roman lines and went away, never to return. And with those grand warriors passing into the night of Oblivion the Ostrogothic nation disappears from history. As they told Narsis, God was against them. But they had produced the greatest man of the fifth century, Theodoric and Badulla and Tea, and now that they were gone the world was poorer. All was not yet over. In their last agony the Goths had sought aid from every side, and Theodobald of the Franks had permitted two chiefs, Buccellin and Clothar, to enter Italy with eighty thousand men. They came too late to help Tea, but proceeded to waste Italy for their own benefit. One division perished of starvation and disease in Apulia. The other, under Buccellin, attacked Narsis at Casillinum and was simply annihilated. Italy was Justinians at last, but Italy so ruined as to be all but worthless. In many places the land was a vast solitude, everywhere it was wasted and depopulated into hopeless poverty and misery. Nevertheless it was Roman once more. Bandals and Ostrogoths had been swept away. The Franks had received a severe lesson. Now it was to be the turn of the Visigoths, the Sackers of Rome in 410. In Spain King Agilla was in 554, engaged in civil war with a rebel, a Thanagild. The latter was foolish enough to invite the help of Liberias, Governor of Africa, who invaded the country and rapidly subdued most of the South and Southeast. The Visigoths at last recognised their folly. They murdered Agilla and acknowledged a Thanagild as King. He was able to check the further progress of Liberias, but failed to recover the lost territory, which was held in whole or in part for some sixty years. Thus by 556, Justinian had reconquered Italy, Illyricum, Africa, the islands of the Western Mediterranean and part of Spain, and had held Persia steadily in check. He had completed his legal reforms, the Empire was covered with his monuments. But all this had been done at a cost of exactions which had entirely exhausted the state. The civil service was large and far too powerful. There is every reason to believe that it, and not Justinian, was responsible for many of the oppressions which weighed so grievously upon the suffering people. After his wife's death, Justinian distrusted everybody. His nephew, Justinus, who was married to Theodora's niece Sophia, was kept in the background, and the Emperor, now more than seventy years of age, grew steadily weaker. His intellect was obviously failing. He seems to have lost in great measure even his love of hard work. He allowed the officials to gain power unchecked. The army fell into grave disorganisation. Barbarian raids were brought off. As his powers declined, he wasted much time on religious controversy, trying to coerce orthodox believers and monophysites into unwilling and unenduring agreement. The whole machine of government and defence was out of order, when, in 558, a horde of Cotriga Huns made a daring raid into Thrace. They did not appear to have numbered twenty thousand cavalry in all, and a body only seven thousand strong came close up to Constantinople. Belisarius, who was hastily called from his retirement to defend the capital, could only collect the useless Scholarians and a few hundred veteran horsemen. Infantry were, of course, useless, but the Huns were beaten without difficulty in an action at Melantius near Constantinople. Another of their corps was severely handled at the same time near Cardia, and the whole horde withdrew. Justinian now intrigued with the Utriga section of the Huns to attack the Cotrigas, and the two tribes, busy with fratricidal warfare, had no leisure for further raids. Belisarius, some four years later, was suspected of complicity in a conspiracy against the emperor's life. His property was sequestrated, and he was kept under arrest for several months. Justinian's conduct certainly appears contemptible, but it is very difficult to say whether it was, as Professor Oman thinks, unpardonable. At all events he ended by restoring the general to favour and fortune. Belisarius died in March 565, his wife Antonina lived some years longer, and died at the great age of 80. The inhabitants of the Roman East were certainly not devoid of vigour. Justinian died on November 13, 565. His character has, as far as possible, been dealt with previously. With all his failings he fills a large space on the Roman canvas, and if his undertakings were not always successful, we must remember his many difficulties. He has been compared with Louis XIV of France and with Philip II of Spain. The writer believes himself able to discern points of resemblance to both. He was clearly a better man than either, far less disillute and ostentatious than the Frenchman, not a hypocritical bigot like the Spaniard. His first love was his last, and no la valiere bewailed her fate at his hands. He was able in several ways, hardworking, thoroughly well-intentioned and conscientious. And so we leave him, the best known and yet most mysterious of the long line of Byzantine Caesars. End of Section 4. Section 5 of the Byzantine Empire. