Procopius

“ But since it was nothing for him to win the Roman Empire alone, he succeeded in subjugating Libya and Italy for no other reason than to be able to destroy the inhabitants of these countries along with those previously under his sway. Indeed, when he had been not yet ten days in power, he slew Amantius, Director of the Palace eunuchs, together with certain others for no cause whatever, charging the man with nothing except that he had spoken some hasty word against John, the Chief Priest of the city. And as a result of this conduct he became the most dreaded man in the world. ”

“ For it was destined that before long they themselves should rise to the control of the affairs of the Romans. As for the Emperor, he suddenly and unexpectedly recovered and thereupon immediately set about putting Theodotus to death as a poisoner and a magician. But since he could find no pretext whatever which he might use to destroy the man, he tortured some of his associates most cruelly and compelled them to utter against the man statements which were utterly untrue. ”

“ Consequently, if one should care to estimate all the misfortunes which have befallen the Romans from the earliest times and then to balance against them those of the present day, it seems to me that he would find a greater slaughter of human beings to have been perpetrated by this man than has come to pass in all the preceding time. ”

“ For not even a thought that he was doing an outrageous thing entered the mind of the man who married her, though he might have taken his choice of the whole Roman Empire and have married that woman who, of all the women in the world, was in the highest degree both well-born and blessed with a nurture sheltered from the public eye, a woman who had not been unpractised in modesty, and had dwelt with chastity, who was not only surpassingly beautiful but also still a maiden and, as the expression runs, erect of breast ”

“ But when she came back to Byzantium once more, Justinian conceived for her an overpowering love; and at first he knew her as a mistress, though he did advance her to the rank of the Patricians. Theodora accordingly succeeded at once in acquiring extraordinary influence and a fairly large fortune. For she seemed to the man the sweetest thing in the world, as is wont to happen with lovers who love extravagantly, and he was fain to bestow upon his beloved all favours and all money. ”

“ For in their confident hope of the future men bear their present ills more lightly and easily, but when treated with violence by the power in control of the State, they naturally grieve over their misfortunes the more and are constantly driven to despair by the fact that punishment is not to be expected. And Justinian offended not alone in that he refused absolutely to champion the cause of the wronged, but also because he did not object at all to making himself the avowed protector of the Factionists ”

“ And even while her husband looked upon her in great sorrow, she threw herself into the sea and straightway vanished from among men. Such, then, was the outrageous conduct of the Factionists at this time in Byzantium. Yet these things distressed the victims less than the wrongs committed by Justinian against the State, for in the case of those who have suffered the cruellest treatment at the hands of malefactors, the greatest part of the distress arising from a state of political disorder is removed by the constant expectation of punishment to be exacted by the laws and the Government. ”

“ For the wrongdoers had no need to conceal their crimes, for no dread of punishment lay upon them, nay, there even grew up a sort of zest for competitions among them, since they got up exhibitions of strength and manliness, in which they shewed that with a single blow they could kill any unarmed man who fell in their way, and no man longer dared to hope that he would survive among the perilous circumstances of daily life. ”

“ He was a fickle friend, a truce less enemy, an ardent devotee of assassination and of robbery, quarrelsome and an inveterate innovator, easily led astray into wrong, but influenced by no counsel to adopt the right, keen to conceive and to execute base designs, but looking upon even the hearing about good things as distasteful. ”

“ And Theodora, on the one hand, would pretend with all her might to be espousing the cause of the Blues, and by extending to them full freedom of action against their opponents, she gave them licence, in a quite irregular way, to commit their crimes and perform their pernicious deeds of violence. But Justinian, on the other hand, had the appearance of one who was vexed and secretly resentful, yet unable to oppose his wife directly, and many times the two even shifted the appearance of authority and pursued the opposite course with reference to one another. ”

“ For those who from time to time had the authority to punish provided to those who were guilty of outrageous actions easy opportunity for concealment, thus spurring them on by this concession to trample down the laws. ”

“ Now for a time Theodora, being immature, was quite unable to sleep with a man or to have a woman's kind of intercourse with one, yet she did engage in intercourse of a masculine type of lewdness with the wretches, slaves though they were, who, following their masters to the theatre, incidentally took advantage of the opportunity afforded them to carry on this monstrous business, and she spent much time in the brothel in this unnatural traffic of the body. ”

“ For when wrongdoing is accorded full licence, it naturally goes beyond all bounds, since even such crimes as are punished are usually not completely eradicated; for by nature most men turn readily to sin. Such were the fortunes of the Blues. And of the partisans of the opposing side, some swung over to their faction through an eagerness to have a hand in committing offences without incurring punishment, while others took to flight and were lost to sight in other lands ”

“ And as she wantoned with her lovers, she always kept bantering them, and by toying with new devices in intercourse, she always succeeded in winning the hearts of the licentious to her; for she did not even expect that the approach should be made by the man she was with, but on the contrary she herself, with wanton jests and with clownish posturing with her hips, would tempt all who came along, especially if they were beardless youths. Indeed there was never anyone such a slave to pleasure in all forms ”

“ Chapter VI Now what manner of persons Justinian and Theodora were and the method by which they ruined the Roman Empire I shall proceed to tell forthwith. When Leon was holding the imperial power in Byzantium, three young farmers, Illyrians by race, Zimarchus, Dityvistus and Justinus from Vederiana, men who at home had to struggle incessantly against conditions of poverty and all its attendant ills, in an effort to better their condition set out to join the army. ”

