 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon Volume 4, Chapter 40, Reign of Justinian, Part 3 I need not explain that silk is originally spun from the bowels of a caterpillar, and that it composes the golden tomb, from whence a worm emerges in the form of a butterfly. Till the reign of Justinian, the silkworm, who fed on the leaves of the white mulberry tree, were confined to China. Those of the pine, the oak and the ash, were common in the forests both of Asia and Europe. But as their education is more difficult, and their produce more uncertain, they were generally neglected except in the little island of Seos, near the coast of Attica. A thin gauze was procured from their webs, and the sea in manufacture, the invention of a woman for female use, was long admired both in the east and at Rome. Whatever suspicions may be related by the garments of the Medes and Assyrians, Virgil is the most ancient writer who expressly mentions the soft wool, which was combed from the leaves of the Ceres, or Chinese. And this natural error, less marvelous than the truth, was slowly corrected by the knowledge of a valuable insect, the first artificer of the luxury of nations. That rare and elegant luxury was censored in the reign of Tiberius, by the gravest of the Romans, and pliny and affected, though forcible language, has condemned the thirst of gain which explores the last confines of the earth, for the pernicious purpose of exposing to the public eye naked draperies and transparent matrons, a dress which showed the turn of the limbs and color of the skin might gratify vanity or provoke desire. The silks, which had been closely woven in China, were sometimes unraveled by the Phoenician women, and the precious materials were multiplied by a looser texture, and the inter-mixture of linen threads. Two hundred years after the age of Pliny, the use of pure or even of mixed silks was confined to the female sex, till the opulent citizens of Rome and the provinces were insensibly familiarized with the example of a lagabalice. The first, who, by this effeminate habit, had sullied the dignity of an emperor and a man, a railing and complained that a pound of silk was sold at Rome for twelve ounces of gold, but the supply increased with the demand, and the price diminished with the supply. With accident or monopoly sometimes raised the value even above the standard of Aurelian, the manufacturers of tire and veritus were sometimes compelled by the operation of the same causes to content themselves with the ninth part of that extravagant rate. A law was thought necessary to discriminate the dress of comedians from that of senators, and of the silk exported from its native country the far greater part was consumed by the subjects of Justinian. They were still more intimately acquainted with the shellfish of the Mediterranean, surnamed the silkworm of the sea. The fine wool or hair by which the mother of pearl affixes itself to the rock is now manufactured with curiosity rather than use, and a robe obtained from the same singular materials was the gift of the Roman emperor to the satraps of Armenia. A valuable merchandise of small bulk is capable of defying the expense of land carriage, and the caravans traversed the whole latitude of Asia in 243 days from the Chinese ocean to the sea coast of Syria. The silk was immediately delivered to the Romans by the Persian merchants, who frequented the fares of Armenia and Nisibis. But this trade, which in the intervals of truth was oppressed by avarice and jealousy, was totally interrupted by the long wars of the rival monarchies. The great king might proudly number Sogdiana and even Serica among the provinces of his empire, but his real dominion was bounded by the oxus and his useful intercourse with the Sogdawites beyond the river depended on the pleasure of their conquerors, the White Huns and the Turks, who successively reigned over that industrious people. Yet the most savage dominion has not extirpated the seeds of agriculture and commerce. In a region which is celebrated as one of the four gardens of Asia, the cities of Samarkand and Bokhara are advantageously seeded for the exchange of its various productions, and their merchants purchased from the Chinese the raw or manufactured silk, which they transported into Persia for the use of the Roman empire. In the vain capital of China, the Sogdian caravans were entertained as the suppliant embassies of tributary kingdoms, and if they returned in safety, the bold adventure was rewarded with exorbitant gain, but the difficult and perilous march from Samarkand to the first town of Shensi could not be performed in less than sixty, eighty, or one hundred days. As soon as they had passed the Jixardis, they entered the desert, and the wandering hordes, unless they are restrained by armies and garrisons, have always considered the citizen and the traveler as the objects of lawful repine. To escape the Tartar robbers and the tyrants of Persia, the silk caravans explored a more southern road. They traversed the mountains of Tibet, descended the streams of the Ganges to the Indus, and patiently expected in the ports of Gujarat and Malabar the annual fleets of the west. But the dangers of the desert were found less intolerable than toil, hunger, and the loss of time. The attempt was seldom renewed, and the only European who has passed that unfrequented way applauded his own diligence, that in nine months after his departure from Pekin he reached the mouth of the Indus. The ocean, however, was open to the free communication of mankind. From the Great River to the Tropic of Cancer, the provinces of China were subdued and civilized by the emperors of the North. They were filled about the time of the Christian era with cities and men, mulberry trees and their precious inhabitants, and if the Chinese, with a knowledge of the compass, had possessed the genius of the Greeks or Phoenicians they might have spread their discoveries over the southern hemisphere. I am not qualified to examine, and I am not disposed to believe, their distant voyages to the Persian Gulf or the Cape of Good Hope, but their ancestors might equal the laborers and success of the present race, and the sphere of their navigation might extend from the isles of Japan to the straits of Malacca, the pillars, if we may apply that name, of an Oriental Hercules. Without losing sight of land they might sail along the coast to the extreme promotory of Anxin, which is annually visited by ten or twelve ships laden with the productions, the manufacturers, and even the artificers of China. The island of Sumatra and the opposite peninsula are faintly delineated as the regions of gold and silver, and the trading cities named in the geography of Ptolemy may indicate that this wealth was not solely derived from the mines. The direct interval between Sumatra and Ceylon is about 300 leagues. The Chinese and Indian navigators were conducted by the flight of birds and periodical winds, and the ocean might be securely traveled in square-built ships, which, instead of iron, were sued together with a strong thread of the coconut. Ceylon, Serendib, or Taprobana, was divided between two hostile princes, one of whom possessed the mountains, the elephants, and the luminous carbuncle, and the other enjoyed the more solid riches of domestic industry, foreign trade, and the capacious harbor of Trinkamal, which received and dismissed the fleets of the east and west. In this hospitable isle, at an equal distance, as it was computed from their respective countries, the silk merchants of China who had collected in their voyages aloes, cloves, nutmeg, and sandalwood maintained a free and beneficial commerce with the inhabitants of the Persian Gulf. The subjects of the great king exalted without arrival his power and magnificence, and the Roman who confounded their vanity by comparing his paltry coin with a gold medal of the emperor Anastasius had sailed to Ceylon in an Ethiopian ship as a simple passenger. As silk became of indispensable use, the emperor Justinian saw with concern that the Persians had occupied by land and sea the monopoly of this important supply and that the wealth of his subjects was continually drained by a nation of enemies and idolaters. An act of government would have restored the trade of Egypt and the navigation of the Red Sea which had decayed with the prosperity of the empire, and the Roman vessels might have sailed for the purchase of silk to the ports of Ceylon, of Malacca, or even of China. Justinian embraced a more humble expedient and solicited the aid of his Christian allies, the Ethiopians of Abyssinia, who had recently acquired the arts of navigation, the spirit of trade, and the seaport of Agilis, still decorated with the trophies of a Grecian conqueror. Along the African coast they penetrated to the equator in search of gold, emeralds, and aromatics, but they wisely declined in unequal competition, in which they must always be prevented by the vicinity of the Persians to the markets of India, and the emperor submitted to the disappointment till his wishes were gratified by an unexpected event. The gospel had been preached to the Indians. Abyssup already governed the Christians of St. Thomas on the pepper coast of Malabar. A church was planted in Ceylon, and the missionaries pursued the footsteps of commerce to the extremities of Asia. Two Persian monks had long resided in China, perhaps in the royal city of Nankin, the seat of a monarch addicted to foreign superstitions, and who actually received an embassy from the Isle of Ceylon. Amidst their pious occupations they viewed with a curious eye the common dress of the Chinese, the manufacturers of silk, and the myriads of silk worms, whose education, either on trees or in houses, had once been