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Botez. The Byzantine Empire. The Rear Guard of European Civilization. By Edward Ford. Chapter 5. Justinian Successors, Weakness and Decay. Justinian's marriage with Theodora had brought him no children, though just in the son of his sister Vigilantia held the office of Kuroplates, master of the palace, the highest in the empire after those of Augustus and Caesar, he does not appear to have ever been formally designated as his uncle's successor. Justinian, indeed, seems to have distrusted and depressed him. But on his uncle's death, he came forward without hesitation and was acclaimed Augustus by the court and senate and afterwards solemnly crowned in Sancta Sophia. He was married to Sophia, a niece of Theodora. She had inherited her aunt's fiery courage and aspired to play her part, but had not her political aptitude. Justin ascended the throne at a moment of extreme gravity. The empire was internally greatly exhausted and its weakness was accentuated by its wide extent, which necessitated the holding of worthless tracts like Italy and western Ilyricum against attack from without at a time when it had powerful enemies near at home. The savage Avars, a tartar horde perhaps akin to the Huns, probably included some fragments of that famous race, had now reached the Danube and before long the empire was to know them only too well. An embassy from them came to Constantinople in Justin's first year, probably to ascertain what amount of blackmail he was prepared to pay. Meanwhile, they thrust the Slavs before them across the Danube. On the east the Persians were ever ready to strike another blow. The emperor was confronted and hampered at every turn by the great mass of self-interested bureaucracy, which had become powerful during the late years of Justinian and his efforts to relieve the burdens of the people were silently frustrated. The phenomenon is not an unusual one in history. The military service was also in a weak and disorganized condition. Justin began his reign by paying his uncle's debts. Here impudiated Justinian's blackmailing policy towards the barbarians and determined to repel ravages by force, a resolve which in the state of the empire was certainly ill-timed, bold and magnanimous as it may be thought. The Avers and Slavs resumed their depredation and owing to the military policy, which had been followed for many years, of keeping only garrisons and no field force in Europe. They were able to pursue them with little opposition. Justin followed at first a policy of toleration in religious matters. He proclaimed a general remission of arrears of taxes up to the year 560, but at the same time the customs duties were increased and a tax put upon the political bread distributed to the populace of the capital. The general tendency of Justin's policy during his earlier years shows that there was much exhaustion in the provinces and that the government was intensely unpopular. The weakness of the empire was accentuated by its tendency to break apart, owing to the diversity of its component nations. This tendency Justinians' centralizing policy had really increased. Various provinces had up to this time been grouped under great viceroys. These viceregal officers he abolished, thus weakening one of the ties which united separatist people. In 568 the emperor, who though irritable and mentally ill-balanced, lacked neither insight nor ability, passed an addict to the effect that provincial governors were to be chosen by the local magnates and people and installed without cost to the latter. It was a wise and well-meant measure, but it is open to question whether it was not quietly evaded. But it was in the department of foreign politics that Justin was most unfortunate. Italy, very feebly garrisoned, ravaged and nearly depopulated by plague and famine, was occupied in great part by the longobards with so little resistance, even considering the weakness of the empire that the writer is forced to the conclusion that their settlements were made with its tacit consent. Real resistance was made by only the single fortress of Pavia, which held out for three years. The incident shows how helpless the two-tones were against world towns. The empire held in 700, only the extreme south, and a district roughly corresponding to the present provinces of Eastern Emilia, the Marches, Western Umbria, and Roma, with the companion coast and Venice comprising about a fifth part of the continental Italy. Sicily and Sardinia, however, were held for nearly three centuries yet, and the empire was hardly weakened by its loss of the provinces which cannot have paid the expense of maintenance. In 572, war again broke out with Persia. Justin refused to subsidize the Sassanids any longer for Lasica and the Caucasus passes and Kostru Anoshirvan, now in old age, but as vigorous as ever declared war. In 573, the Magister Militum Per Orientem, Marcian, defeated a Persian army at Sargaton, but failed to take Nisibis and meanwhile the Persians made a fearful raid into Syria and dragged away a vast number of captives. 