The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II: A.D. 395 to A.D. 1185 (A Modern Library E-Book): 002 by Edward Gibbon

Author:Edward Gibbon [Gibbon, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780679641476
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2000-11-01T06:00:00+00:00

ELEVATION OF JUSTIN THE ELDER · REIGN OF JUSTINIAN: I. THE EMPRESS THEODORA · II. FACTIONS OF THE CIRCUS AND SEDITION OF CONSTANTINOPLE · III. TRADE AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK · IV. FINANCES AND TAXES · V. EDIFICES OF JUSTINIAN · CHURCH OF ST. SOPHIA · FORTIFICATIONS AND FRONTIERS OF EASTERN EMPIRE · ABOLITION OF SCHOOLS OF ATHENS AND THE ROMAN CONSULSHIP BY JUSTINIAN

The emperor Justinian was born1 near the ruins of Sardica2 (the modern Sophia), of an obscure race of Barbarians,3 the inhabitants of a wild and desolate country, to which the names of Dardania, of Dacia, and of Bulgaria have been successively applied. His elevation was prepared by the adventurous spirit of his uncle Justin, who, with two other peasants of the same village, deserted, for the profession of arms, the more useful employment of husbandmen or shepherds. On foot, with a scanty provision of biscuit in their knapsacks, the three youths followed the high-road of Constantinople, and were soon enrolled, for their strength and stature, among the guards of the emperor Leo. Under the two succeeding reigns, the fortunate peasant emerged to wealth and honours; and his escape from some dangers which threatened his life was afterwards ascribed to the guardian angel who watches over the fate of kings. His long and laudable service in the Isaurian and Persian wars would not have preserved from oblivion the name of Justin; yet they might warrant the military promotion which in the course of fifty years he gradually obtained; the rank of tribune, of count, and of general, the dignity of senator, and the command of the guards, who obeyed him as their chief, at the important crisis when the emperor Anastasius was removed from the world. The powerful kinsmen whom he had raised and enriched were excluded from the throne; and the eunuch Amantius, who reigned in the palace, had secretly resolved to fix the diadem on the head of the most obsequious of his creatures. A liberal donative, to conciliate the suffrage of the guards, was entrusted for that purpose in the hands of their commander. But these weighty arguments were treacherously employed by Justin in his own favour; and, as no competitor presumed to appear, the Dacian peasant was invested with the purple, by the unanimous consent of the soldiers who knew him to be brave and gentle, of the clergy and people who believed him to be orthodox, and of the provincials who yielded a blind and implicit submission to the will of the capital. The elder Justin, as he is distinguished from another emperor of the same family and name, ascended the Byzantine throne at the age of sixty-eight years; and, had he been left to his own guidance, every moment of a nine years’ reign must have exposed to his subjects the impropriety of their choice. His ignorance was similar to that of Theodoric; and it is remarkable that, in an age not destitute of learning, two contemporary monarchs had never been instructed in the knowledge of the alphabet.

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