considered as the labor of queens. They soon discovered that it was impracticable to transport the short-lived insect, but that in the eggs a numerous progeny might be preserved and multiplied in a distant climate. Religion or interest had more power over the Persian monks than the love of their country. After a long journey they arrived at Constantinople, imparted their project to the emperor, and were liberally encouraged by the gifts and promises of Justinian. To the historians of that prince, a campaign at the foot of Mount Caucasus had seemed more deserving of a minute relation than the labors of these missionaries of commerce, who again entered China, deceived the jealous people by concealing the eggs of the silkworm in a hollow cane, and returned in triumph with the spoils of the east. Under their direction the eggs were hatched at the proper season by the artificial heat of dung, the worms were fed with mulberry-leaved, they lived and labored in a foreign climate, a sufficient number of butterflies was saved to propagate the race, and trees were planted to supply the nourishment of the rising generations. Experience and reflection corrected the errors of a new attempt, and the sogged-wide ambassadors acknowledged in the succeeding reign that the Romans were not inferior to the natives of China in the education of the insects, and the manufacturers of silk in which both China and Constantinople have been surpassed by the industry of modern Europe. I am not insensible of the benefits of elegant luxury, yet I reflect with some pain that if the importers of silk had introduced the art of printing already practiced by the Chinese, the comedies of meander and the entire decads of livy would have been perpetuated in the editions of the sixth century. A larger view of the globe might at least have promoted the improvement of speculative science, but the Christian geography was forcibly extracted from the texts of Scripture, and the study of nature was the surest symptom of an unbelieving mind. The Orthodox faith confined the habitable world to one temperate zone and represented the earth as an oblong surface, 400 days' journey in length, 200 in breadth, encompassed by the ocean and covered by the solid crystal of the firmament. The subjects of Justinian were dissatisfied with the times and with the government. Europe was overrun by the barbarians and Asia by the monks. The poverty of the West discouraged the trade and manufacturers of the East. The produce of labor was consumed by the unprofitable servants of the church, the state, and the army, and a rapid decrease was felt in the fixed and circulating capitals which constitute the national wealth. The public distress had been alleviated by the economy of Anastasis and that Prudent Emperor accumulated an immense treasure while he delivered his people from the most odious or oppressive taxes. Their gratitude universally applauded the abolition of the gold of affliction, a personal tribute on the industry of the poor, but more intolerable as it should seem in the form than in the substance. Since the flourishing city of Edessa paid only 140 pounds of gold, which was collected in four years from 10,000 artificers. Yet such was the parsimony which supported this liberal disposition that in a reign of 27 years Anastasis saved from his annual revenue the enormous sum of 13 million sterling or 320,000 pounds of gold. His example was neglected and his treasure was abused by the nephew of Justin. The riches of Justinian were speedily exhausted by alms and buildings, by ambitious wars and anonymous treaties. His revenues were found inadequate to his expenses. Every art was tried to extort from the people the gold and silver which he scattered with a lavish hand from Persia to France. His reign was marked by the vicissitudes or rather by the combat of rapaciousness and avarice, of splendor and poverty. He lived with the reputation of hidden treasures and bequeathed to his successor the payment of his debts. 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 Procopious. The secret historian represents only the vices of Justinian and those vicent are darkened by the 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 32 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 daemons, who had mischievously assumed the form of Justinian. After this precaution, I shall briefly relate the anecdotes of avarice and repine under the following heads. 1. 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 ascended by seniority to a station of affluence and repose. The annual pensions of which the most honorable 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 revenue which had been appropriated to these useful institutions. Even the soldiers were injured, and such was the decay of military spirit, that they were injured with impunity. The emperor refused, at the return of each fifth year, the customary donatives of five pieces of gold, reduced his veterans to beg their bread, and suffered unpaid armies to melt away in the wars of Italy and Persia. 2. The humanity of his predecessors had always remitted in some auspicious circumstance of their reign the arrears of the public tribute, and they dexterously assumed the merit of resigning those claims which it was impracticable to enforce. Quote, Justinian, in the space of thirty-two years, has never granted a similar indulgence, and his subjects have renounced the possession of those lands whose value is insufficient to satisfy the demands of the treasury. To the cities which had suffered by hostile inroads, Anastasius promised a general exemption of seven years. The provinces of Justinian have been ravaged by the Persians and Arabs, the Huns and Scalabonians, but his vain and ridiculous dispensation of a single year has been confirmed to those places which are actually taken by the enemy. Such is the language of the secret historian who expressly denies that any indulgence was granted to Palestine after the revolt of the Sarmatians, a false and odious charge confuted by the authentic record which attests a relief of thirteen centenaries of gold, fifty-two thousand pounds, obtained for that desolate province by the intercession of St. Sabas. Three, Procopcius has not condescended to explain the system of taxation which fell like a hail storm upon the land, like a devouring pestilence on its inhabitants, but we should become the accomplices of his malignity. If we impute to Justinian alone the ancient though rigorous principle that a whole district should be condemned to sustain the partial loss of the Persians or property of individuals, the Anona or supply of corn for the use of the army and capital was a grievous and arbitrary exaction which exceeded, perhaps in a tenfold proportion, the ability of the farmer, and his distress was aggravated by the partial injustice of weights and measures and the expense of labor of distant carriage. In a time of scarcity an extraordinary requisition was made to the adjacent provinces of Thrace, Bithnia and Fergia, but the proprietors, after a worrisome journey and a perilous navigation, received so inadequate a compensation that they would have chosen the alternative of delivering both the corn and price at the doors of their granaries. These precautions might indicate a tender solicitude for the welfare of the capital, yet Constantinople did not escape the rapacious despotism of Justinian. Till his reign the Straits of the Bosphorus and Hellespont were open to the freedom of trade, and nothing was prohibited except the exportation of arms for the service of barbarians. At each of these gates of the city a pride air was stationed, the minister of imperial avarice. Heavy customs were imposed on the vessels and their merchandise. The oppression was retaliated on the helpless consumer. The poor were afflicted by the artificial scarcity and exorbitant price of the market, and a people accustomed to depend on the liberality of their prince might sometimes complain of the deficiency of water and bread. The aerial tribute, without a name, a law, or a definite object, was the annual gift of 120,000 pounds, which the emperor accepted from his Praetorian Prefect, and the means of payment were abandoned to the discretion of that powerful magistrate. Four. Even such attacks was less intolerable than the privilege of monopolies, which checked the fair competition of industry, and, for the sake of a small and dishonest gain, imposed an arbitrary burden on the wants and luxury of the subject. As soon, I transcribe the anecdotes, as the exclusive sale of silk was usurped by the imperial treasurer, a whole people, the manufacturers of tire and baritus, was reduced to extreme misery, and either perished with hunger or fled to the hostile dominions of Pajah. A province might suffer by the decay of its manufacturers, but in this example of silk, Procopious has partially overlooked the inestimable and lasting benefit which the empire received from the curiosity of Justinian. His addition of one-seventh to the ordinary price of copper money may be interpreted with the same candor, and the alteration, which might be wise, appears to have been innocent, since he neither alloyed the purity nor enhanced the value of the gold coin, the legal measure of public and private payments. Five, the ample jurisdiction required by farmers of the revenue to accomplish their engagements might be placed in an odious light, as if they had purchased from the emperor the lives and fortunes of their fellow citizens, and a more direct sale of honors and offices was transacted in the palace, with the permission, or at least with the connivance of Justinian and Theodora. The claims of merit, even those of favor, were disregarded, and it was almost reasonable to expect that the bold adventurer, who