292,000, we were told, an incredible figure. Apamea was taken and destroyed. A number of the most beautiful girls were picked out to be sent to the Khan of Turks, with whom Kostru was anxious to keep on good terms. They forestalled their shame by drowning themselves. The incident deserves the record that all heroic actions merit. Next year the Persians captured their chronic eyesore of Dara, while in Europe the Avars ravaged Moesia and defeated the general Tiberius, the future emperor, who led a small force against them. Justin's mind was already failing and Sofia thought it necessary to buy a truce for a year, for which she paid 45,000 solidi. In 575, this was extended for three years except in Persarmenia, where the war went on without interruption. The payment was reduced to 30,000 solidi per annum. Kostru, in 576, advanced into Armenia and beseeched the Roman frontier fortress of Theodosiopolis, but failing to take it entered Cappadocia. He destroyed Sebast, but was defeated on his march to Melitene by Justin, son of Germanus, who had been sent to pose him. He retreated towards his own border, burning everything in his path, including the city of Melitene, but was caught up by Justin near the latter place and totally routed. Next year, however, Justin was in his turn defeated by the general to whom the age Kostru had given place, but this was offset by a very successful eruption made by the general Mauritius into Arzanen and Gordien. In 578, the emperor, who had long been suffering from intermittent insanity, died and the Caesar Tiberius, whom we have already transiently met and who had been practically emperor since 574, succeeded him. He was well-intentioned, but impulsive and ill-advised ruler. In 579, Kostru Anushirvan died and the Romans pushed a raid eastward into Medea Atropatene. In 582, the Avars for the first time gained a solid success over the empire by the capture of Serenium, but a Persian invasion of Mesopotamia was repulsed at Constantina. Meanwhile, the savage Slavs were penetrating into the Balkan provinces, not to plunder but to settle. Little could be done to check them at present. The Persian war demanded the presence of the whole available forces on the eastern frontier, but Tiberius had made a vigorous effort to reorganize the army, which had been in a bad and mutinous condition ever since the latter years of Justinian – preposterous liberality. For this, the civil officials were chiefly responsible, since their policy was, as is common with bureaucratic bodies, exaggeratedly anti-militarist. The troops, more or less neglected and furnished with pay at very irregular intervals, grew discontented and tended to become what the army of Old Rome had been in the third century, a danger to the state rather than its protection. Tiberius's domestic policy was most unfortunate, not to say absurd. He remitted a fourth of the direct taxation, a measure which perhaps admitted of defense, though the removal of the duty on the political bread could only have been devised as a means to curry favor with the idle populace of the capital. Absolutely indefensible are his grants to members of all professions, not merely scholars and physicians, but lawyers, goldsmiths and bankers. Comment is needless. The donations to the army were perhaps a little more sensible, since it was necessary to conciliate the ill-used troops, but it was dangerous to pumper them, and Tiberius's successor had to reap the evil fruits of his policy. Meanwhile, of course, this lavishness emptied the treasury. Tiberius died on August 5th, 582, having designated as his successor his best general and trusted friend, the Cappadocian Mauritius, whom we have seen in action against Persia and whom he had married to his youngest daughter, Constantina. The reign of Morris opened with a disaster in the east. The Romans were well beaten in Armenia, going to quarrels between their generals, while in Europe the Avars took Sinjidunum, Belgrade. Morris bought off the latter with a subsidy of 120,000 solidi. They had already received 80,000 in 581, and 100,000 in 582. Little could be done by force against them, for the whole field army of the empire was in the east, and when they began to take fortresses, they were becoming something more than a trouble. The next two years were marked by indecisive fighting on the Persian border, while in Europe the Slavs settled everywhere in the wasted provinces. In Greece they squatted all over the interior, and the Hellenies were forced everywhere seaward, abandoning such homes of their race as Sparta and Megalopolis. One of these refugees on the coast, which afterwards grew into an important city, was the headland in Laconia, where had once been the tribute station from which the Minoan-seeking dominated Peloponnesus, and where the emigrants now founded famous Monemvesia, the same thing took place in Dalmatia. The Slavs, in Thrace however, were defeated by a small Roman division under Comentiolus. In 586, Philipicus, Morris' brother-in-law, defeated the Persians, and though he unaccountably retreated after a successful raid into Arzanen, he closed the year with an invasion of Medea. But the Avars ravaged Moesia and starved Dorostolon and Marcianopolis into surrender, and Comentiolus, who had only 6000 troops under his orders, could not effectively oppose them. Next year, however, a new general, John the Moustached, beat the Avars before Adrenopolis. Heraclius, father of the future emperor of the same name, ravaged the Persian borders, and when in 588 the Persians besieged Constantinus, it was relieved and the besiegers routed at Martiropolis. In 589, Martiropolis was betrayed to the Persians. A Roman force marching to the relief was defeated, but Comentiolus, now appointed to the command, routed the Persians at Nisibis. Meanwhile, the Arabs raided Persian Mesopotamia, the Turks threatened the north, and the pressure on the Roman frontier slackened. The Turks were defeated by the general Vararan, who then hastened to oppose the Romans, but was twice routed on the Araxes. King Hormuzd insulted him for his ill success, and he promptly revolted. In