“ At any rate she suddenly exalts one man to a great eminence by a sort of unreasoning exercise of her authority, though many obstacles seem to have grappled with him, and she opposes him in nothing whatever that he undertakes, nay, the man is carried along by any and every means to whatever post she has ordained for him, while all men without demur stand aside or retire before Fortune as she advances. ”

“ Since that man who pays no heed to the disgrace from deeds previously committed and does not shrink from revealing himself to his associates as a loathsome character — for such a man no path of lawlessness is untrodden, but fortified by the effrontery that is never absent from his brow, he advances readily and with no effort to the vilest of actions. ”

“ His name, at any rate, everywhere in the inscriptions in Rome and wherever else it chanced to have been carved has been chiselled out, this name alone among all the others, as the observer may see, and not a single statue of him is to be seen anywhere throughout the Roman Empire, with the exception of one bronze statue, accounted for as follows. Domitian had a wife of noble character and discreet, and neither had she herself ever harmed any man in the world nor was she pleased at all with any of the actions of her husband. ”

“ So, by decision of the Emperor, Theodotus was conveyed to Jerusalem. But learning that certain men had come there in order to destroy him, he concealed himself the whole time in the sanctuary and continued so to live up to the time of his death. ”

“ For the girl had not a particle of modesty, nor did any man ever see her embarrassed, but she undertook shameless services without the least hesitation, and she was the sort of a person who, for instance, when being flogged or beaten over the head, would crack a joke over it and burst into a loud laugh ”

“ Many young men also flocked to this association, men who previously had never taken an interest in these affairs, but were now drawn to it by the lure of power and the opportunity for wanton insolence. For there is no unholy act which bears a name among men which was not committed during this period and remained without punishment. Now at first they were destroying their rival partisans, but as time went on they began to slay also those who had given them no offence at all. ”

“ For all suspected, because of their great fear, that death was pressing close upon them, and neither did any place seem to be safe nor any time to offer a guarantee of safety to any man, because men were being killed even in the most honoured of the sanctuaries and at the public festivals for no reason, and no confidence remained in either friends or relatives. ”

“ The result of this was that thereafter most men used girdles and brooches of bronze and mantles much inferior to their station, in order that they might not destroyed by their love of beautiful things, and even before the sun had set they would withdraw into their houses and remain out of sight. And as the evil continued and no attention was paid to the offenders by the city Government, the boldness of these men kept steadily rising to a great height. ”

“ And yet even these, as the evil developed, seemed to be the most temperate men in the world; for their sins fell short of their licence to commit them. And of course the militant group of the Greens did not on their part remain quiet, but they too were constantly busy with crimes, as far as came within their power, although they were being punished continually, one at a time. Yet this very fact always led them on to deeds of much greater daring; for men, when they unjustly treated, are wont to become desperate. ”

“ And many money-lenders were forced through sheer compulsion to restore to their debtors their contracts without having received back any part of their loan, and many persons not at all willingly set their slaves free. ”

“ In fact many men who were counted by this Emperor among his intimates were elevated by him to positions where they had authority to act arbitrarily and to wrong the Government as they wished, but when they were seen to be in possession of a large sum of money, straightway they were found to have given some offence to the woman and to be at variance with her. ”

“ And as often as their arms were waved about, either as they shouted in the theatres and hippodromes, or urged men on to victory in the customary manner, this part of their garments would actually soar aloft, causing the foolish to suppose that their bodies must be so fine and sturdy that they must needs be covered by such garments, not taking into consideration the fact that by the loosely woven and empty garment the meagreness much rather than the sturdiness of their bodies was demonstrated. ”

“ For they did not think it right to coërce one's neighbours to the utmost possible, and in the keen rivalries in connection with the lawsuits, while each side seemed to support one of the disputants, yet it was inevitable that the victory should fall to that one of the two who espoused the unjust cause, and that thus they should win for themselves as plunder most of the property of the disputants. ”

“ And they say that certain women were forced by their own slaves to many acts that were sore against their will. And already the sons of men of high station, having mingled with these lawless youths, were compelling their fathers to do much against their will and in particular to deliver over their money to them. And many unwilling boys were compelled to enter into unholy intercourse with the Factionists, with the full knowledge of their fathers. ”

“ For a long time, it is true, they were supposed by all to be diametrically opposed to each other at all times in both their opinions and their ways of living, but later it was realized that this impression was purposely worked up by them in order that their subjects might not, by getting together in their views, rise in revolt against them, but that the opinions of all their subjects might be at variance regarding themselves. ”

“ Now at first practically all of them carried weapons openly at night, but in the day-time they concealed small two-edged swords along the thigh under their mantle, and they gathered in groups as soon as it became dark and would waylay men of the better classes both in the market-place at large and in the alleys, robbing their victims of their clothing and their girdles and gold brooches and whatever besides they might have in their hands. ”

“ And possibly this illustrated a saying uttered by one of the Peripatetic philosophers in earlier times, to the effect that the most opposite elements are found in man's nature, just as in mixed colours. ”

“ This John had confined Justinus in a prison because of some offence and was on the point of removing him from the world on the following day, and would have done so had not a vivid dream come to him in the meantime and prevented him. For the General declared that in a dream a certain person came to him, a creature of enormous size and in other respects too mighty to resemble a man. ”