had undertaken the trade of a magistrate, should find a rich compensation for infamy, labor, danger, the debts which he had contracted, and the heavy interest which he paid. A sense of the disgrace and mischief of this venal practice at length awakened the slumbering virtue of Justinian, and he attempted, by the sanction of oaths and penalties, to guard the integrity of his government. But at the end of a year of perjury, his rigorous edict was suspended, and corruption licentiously abused her triumph over the impotence of the laws. Six, the testament of Ullilius, count of the domestics, declared the emperor his sole heir. On condition, however, that he should discharge his debts and legacies, allow his three daughters a decent maintenance, and bestow each of them in marriage, with a portion of ten pounds of gold. But the splendid fortune of Ullilius had been consumed by fire, and the inventory of his goods did not exceed the trifling sum of five hundred and sixty-four pieces of gold. A similar instance in Grecian history admonished the emperor of the honorable part prescribed for his imitation. He checked the selfish murmurs of the treasury, applauded the confidence of his friend, discharged the legacies and debts, educated the three virgins under the eye of the empress Theodora, and doubled the marriage portion which had satisfied the tenderness of their father. The humanity of a prince, for princes cannot be generous, is entitled to some praise, yet even in this act of virtue we may discover the inveterate custom of supplanting the legal or natural hairs which precocious imputes to the reign of Justinian. His charge is supported by eminent names and scandalous examples. Neither widows nor orphans were spared, and the art of soliciting or extorting or supposing testaments was beneficially practiced by the agents of the palace. This base and mischievous tyranny invades the security of private life, and the monarch, who has indulged in appetite for gain, will soon be tempted to anticipate the moment of succession, to interpret wealth as an evidence of guilt, and to proceed from the claim of inheritance to the power of confiscation. 7. Among the forms of repine, a philosopher may be permitted to name the conversion of pagan or eretical riches to the use of the faithful, but in the time of Justinian this holy plunder was condemned by the sectaries alone who became the victims of his orthodox avarice. End of Chapter 40 Part 3 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. Volume 4, Chapter 40, Reign of Justinian, Part 4 Dishonor might be ultimately reflected on the character of Justinian, but much of the guilt, and still more of the profit, was intercepted by the ministers, who were seldom promoted for their virtues, and not always selected for their talents. The merits of Treboni and the Quaster will hereafter be weighed in the reformation of the Roman law, but the economy of the East was subordinate to the Praetorian Prefect, and Procopious has justified his anecdotes by the portrait which he exposes in the public history of the notorious vices of John of Cappadocia. His knowledge was not borrowed from the schools, and his style was scarcely legible, but he excelled in the powers of native genius, to suggest the wisest councils, and to find expedience in the most desperate situations. The corruption of his heart was equal to the vigor of his understanding. Although he was suspected of magic and pagan superstition, he appeared insensible to the fear of God or the reproaches of man, and his aspiring fortune was raised on the death of thousands, the poverty of millions, the ruins of cities, and the desolation of provinces. From the dawn of light to the moment of dinner, he assiduously labored to enrich his master and himself at the expense of the Roman world. The remainder of the day was spent in sensual and obscene pleasures, and the silent hours of the night were interrupted by the perpetual dread of the justice of an assassin. His abilities, perhaps his vices, recommended him to the lasting friendship of Justinian. The emperor yielded with reluctance to the fury of the people. His victory was displayed by the immediate restoration of their enemy, and they felt above ten years under his oppressive administration that he was stimulated by revenge rather than instructed by misfortune. Their murmurs served only to fortify the resolution of Justinian, but the resentment of Theodora disdained a power before which every knee was bent, and attempted to sow the seeds of discord between the emperor and his beloved consort. Even Theodora herself was constrained to dissemble, to wait a favorable moment, and, by an artful conspiracy, to render John of Cappadocia the accomplice of his own destruction. At a time when Belisarius, unless he had been a hero, must have shown himself a rebel, his wife Antonia, who enjoyed the secret confidence of the Empress, communicated his feigned discontent to Euphemia, the daughter of the Prefect. The credulous virgin imparted to her father the dangerous project, and John, who might have known the value of oaths and promises, was tempted to accept a nocturnal and almost reasonable interview with the wife of Belisarius. An embiscate of guards and eunuchs had been posted by the command of Theodora. They rushed with drawn swords to seize or to punish the guilty minister. He was saved by the fidelity of his attendants, but instead of appealing to a gracious sovereign who would privately warrant him of his danger, he pusillanimously fled to the sanctuary of the church. The favorite of Justinian was sacrificed to conjugal tenderness or domestic tranquility. The conversion of a Prefect into a priest extinguished his ambitious hopes. But the friendship of the Emperor alleviated his disgrace, and he retained in the mild exile of Cisacus an ample portion of his riches. Such imperfect revenge could not satisfy the unrelenting hatred of Theodora. The murder of his old enemy, the Bishop of Cisacus, afforded a decent pretense, and John of Cappadocia, whose actions had deserved a thousand deaths, was at last condemned for a crime of which he was innocent. A great minister, who had been invested with the honors of consul and patrician, was anonymously scourged like the valest of malifactors. A tattered cloak was the sole remnant of his fortunes. He was transported in a bark to the place of his banishment at Antinopolis in Upper Egypt, and the Prefect of the East begged his bread through the cities which had trembled at his name. During an exile of seven years, his life was protracted and threatened by the ingenious cruelty of Theodora, and when her death permitted the Emperor to recall a servant whom he had abandoned with regret, the ambition of John of Cappadocia was reduced to the humble duties of the sacrodotal profession. His successors convinced the subjects of Justinian that the arts of oppression might still be improved by experience and industry. The frauds of a Syrian banker were introduced into the administration of the finances, and the example of a prefect was diligently copied by the quaster, the public and private treasurer, the governors of provinces, and the principal magistrates of the Eastern Empire. The edifices of Justinian were cemented with the blood and treasure of his people, but those stately structures appeared to announce the prosperity of the Empire and actually displayed the skill of their architects. Both the theory and practice of the arts, which depend on mathematical science and mechanical power, were cultivated under the patronage of the Emperor. The fame of Archimedes was rivaled by Proclus and Anthemius, and if their miracles had been related by intelligent spectators, they might now enlarge the speculations instead of exciting the distrust of philosophers. A tradition has prevailed that the Roman fleet was reduced to ashes in the port of Syracuse by the burning glass of Archimedes, and it is asserted that a similar expedient was employed by Proclus to destroy the Gothic vessels in the harbor of Constantinople and to protect his benefactor Anastasius against the bold enterprise of the Italian. A machine was fixed on the walls of the city, consisting of a hexagon mirror of polished brass, with many smaller and movable polygons to receive and reflect the rays of the meridian sun, and a consuming flame was darted to the distance perhaps of two hundred feet. The truth of these two extraordinary facts is invalidated by the silence of the most authentic historians, and the use of burning glasses was never adopted in the attack or defense of places. Yet the admirable experiments of a French philosopher have demonstrated the possibility of such a mirror. And, since it is possible, I am more disposed to attribute the art to the greatest mathematicians of antiquity than to give the merit of the fiction to the idle fancy of a monk or a sophist. According to another story, Proclus applied sulfur to the destruction of the Gothic fleet. In a modern imagination, the name of sulfur is instantly connected with the suspicion of gunpowder, and that suspicion is propagated by the secret arts of his disciple Anthemius. A citizen of Tralis in Asia had five sons, who were all distinguished in their respective professions by merit and success. Olympius excelled in the knowledge and practice of the Roman jurisprudence. Discorus and Alexander became learned physicians, but the skill of the former was exercised for the benefit of his fellow citizens, while the more ambitious brother acquired wealth and reputation at Rome. The fame of Metrodorus the Grammarian and of Anthemius the mathematician and architect reached the ears of the Emperor Justinian, who invited them to Constantinople. And while the one instructed the rising generation in the schools of