September 590, Hormuzd was slain. His son, Kusru, afterwards called Apareves the victorious, appealed for help to Maurice and made peace, thereby ending the weary war of raid and counter raid. The Roman army marched to the aid of Kusru, Vararan was defeated and slain, and the rightful heir enthroned. By this kindly and in the circumstances well-timed act, Maurice gained a valuable accession of territory in Armenia, but Kusru was destined to be the most terrible enemy that the Empire had had since Hannibal. Having ended the Persian War, Maurice brought across to Europe the bulk of the Eastern army. He announced that he would himself take the command and set out to do so, but the opposition of the officials was so strong that he gave way, a proof of the huge influence possessed by the civil service and of the comparative helplessness of the nominal head of state. In his place a general, Priscous, was appointed, who, after gaining some slight successes, was superseded by the Emperor's own brother, Peter. Matters had reached such a pass that it was only by employing his relatives that the ruler could be sure of faithful service. There was no serious fighting, and for some years there was comparative quiet on the Danube. The Avars, with the erratic instinct of barbarian nomads, swerving off westward and attacking the Teutons in Germany. During these years Maurice remained at Constantinople, working hard at attempts to reform the administration, struggling against a dead weight of bureaucratic opposition which had baffled Justin and Tiberius II. He was crippled all his reign by the effects of the latter's unwise profuseness and gained an undeserved reputation for miserliness, which he increased by certain ill-advised economies in the direction of docking the food and pay of the troops. He was unpopular in the capital, and his Christian values failed to win affection for him. When he refused to permit a heretic to be burned, he was stigmatized as unorthodox. His economy made him disliked both by army and civil service. He could command no support from the people. In 597 the Avars passed once more over the Danube and defeated Peter, while the Slavs utilized the opportunity to besiege Thessalonica, so far south where they now established. In 598 Priscus again took over the chief command. Here relieved St. Jidunum, and when the Avars invaded Dalmatia, they were defeated by an officer named Godwin, obviously a Teuton, perhaps even an Englishman. Next year the Avars again crossed the Danube and besieged Tommy, where Priscus had entrenched himself. The siege was raised by Cometiolus early in 600, but his army retreated in a panic, and much mischief might have been caused. But the Avars were decimated by disease. The Cajun's own son died of the plague, and he sued for peace, which was concluded on the basis that the Danube should be the boundary between Roman and Avar. A subsidy of only 20,000 solidi was paid. The pride of the barbarians had evidently sunk, but Maurice ruined himself by refusing to ransom the 12,000 captives and deserters in the hands of the Cajun, who, thereupon, gave way to savage fury and massacred them. It was at least one cause of the Emperor's fall. The Avars retired across the Danube. Maurice immediately and shamelessly violated the peace. Priscus was across the Danube before the Avars could gather to oppose him. Near Vimeacum he caught their rearguard and defeated it, and pressed up the Danube, routing their scattered hordes one after another. He reached the Theis before the Cajun could call in his subject tribes and completely defeated him. Priscus next attacked and massacred a remnant of the J.P. Day, who still remained in their ancient seats, and then, following up the Cajun, routed him in a final victory on the Theis. There were no important operations in 601. The Avars were hard hit. The Romans turned their attention to the Slavs. Many dispirited Avars, deserted to them, and in 602 the Teutonic General Godwin again crossed the Danube and gained a victory over the Slavs. Success now seemed at hand. Maurice directed the army to winter north of the river, so as to be ready for decisive operations in the spring. But once the troops broke out into mutiny. They had some slight reason, perhaps, but they were guilty of the worst kind of military disobedience in refusing to perform their plain duty at a time when one more effort might have cured the avaric plague forever, and dearly was the empire to rue the consequences of this outbreak of ill-conditioned military license. The army selected a centurion named Fokas as general, presumably for the admirable combination in his character of turbulence and cruelty, since we do not find him to be possessed of any other positive attributes and advanced on Constantinople. No opposition was made to it. The citizens opened their gates and Maurice fled across the Bosphorus. He was taken at Calcedon and put to death with his five sons, the youngest a totaling child of three. With them died the emperor's brother Peter, the distinguished general Comentiolus and Constantin Lardis, Maurice's chief minister and friend. Priscus saved himself by joining the army, with which he was naturally popular. He may have had a hand in the movement. The empress, Constantina, and her three young daughters were spared, but straightly imprisoned, and the obscure witless centurion mounted the throne. End of section 5, recording by Mike Botez.