eloquence, the other filled the capital and provinces with more lasting monuments of his art. In a trifling dispute relative to the walls or windows of their contiguous houses, he had been vanquished by the eloquence of his neighbor Zeno. But the orator was defeated in his turn by the master of mechanics, whose malicious, though harmless, stratagems are darkly represented by the ignorance of Agathius. In a lower room, Anthemius arranged several vessels or cauldrons of water, each of them covered by the wide bottom of a leathern tube, which rose to a narrow top and was artificially conveyed among the joists and rafters of the adjacent building. A fire was kindled beneath the cauldron, the steam of the boiling water ascended through the tubes, the house was shaken by the efforts of imprisoned air, and its trembling inhabitants might wonder that the city was unconscious of the earthquake which they had felt. At another time the friends of Zeno, as they sat at table, were dazzled by the intolerable light which flashed in their eyes from the reflecting mirrors of Anthemius. They were astonished by the noise which he produced from the collision of certain minute and sonorous particles, and the orator declared in tragic style to the senate that a mere mortal must yield to the power of an antagonist who shook the earth with the trident of Neptune and imitated the thunder and lightning of Job himself. The genius of Anthemius and his colleague Isidore the Malaysian was excited and employed by a prince whose taste for architecture had degenerated into a mischievous and costly passion. His favorite architects submitted their designs and difficulties to Justinian, and discreetly confessed how much their laborious meditations were surpassed by the intuitive knowledge of celestial inspiration of an emperor, whose views were always directed to the benefit of his people, the glory of his reign, and the salvation of his soul. The principal church, which was dedicated by the founder of Constantinople to Saint Sophia, or the eternal wisdom, had been twice destroyed by fire, after the exile of John Christastom, and during the Nica of the blue and green factions. No sooner did the tumult subside than the Christian populace deplored their sacrilegious rashness, but they might have rejoiced in the calamity had they foreseen the glory of the new temple, which at the end of forty days was strenuously undertaken by the piety of Justinian. The ruins were cleared away, a more spacious plain was described, and as it required the consent of some proprietors of ground, they obtained a most exorbitant term from the eager desires and timorous conscience of the monarch. Anthemius formed the design and his genius directed the hands of ten thousand workmen, whose payment in pieces of fine silver was never delayed beyond the evening. The emperor himself, clad in a linen tunic, surveyed each day their rapid progress, and encouraged their diligence by his familiarity, his zeal, and his rewards. The new cathedral of St. Sophia was consecrated by the patriarch, five years eleven months and ten days from the first foundation, and in the midst of the solemn festival, Justinian exclaimed with devout vanity, Glory be God, who hath thought me worthy to accomplish so great a work, I have vanquished the old Solomon. But the pride of the Roman Solomon, before twenty years had elapsed, was humbled by an earthquake, which overthrew the eastern part of the dome. The splendor was again restored by the perseverance of the same prince, and in the thirty-sixth year of his reign, Justinian celebrated the second dedication of a temple, which remains, after twelve centuries, a stately monument of his fame. The architecture of St. Sophia, which is now converted into the principal mosque, has been imitated by the Turkish sultans, and that venerable pile continues to excite the fond admiration of the Greeks and the more rational curiosity of European travelers. The eye of the spectator is disappointed by an irregular prospect of half-domes and shelving roofs. The western front, the principal approach, is destitute of simplicity and magnificence, and the scale of dimensions has been much surpassed by several of the Latin cathedrals. But the architect who first erected an aerial capola is entitled to the praise of bold design and skillful execution. The dome of St. Sophia, illuminated by four and twenty windows, is formed with so small a curve that the depth is equal to only one-sixth of its diameter. The measure of that diameter is one hundred and fifteen feet, and the lofty center, where a crescent has supplanted the cross, rises to the perpendicular height of one hundred and eighty feet above the pavement. The circle which encompasses the dome lightly reposes on four strong arches, and their weight is firmly supported by four massy piles, whose strength is assisted on the northern and southern sides by four columns of Egyptian granite. The Greek cross, inscribed in a quadrangle, represents the form of the edifice. The exact breadth is two hundred and forty-three feet, and two hundred and sixty-nine may be assigned for the extreme length from the sanctuary in the east to the nine western doors which open into the vestibule and form thence into the narthex, or exterior portico. That portico was a humble station of the penitents. The nave or body of the church was filled by the congregation of the faithful, but the two sexes were prudently distinguished, and the upper and lower galleries were allotted for the more private devotion of the women. Beyond the northern and southern piles, a balustrade, terminated on either side by the thrones of the emperor and the patriarch, divided the nave from the choir, and the space, as far as the steps of the altar, was occupied by the clergy and singers. The altar itself, a name which insensibly became familiar to Christian ears, was placed in the eastern recess, artificially built in the form of a demi-cylinder, and the sanctuary communicated by several doors, with the sacristry, the vestry, the baptistry, and the contiguous buildings subservient either to the pomp of worship or the private use of the ecclesiastical ministers. The memory of past calamities inspired Justinian with a wise resolution, that no wood except for the doors should be admitted into the new edifice, and the choice of materials was applied to the strength, the lightness, or the splendor of their respective parts. The solid piles which contained the capola were composed of huge blocks of freestone, uned into squares and triangles, fortified by circles of iron, and firmly cemented by the infusion of lead and quicklime. But the weight of the capola was diminished by the levity of its substance, which consists either of pumice stone that floats in the water, or of bricks from the isle of roads, five times less ponderous than the ordinary sort. The whole frame of the edifice was constructed of brick, but those base materials, which concealed by a crust of marble, and the inside of Saint Sophia, the capola, the two larger and six smaller semi-domes, the walls, the hundred columns, and the pavement, delight even the eyes of barbarians with a rich and variegated picture. A poet who beheld the primitive luster of Saint Sophia enumerates the colors, the shades, and the spots of ten or twelve marbles, jaspers, and peripheries, which nature had profusely diversified, and which were blended and contrasted as it were by a skillful painter. The triumph of Christ was adorned with the last spoils of paganism, but the greater part of these costly stones was extracted from the quarries of Asia Minor, the isles and continents of Greece, Egypt, Africa, and Gaul. Eight columns of periphery, which Aurelian had placed in the Temple of the Sun, were offered by the piety of a Roman matron. Eight others of green marble were presented by the ambitious zeal of the magistrates of Ephesus. Both are admirable by their size and beauty, but every order of architecture disclaims their fantastic capital. A variety of ornaments and figures was curiously expressed in mosaic, and the images of Christ, of the Virgin, of Saints, and of Angels, which have been defaced by Turkish fanaticism, were dangerously exposed to the superstition of the Greeks. According to the sanctity of each object, the precious metals were distributed in thin leaves or in solid masses. The balustrade of the choir, the capitals of the pillars, the ornaments of the doors and galleries were of gilt bronze. The spectator was dazzled by the glittering aspect of the capola. The sanctuary contained forty thousand pounds weight of silver, and the holy vases and vestments of the altar were of the purest gold, enriched with inestimable gems. Before the structure of the church had arisen two cubits above the ground, forty five thousand two hundred pounds were already consumed, and the whole expense amounted to three hundred and twenty thousand. Each reader, according to the measure of his belief, may estimate their value either in gold or silver, but the sum of one million sterling is the result of the lowest computation. A magnificent temple is a laudable monument of national taste and religion, and the enthusiast who entered the dome of Saint Sophia might be tempted to suppose that it was the residence or even the workmanship of the deity. Yet how dull is the artifice, how insignificant is the labor if it be compared with the formation of the vilest insect that crawls upon the surface of the temple. So minute a description of an edifice, which time has respected, may attest the truth and excuse the relation of the innumerable works both in the capital and provinces, which Justinian constructed on a smaller scale and less durable foundations. In Constantinople alone, and the adjacent suburbs, he dedicated twenty-five churches to the honor of Christ, the Virgin and the Saints. Most of these churches were decorated with marble and gold, and their various situation was skillfully chosen in a populous square or a pleasant grove, on the margin of the seashore or on some lofty eminence which overlooked the continents of Europe and Asia. The Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople, and that of Saint John at Ephesus, appear to have been formed on the same model. Their domes aspired to imitate the Capolas of Saint Sophia, but the altar was more judiciously placed under the center of the dome, at the junction of four stately porticoes, which more accurately expressed the figure of the Greek Cross. The Virgin of Jerusalem might exult in the temple erected by her imperial votary on a most ungrateful spot, which afforded neither ground nor materials to the architect. A level was formed by raising part of a deep valley to the height of the mountain. The stones of a neighboring quarry were ewing into regular forms, and each block was fixed on a peculiar carriage drawn by forty of the strongest oxen, and the roads were widened for the passage of such enormous weights. Lebanon furnished her loftiest cedars for the timbers of the Church, and the seasonable discovery of a vein of red marble supplied its beautiful columns, two of which, the supporters of the exterior portico, were esteemed the largest in the world. The pious munificence of the emperor was diffused over the Holy Land, and if reason should condemn the monasteries of both sexes were built or restored by Justinian. Yet charity must applaud the wells which he sunk, and the hospitals which he founded for the relief of the weary pilgrims. The schismatical temper of Egypt was ill-entitled to the royal bounty, but in Syria and Africa some remedies were applied to the disasters of wars and earthquakes, and both Carthage and Antioch, emerging from their ruins, might revere the name of their gracious benefactor. Almost every saint in the calendar acquired the honors of a temple. Almost every city in the empire obtained the solid advantages of bridges, hospitals, and aqueducts, but the severe liberality of the monarch disdained to indulge his subjects in the popular luxury of baths and theaters. While Justinian labored for the public service, he was not unmindful of his own dignity and ease. The Byzantine palace, which had been damaged by the conflagration, was restored with new magnificence, and some notion may be conceived of the whole edifice by the vestibule or hall, which from the doors perhaps, or the roof, was surnamed Shals, or the Brazen. The dome of a spacious quadrangle was supported by massy pillars. The pavement and walls were encrusted with many colored marbles. The emerald green of Laconia, the fiery red and the white Virgian stone intersected with veins of a sea-green hue. The mosaic paintings of the dome and sides represented the glories of the African and Italian triumphs. On the Asiatic shore of the prepontis, at a small distance to the east of Chalcedon, the costly palace and gardens of Hurrayam were prepared for the summer residents of Justinian, and more especially of Theodora. The people of the age have celebrated the rare alliance of nature and art, the harmony of the nymphs of the groves, the foundations, and the waves. Yet the crowd of attendants who followed the court complained of their inconvenient lodgings, and the nymphs were too often alarmed by the famous porphyrio, a wail of ten cubits in breadth, and thirty in length, who was stranded at the mouth of the river Sangari, after he had infested more than half a century the seas of Constantinople. The fortifications of Europe and Asia were multiplied by Justinian, but the repetition of those timid and fruitless precautions exposes to a philosophic eye the debility of the empire. From Belgrade to the Yooksen, from the conflux of the Sav to the mouth of the Danube, a chain of above four score fortified places was extended along the banks of the Great River. Single watchtowers were changed into spacious citadels. Vacant walls, which the engineers contracted or enlarged according to the nature of the ground, were filled with colonies or garrisons. A strong fortress defended the ruins of Trajan's bridge, and several military stations affected to spread beyond the Danube the pride of the Roman name. But that name was divested of its terrors, the barbarians in their annual inroads passed and contemptuously repassed before these useless bulwarks, and the inhabitants of the frontier, instead of reposing under the shadow of the general defense, were compelled to guard with increasing vigilance their separate habitations. The solitude of ancient cities was replenished, the new foundations of Justinian acquired perhaps to hastily the epithets of impregnable and populace, and the auspicious place of his own nativity attracted the grateful reverence of the vainest of princes. Under the name of Justinia Prima, the obscure village of Terasium became the seat of an archbishop and a prefect, whose jurisdiction extended over seven war-like provinces of Illyricum, and the corrupt appellation of Guastendil still indicates about twenty miles to the south of Sofia, the residence of a Turkish sanjak. For the use of the Emperor's countryman, a cathedral, a place, and an aqueduct were speedily constructed. The public and private edifices were adapted to the greatness of a royal city, and the strength of the walls resisted during the lifetime of Justinian the unskillful assaults of the Huns and Sclavonians. Their progress was sometimes retarded, and their hopes of repine were disappointed by the innumerable castles which in the provinces of Dacia, Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace appeared to cover the whole face of the country. Six hundred of these forts were built or repaired by the Emperor, but it seems reasonable to believe that the far greater part consisted only of a stone or brick tower in the midst of a square or circular area which was surrounded by a wall and ditch and afforded in a moment of danger some protection to the peasants and cattle of the neighboring villages. Yet these military works which exhausted the public treasure could not remove the just apprehensions of Justinian and his European subjects. The warm baths of Anciolus and Thrace were rendered as safe as they were salutary, but the rich pastures of Thessalonica were foraged by the Skithian cavalry. The delicious val of Tempe, three hundred miles from the Danube, was continually alarmed by the sound of war, and no unfortified spot, however distant or solitary, could securely enjoy the blessings of peace. The straits of Thermopylae, which seemed to protect, but which had so often betrayed the safety of Greece, were diligently strengthened by the labors of Justinian. From the edge of the seashore, through the forests and valleys, and as far as the summit of the Thessalian Mountains, a strong wall was continued which occupied every practicable entrance. Instead of a hasty crowd of peasants, a garrison of two thousand soldiers was stationed along the rampart. Granaries of corn and reservoirs of water were provided for their use, and by a precaution that inspired the cowardice which it foresaw, convenient fortresses were erected for their retreat. The walls of Corinth, overthrown by an earthquake, and the moldering bulwark of Athens and Plataea were carefully restored. The barbarians were discouraged by the prospect of successive and painful sieges, and the naked cities of the Peloponnesius were covered by the fortifications of the ithness of Corinth. At the extremity of Europe, another peninsula, the Thracian Shersonesis, runs three days' journey into the sea. To form, with the adjacent shores of Asia, the Straits of the Hellespont. The intervals between eleven populous towns were filled by lofty woods, fair pastures, and arable lands, and the ithness of thirty-seven stadia, or furlongs, had been fortified by a Spartan general nine hundred years before the reign of Justinian. In an age of freedom and valor, the slightest rampart may prevent a surprise, but Thracian Shersonesis appears insensible to the superiority of ancient times, while he praises the solid construction and double parapet of a wall whose long arms stretched on either side into the sea, but whose strength was deemed insufficient to guard the Shersonesis if each city, and particularly Gallipoli and Cestus, had not been secured by their peculiar fortifications. The long wall, as it was emphatically styled, was a work as disgraceful in the object as it was respectable in the execution. The riches of a capital diffused themselves over the neighboring country, and the territory of Constantinople, a paradise of nature, was adorned with the luxurious gardens and villas of the senators and opulent citizens. But their wealth served only to attract the bold and rapacious barbarians. The noblest of the Romans, in the bosom of peaceful indolence, were led away into Schethian captivity, and their sovereign might view from his palace the hostile flames which were insolently spread to the gates of the imperial city. At the distance of only forty miles, Anastasius constrained to establish a last frontier. His long wall of sixty miles from the prepontis to the yaksun proclaimed the impotence of his arms, and as the danger became more imminent, new fortifications were added by the indefatigable prudence of Justinian. Asia Minor, after the submission of the Isaurians, remained without enemies and without fortifications. Those bold savages, who had disdained to be the subjects of Galeanus, persisted two hundred and thirty years in a life of independence and repine. The most successful princes respected the strength of the mountains and the despair of the natives. Their fierce spirit was sometimes soothed with gifts and sometimes restrained by terror, and a military count with three legions fixed as permanent and anonymous station in the heart of the Roman provinces. But no sooner was the vigilance of power relaxed or diverted than the light-armed squadrons descended from the hills and invaded the peaceful plenty of Asia. Although the Isaurians were not remarkable for stature or bravery, want rendered them bold and experience made them skillful in the exercise of predatory war. They advanced with secrecy and speed to the attack of villages and defenseless towns. Their flying parties have sometimes touched the helispot, the yaksun and the gates of the Tarsus, Antioch or Damascus, and the spoil was lodged in their inaccessible mountains before the Roman troops had received their orders or the distant province had computed its loss. The guilt of rebellion and robbery excluded them from the rights of national enemies, and the magistrates were instructed by an edict that the trial or punishment of an Isaurian, even on the festival of Easter, was a meritorious act of justice and piety. If the captives were condemned to domestic slavery, they maintained with their sword or dagger the private quarrel of their masters, and it was found expedient for the public tranquillity to prohibit the service of such dangerous retainers. When their countrymen, Tarkolasaeus or Zeno, ascended the throne, he invited a faithful and formidable band of Isaurians, who insulted the court and city and were rewarded by an annual tribute of 5,000 pounds of gold. The hopes of fortune depopulated the mountains, luxury innervated the hardiness of their minds and bodies, and in proportion, as they mixed with mankind, they became less qualified for the enjoyment of poor and solitary freedom. After the death of Zeno, his successor Anastasius suppressed their pensions, exposed their persons to the revenge of the people, banished them from Constantinople, and prepared to sustain a war which left only the alternative of victory or servitude. A brother of the last emperor usurped the title of Augustus. His cause was powerfully supported by the arms, the treasures, and the magazines collected by Zeno, and the native Isaurians must have formed the smallest proportion of the 150,000 barbarians under his standard, which was sanctified for the first time by the presence of a fighting bishop. Their disorderly numbers were vanquished in the plains of Fergia by the valor and discipline of the Goths, but a war of six years almost exhausted the courage of the emperor. The Isaurians retired to their mountains. Their fortresses were successively besieged and ruined. Their communication with the sea was intercepted. The bravest of their leaders died in arms. The surviving chiefs before their execution were dragged in chains through the hippodrome. A colony of their youth was transplanted into Thrace, and the remnant of the people submitted to the Roman government. Yet some generations elapsed before their minds were reduced to the level of slavery. The populous villages of Mount Taurus were filled with horsemen and archers. They resisted the imposition of tributes, but they recruited the armies of Justinian. And his civil magistrates, the proconsul of Cappadocia, the Count of Isauria, and the praetors of Lyconia and Pisidia were invested with military power to restrain the licentious practice of rapes and assassinations. End of Chapter 40 Part 4 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon Volume 4 Chapter 40 Reign of Justinian Part 5 Read by Claude Banta If we extend our view from the Tropic to the mouth of the Tanias, we may observe on one hand the precautions of Justinian to curb the savages of Ethiopia, and on the other, the long walls which he constructed in Crimea for the protection of his friendly Goths, a colony of 3,000 shepherds and warriors. From that peninsula to Trebizond, the eastern curve of the Yüksen was secured by forts, by alliance, or by religion. And the possession of Lasika, the cult shows of ancient, the Mingrelaya of modern geography, soon became the object of an important war. Trebizond, and after times the seat of a romantic empire, was indebted to the liberality of Justinian for a church, an aqueduct, and a castle, whose ditches are ewn in the solid rock. From that maritime city, a frontier line of 500 miles may be drawn to the fortress of Cersesium, the last Roman station on the Euphrates. Above Trebizond immediately, and five days' journey to the south, the country rises into dark forests and craggy mountains, as savage, though not so lofty as the Alps and the Pyrenees. In this rigorous climate, where the snow seldom melt, the fruits are tardy and tasteless, even honey is poisonous. The most industrious tillage would be confined to some pleasant valleys, and the pastoral tribes obtained a scanty sustenance from the flesh and milk of their cattle. The Shalybians derived their name and temper from the iron quality of the soil, and, since the days of Cyrus, they might produce, under the various appellations of Shadans and Zanias, an uninterrupted prescription of war and repine. Under the reign of Justinian, and the emperor of the Romans, and seven fortresses were built in the most accessible passages to exclude the ambition of the Persian monarch. The principal source of the Euphrates descends from the Shalybian mountains and seems to flow towards the west and the Yüksen. Bending to the southwest, the river passes under the walls of Setala and Melitun, which were restored by Justinian as the bulwarks of the lesser Armenia, and gradually approaches the Mediterranean Sea. Till at length, repelled by Mount Taurus, the Euphrates inclines its long and flexible course to the southeast and the Gulf of Persia. Among the Roman cities beyond the Euphrates, we distinguish two recent foundations which were named from the Edocius, and the relics of the martyrs and two capitals, Amida and Edessa, which are celebrated in the history of every age. Their strength was proportioned by Justinian to the danger of their situation. A ditch and palisade might be sufficient to resist the artless force of the cavalry of Skithia, but more elaborate works were required to sustain a regular siege against the arms and treasures of the great king. His skillful engineers understood the methods of conducting deep mines and of raising platforms to the level of the rampart. He shook the strongest battlements with his military engines and sometimes advanced to the assault with a line of movable turrets on the backs of elephants. In the great cities of the east, the disadvantage of space, perhaps of position, was compensated by the zeal of the people who seconded the garrison in the defense of their country and religion, and the fabulous promise of the Son of God that Edessa should never be taken, filled the citizens with valiant confidence and chilled the besiegers with doubt and dismay. The subordinate towns of Armenia and Mesopotamia were diligently strengthened, and the posts which appeared to have any command of ground or water were occupied by numerous forts, substantially built of stone or more hastily erected with the obvious materials of earth and brick. The eye of Justinian investigated every spot, and his cruel precautions might attract the war into some lonely val, whose peaceful natives, connected by trade and marriage, were ignorant of national discord and the quarrels of princes. Westward of the Euphrates, a sandy desert extends above 600 miles to the Red Sea. Nature had interposed a vacant solitude between the ambition and the ambition of two rival empires. The Arabians, till Mahomet arose, were formidable only as robbers, and in the proud security of peace, the fortifications of Syria were neglected on the most vulnerable side. But the national enmity, at least the effects of that enmity, had been suspended by a truce, which continued above four score years. An ambassador from the Emperor Zeno accompanied the rash and unfortunate parishes in his expedition against the Nephthalites or White Huns, whose conquests had been stretched from the Caspian to the heart of India, whose throne was enriched with emeralds, and whose cavalry was supported by a line of 2,000 elephants. The Persians were twice circumvented in a situation which made Valor useless and flight impossible, and the double victory of the Huns was achieved by military stratagem. They dismissed their royal captive after he had submitted to adore the majesty of a barbarian, and the humiliation was poorly evaded by the costical subtlety of the Magi, who instructed parishes to direct his attention to the rising sun. The indignant successor of Cyrus, for God is danger and his gratitude. He renewed the attack with headstrong fury, and lost both his army and his life. The death of Parazies abandoned Persia to her foreign and domestic enemies, and 12 years of confusion elapsed before his son, Kabades or Kobod, could embrace any designs of ambition or revenge. The unkind parsimony of Anastasis was the motive or pretense of a Roman war. The Huns and Arabs marched under the Persian standard, and the fortifications of Armenia and Mesopotamia were, at the time, in a ruinous or imperfect condition. The emperor returned his thanks to the governor and people of Marduropolis for the prompt surrender of a city which could not be successfully defended, and the conflagration of Theodosiopolis might justify the conduct of their prudent neighbors. Amida sustained a long and destructive siege. At the end of three months, the loss of 50,000 of the soldiers of Kabades was not balanced by any prospect of success, and it was in vain that the Magi deduced a flatter prediction from the indecency of the women on the ramparts who had revealed their most secret charms to the eyes of the assailants. At length, in a silent night, they ascended the most accessible tower, which was guarded only by some monks, oppressed after the duties of a festival with sleep and wine. Scaling ladders were applied at the dawn of day. The presence of Kabades, his stern command, and his drawn sword, compelled the Persians to vanquish, and before it was achieved, four-score thousand of the inhabitants had expiated the blood of their companions. After the siege of Amida, the war continued three years, and the unhappy frontier tasted the full measure of its calamities. The gold of Anastasias was offered too late. The number of his troops was defeated by the number of their generals. The country was stripped of its inhabitants, and both the living and the dead were abandoned to the wild beasts of the desert. The resistance of Edessa, and the deficiency of spoil, inclined the mind of Kabades to peace. He sold his conquests for an exorbitant price, and the same line, though marked with slaughter and devastation, still separated the two empires. To avert the repetition of the same evils, Anastasias resolved to found a new colony, so strong that it should defy the power so far advanced towards Assyria, that its stationary troops might defend the province by the menace or operation of offensive war. For this purpose, the town of Dara, 14 miles from Nisibis, and four days' journey from the Tigris was peopled and adorned. The hasty works of Anastasias were improved by the perseverance of Justinian, and without insisting on places less important, the fortifications of Dara may represent the military architecture of the age. The city was surrounded with two walls, and the interval between them of fifty paces afforded a retreat to the cattle of the besieged. The inner wall was a monument of strength and beauty. It measured sixty feet from the ground, and the height of the towers was one hundred feet. The walls that were annoyed with missile weapons were small but numerous. The soldiers were planted along the rampart under the shelter of double galleries, and a third platform, spacious and secure, was raised on the summit of the towers. The exterior wall appears to have been less lofty, but more solid, and each tower was protected by a quadrangular bulwark. A hard rocky soil resisted the tools of the miners, and on the southeast where the ground was more tractable their approach was retarded by a new work, which advanced in the shape of a half moon. The double and treble ditches were filled with a stream of water, and in the management of the river the most skillful labor was employed to supply the inhabitants to distress the besiegers and to prevent the mischiefs of a natural or artificial inundation. Dara continued more than sixty years to fulfill the wishes of its founders and to provoke the jealousy of the Persians who incessantly complained that this impregnable fortress had been constructed in manifest violation of the Treaty of Peace between the two empires. Between the Yooksen and the Caspian the countries of Kulchos, Iberia and Albania are intersected in every direction by the branches of Mount Caucasus and the two principal gates or passes from north to south have been frequently confounded in the geography both of the ancients and moderns. The name of Caspian or Albanian gates is properly applied to Derbend which occupies a short declivity between the mountains and the sea. The city if we give credit to local tradition had been founded by the Greeks and this dangerous entrance was fortified by the kings of Persia with a mole, double walls and doors of iron. The Iberian gates were formed by a narrow passage of six miles in Mount Caucasus which opens from the northern side of Iberia or Georgia into the plain that reaches Nias and the Volga a fortress designed by Alexander perhaps or one of his successors to command that important pass had descended by right of conquest or inheritance to a prince of the Huns who offered it for a moderate price to the emperor but while Anastasia's paused while he timorously computed the cost and the distance a more vigilant rival interposed and Kabadis possibly occupied the straits of Caucasus the Albanian and Albanian gates excluded the horsemen of Skithia from the shortest and most practicable roads and the whole front of the mountains was covered by the rampart of Gog and Magog the long walls which has excited the curiosity of an Arabian caliph and a Russian conqueror according to a recent description huge stones 21 feet in length or height are artificially joined without iron or cement to compose a wall which runs above 300 miles from the shores of Derbent over the hills and through the valleys of Dagestan in Georgia without a vision such a work might be undertaken by the policy of Kabadis without a miracle it might be accomplished by his son so formidable to the Romans the kingdom of Kossros so dear to the Orientals under the appellation of Nusherwan the Persian monarch held in his hand the keys both of peace and war but he stipulated in every treaty that Justinian should contribute to the expense of a common barrier which equally protected the two empires from the inroads of the Skithians Justinian suppressed the schools of Athens which had given so many sages and heroes to mankind both these institutions had long since degenerated from their primitive glory yet some reproach may be justly inflicted on the avarice and jealousy of a prince by whose hand such venerable ruins were destroyed Athens after her Persian triumphs adopted the philosophy of Ionia and the rhetoric of Sicily and these studies became the patrimony of a city whose inhabitants about 30,000 males condensed within the period of a single life the genius and ages of millions our sense of dignity of human nature is exalted by the simple recollection that Isocrates was the companion of Plato and Xenophon that he assisted the creation of the Oedipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of Euripides and that his pupils Aeschines and Demosthenes contended for the crown of patriotism in the presence of Aristotle the master of the Ephrostas who taught at Athens with the founders of the Stoic and Epicurean sects the ingenious youth of Attica enjoyed the benefits of their domestic education and their civil cities 2,000 disciples heard the lessons of theophrostas the schools of rhetoric must have been still more populace than those of philosophy and a rapid succession of students diffused the fame of their teachers as far as the utmost limits of the Grecian language and name those limits were enlarged by the victories of Alexander the arts of Athens survived for freedom and dominion and the Greek colonies which the Macedonians planted in Egypt and scattered over Asia undertook long and frequent pilgrimages to worship them uses in their favorite temple on the banks of the Eilises the Latin conquerors respectfully listened to the instructions of their subjects and captives the names of Cicero and Taurus were enrolled in the schools of Athens and after the perfect settlement of the Roman Empire the natives of Italy of Africa and of Britain conversed in the groves of the academy with their fellow students of the east the studies of philosophy and eloquence are congenial to a popular state which encourages the freedom of inquiry and submits only to the force of persuasion and the republics of Greece and Rome the art of speaking or ambition and the schools of rhetoric poured forth a colony of statesmen and legislators when the liberty of public debate was suppressed the orator in the honorable profession of an advocate might plead the cause of innocence and justice he might abuse his talents in the more profitable trade of Panagyric and the same precepts continue to dictate the fanciful declamations of his position the systems which profess to unfold the nature of God of man and of the universe entertain the curiosity of the philosophic student and according to the temper of his mind he might doubt with the skeptics or decide with the stoics sublimely speculate with Plato or severely argue with Aristotle the pride of the adverse sex had fixed an unattainable term of moral happiness but the race was glorious and salutary the disciples of Zeno and even those of Epicurus were taught both to act and to suffer and the death of Petronius was not less effectual than that of Seneca to humble a tyrant by the discovery of his impotence the light of science could not indeed be confined within the walls of Athens her incomparable writers addressed themselves to the human race and the living masters emigrated to Italy and Asia Beritus in later times was devoted to the study of the law astronomy and physics were cultivated in the museum of Alexandria but the attic schools of rhetoric and philosophy maintain their superior reputation from the Peloponnesian war to the reign of Justinian Athens though situate in a barren soil set to pure air a free navigation and the monuments of ancient art that sacred retirement was seldom disturbed by the business of trade or government and the last of the Athenians were distinguished by their lively wit the purity of their taste and language their social manners and some traces at least in discourse of the magnanimity of their fathers in the suburbs of the city the academy of the Platonists the lochaem of the parapetetics the portico of the stoetics and the gardens of the Epicureans were planted with trees and decorated with statues and the philosophers instead of being a mirrored in a cloister delivered their instructions in spacious and pleasant walks which at different hours were consecrated to the exercises of the mind and body the genius of the founders still lived in those venerable seats the ambition of succeeding to the masters of human reason excited a generous emulation and the merit of the candidates was determined on each vacancy by the free voices of an enlightened people the Athenian professors were paid by their disciples according to their mutual wants and abilities the price appears to have varied and isocrates himself who derides the avarice of the Sophists required in his school of rhetoric about thirty pounds from each of his hundred pupils the wages of industry are just and honorable yet the same isocrates shed tears at the first receipt of his tip end the stoic might blush when he was hired to preach the contempt of money that Aristotle or Plato so far degenerated from the example of Socrates as to exchange knowledge for gold but some property of lands and houses was settled by the permission of the laws and the legacies of deceased friends on the philosophic chairs of Athens Epicurus bequeathed to his disciples the gardens which he had purchased for eighty miniat fifty pounds with a fund sufficient for their frugal subsistence and monthly festivals and the patrimony of Plato afforded an annual rent which in eight centuries was gradually increased from three to one thousand pieces of gold the schools of Athens were protected by the wisest and most virtuous of the Roman princes the library which Hadrian founded was placed in a portico adorned with pictures, statues and a roof of alabaster and supported by one hundred columns of furgy and marble the public salaries were assigned by the generous spirit of the Antonines and each professor of politics of rhetoric of the platonic, the parapetetic the stoic and the Epicurian philosophy received an annual tip end of ten thousand drachma or more than three hundred pounds sterling after the death of Marcus these liberal donations and the privileges attached to the thrones of science were abolished and revived diminished and enlarged but some vestige of royal bounty may be found under the successors of Constantine and their arbitrary choice of an unworthy candidate might tempt the philosophers of Athens to regret the days of independence and prosperity it is remarkable that the impartial favor of the Antonines was bestowed on the four adverse sects of philosophy which they considered as equally useful or at least as equally innocent Socrates had formerly been the glory and the reproach of his country and the first lessons of Epicurus so strangely scandalized the pious ears of the Athenians that by his exile they silenced all vain disputes concerning the nature of the gods but in the ensuing year they recalled the hasty decree restored the liberty of the schools and were convinced by the experience of ages that the moral character of philosophers is not affected by the diversity of their theological speculations the gothic arms were less fatal to the schools of Athens and the establishment of a new religion whose ministers superseded the exercise of reason resolved every question by an article of faith and condemned the infidel or skeptic to eternal flames in many a volume of laborious controversy they exposed the weakness of the understanding and the corruption of the heart insulted human nature in the sages of antiquity and proscribed the sublime theory with a practice of superstition and magic and as they remained alone in the midst of a Christian world they indulged a secret ranker against the government of the church and state over their heads about a century after the reign of Julian Proclus was permitted to teach in the philosophic chair of the academy and such was his industry that he frequently in the same day pronounced five lessons and composed seven hundred lines his sagacious mind explored the deepest questions of morals and metaphysics and he ventured to urge 18 arguments against the Christian doctrine of the creation of the world but in the intervals of study he personally conversed with Pan, Esquilapius and Minerva in whose mysteries he was secretly initiated and whose prostrate statues he adored in the devout persuasion that the philosopher who is a citizen of the universe should be the priest of its various deities an eclipse of the sun and his life with that of his scholar Isidore compiled by two of their most learned disciples exhibits a deplorable picture of the second childhood of human reason yet the golden chain as it was fondly styled of the platonic secession continued 44 years from the death of Proclus to the edict of Justinian which imposed a perpetual silence on the schools of Athens provided the grief and indignation of the few remaining votaries of the grecian science and superstition seven friends and philosophers diogenes and hermias eulalius and prision Damascus, Isidore and Simplicius who dissented from the religion of their sovereign embraced the resolution of seeking in a foreign land the freedom which was denied in their native country and credulously believed that the Republic of Plato was realized in the despotic government of Persia and that a patriot king reigned over the happiest and most virtuous of nations they were soon astonished by the natural discovery that Persia resembled the other countries of the globe that Cosros who affected the name of a philosopher was vain, cruel and ambitious prevailed among the Magi that the nobles were haughty the courtier servile and the magistrates unjust that the guilty sometimes escaped and that the innocent were often depressed the disappointment of the philosophers provoked them to overlook the real virtues of the Persians and they were scandalized more deeply perhaps than became their profession with the plurality of wives and concubines the incestuous marriages and the custom of exposing dead bodies to the dogs and vultures instead of hiding them in the earth or consuming them with fire their repentance was expressed by a precipitate return and they loudly declared that they had rather die on the borders of the empire than enjoy the wealth and favor of the barbarian from this journey however there was a purest luster on the character of Kosros he required that the seven sages who had visited the court of Persia should be exempted from the penal laws which Justinian enacted against his pagan subjects and this privilege expressly stipulated in a treaty of peace was guarded by the vigilance of a powerful mediator Simplicius and his companions ended their lives in peace and as they left no disciples they terminate the long list of grecian philosophers who may be justly praised notwithstanding their defects as the wisest and most virtuous of their contemporaries the writings of Simplicius are now extant his physical and metaphysical commentaries on Aristotle have passed away with the fashion of the times but his moral interpretations of the fetus is preserved in the library of nations as a classic book most excellently adapted to direct the will to purify the heart and to confirm the understanding by a just confidence in the nature both of God and man about the same time that Pythagoras first invented the appellation of philosopher liberty and the consulship were founded at Rome the revolutions of the consular office which may be viewed in the successive lights of a substance, a shadow and a name have been occasionally mentioned in the present history the first magistrates of the republic had been chosen by the people to exercise in the senate and in the camp the powers of peace and war which were afterwards translated to the emperors of the nation of ancient dignity was long revered by the Romans and barbarians a gothic historian applaud the consulship of Theodoric as the height of all temporal glory and greatness the king of Italy himself congratulated those annual favourites of fortune who without the cares enjoyed the splendor of the throne and at the end of a thousand years two consuls were created by the sovereigns of Rome for the sole purpose of giving a date to the year and a festival to the people but the expenses of this festival in which the wealthy and the vain aspire to surpass their predecessors insensibly arose to the enormous sum of four score thousand pounds the wisest senators declined a useless honour which involved the certain ruin of their families and this reluctance in the last age of the consular fasty the predecessors of Justinian had assisted from the public treasures the dignity of the less opulent candidates the avarice of that prince preferred the cheaper and more convenient method of advice and regulation seven processions or spectacles were the number to which his edict confirmed the horse and chariot races the athletic sports, the music to mimes of the theatre and the hunting of wild beasts and small pieces of silver were discreetly substituted to the gold medals which had always excited tumult and drunkenness when they were scattered with their profuse hand among the populace notwithstanding these precautions and his own example the secession of consuls finally ceased in the thirteenth year of Justinian whose despotic temper the silent extinction of the title which admonished the Romans of their ancient freedom yet the annual consulship still lived in the minds of the people they fondly expected its speedy restoration they applauded the gracious condescension of successive princes by whom it was assumed in the first year of their reign and three centuries elapsed after the death of Justinian before that obsolete dignity which had been suppressed by custom could be abolished by law the imperfect mode of distinguishing each year by the name of a magistrate was usefully supplied by the date of a permanent era the creation of the world according to the Septuagint version was adopted by the Greeks and the Latins since the age of Charlemagne have computed their time from the birth of Christ