.
That Justinian was not a man, but a demon, as I have said, in human
form, one might prove by considering the enormity of the evils he
brought upon mankind. For in the monstrousness of his actions the power
of a fiend is manifest. Certainly an accurate reckoning of all those
whom he destroyed would be impossible, I think, for anyone but God to
make. Sooner could one number, I fancy, the sands of the sea than the
men this Emperor murdered. Examining the countries that he made desolate
of inhabitants, I would say he slew a trillion people. For Libya, vast
as it is, he so devastated that you would have to go a long way to find a
single man, and he would be remarkable. Yet eighty thousand Vandals
capable of bearing arms had dwelt there, and as for their wives and
children and servants, who could guess their number? Yet still more
numerous than these were the Mauretanians, who with their wives and
children were all exterminated. And again, many Roman soldiers and those
who followed them to Constantinople, the earth now covers; so that if
one should venture to say that five million men perished in Libya alone,
he would not, I imagine, be telling the half of it.
The reason for this was that after the Vandals were defeated, Justinian
planned, not how he might best strengthen his hold on the country, nor
how by safeguarding the interests of those who were loyal to him he
might have the goodwill of his subjects: but instead he foolishly
recalled Belisarius at once, on the charge that the latter intended to
make himself King (an idea of which Belisarius was utterly incapable),
and so that he might manage affairs there himself and be able to plunder
the whole of Libya. Sending commissioners to value the province, he
imposed grievous taxes where before there had been none. Whatever lands
were most valuable, he seized, and prohibited the Arians from observing
their religious ceremonies. Negligent toward sending necessary supplies
to the soldiers, he was over-strict with them in other ways; wherefore
mutinies arose resulting in the deaths of many. For he was never able to
abide by established customs, but naturally threw everything into
confusion and disturbance.
Italy, which is not less than thrice as large as Libya, was everywhere
desolated of men, even worse than the other country; and from this the
count of those who perished there may be imagined. The reason for what
happened in Italy I have already made plain. All of his crimes in Libya
were repeated here; sending his auditors to Italy, he soon upset and
ruined everything.
The rule of the Goths, before this war, had extended from the land of
the Gauls to the boundaries of Dacia, where the city of Sirmium is. The
Germans held Cisalpine Gaul and most of the land of the Venetians, when
the Roman army arrived in Italy. Sirmium and the neighboring country was
in the hands of the Gepidae. All of these he utterly depopulated. For
those who did not die in battle perished of disease and famine, which as
usual followed in the train of war. Illyria and all of Thrace, that is,
from the Ionian Gulf to the suburbs of Constantinople, including Greece
and the Chersonese, were overrun by the Huns, Slavs and Antes, almost
every year, from the time when Justinian took over the Roman Empire; and
intolerable things they did to the inhabitants. For in each of these
incursions, I should say, more than two hundred thousand Romans were
slain or enslaved, so that all this country became a desert like that of
Scythia.
Such were the results of the wars in Libya and in Europe. Meanwhile the
Saracens were continuously making inroads on the Romans of the East,
from the land of Egypt to the boundaries of Persia; and so completely
did their work, that in all this country few were left, and it will
never be possible, I fear, to find out how many thus perished. Also the
Persians under Chosroes three times invaded the rest of this Roman
territory, sacked the cities, and either killing or carrying away the
men they captured in the cities and country, emptied the land of
inhabitants every time they invaded it. From the time when they invaded
Colchis, ruin has befallen themselves and the Lazi and the Romans.
For neither the Persians nor the Saracens, the Huns or the Slavs or the
rest of the barbarians, were able to withdraw from Roman territory
undamaged. In their inroads, and still more in their sieges of cities
and in battles, where they prevailed over opposing forces, they shared
in disastrous losses quite as much. Not only the Romans, but nearly all
the barbarians thus felt Justinian's bloodthirstiness. For while
Chosroes himself was bad enough, as I have duly shown elsewhere,
Justinian was the one who each time gave him an occasion for the war.
For he took no heed to fit his policies to an appropriate time, but did
everything at the wrong moment: in time of peace or truce he ever
craftily contrived to find pretext for war with his neighbors; while in
time of war, he unreasonably lost interest, and hesitated too long in
preparing for the campaign, grudging the necessary expenses; and instead
of putting his mind on the war, gave his attention to stargazing and
research as to the nature of God. Yet he would not abandon hostilities,
since he was so bloodthirsty and tyrannical, even when thus unable to
conquer the enemy because of his negligence in meeting the situation.
So while he was Emperor, the whole earth ran red with the blood of
nearly all the Romans and the barbarians. Such were the results of the
wars throughout the whole Empire . during this time. But the civil
strife in Constantinople and in every other city, if the dead were
reckoned, would total no smaller number of slain than those who perished
in the wars, I believe. Since justice and impartial punishment were
seldom directed against offenders, and each of the two factions tried to
win the favor of the Emperor over the other, neither party kept the
peace. Each, according to his smile or his frown, was now terrified, now
encouraged. Sometimes they attacked each other in full strength,
sometimes in smaller groups, or even lay in ambush against the first
single man of the opposite party who came along. For thirty-two years,
without ever ceasing, they performed outrages against each other, many
of them being punished with death by the municipal Prefect.
However, punishment for these offenses was mostly directed against the Greens.
Furthermore the persecution of the Samaritans and the so-called heretics
filled the Roman realm with blood. Let this present recapitulation
suffice to recall what I have described more fully a little while since.
Such were the things done to all mankind by the demon in flesh for
which Justinian, as Emperor, was responsible. But what evils he wrought
against men by some hidden power and diabolic force I shall now relate.
During his rule over the Romans, many disasters of various kinds
occurred: which some said were due to the presence and artifices of the
Devil, and others considered were effected by the Divinity, Who,
disgusted with the Roman Empire, had turned away from it and given the
country up to the Old One. The Scirtus River flooded Edessa, creating
countless sufferings among the inhabitants, as I have elsewhere written.
The Nile, rising as usual, but not subsiding in the customary season,
brought terrible calamities to the people there, as I have also
previously recounted. The Cydnus inundated Tarsus, covering almost the
whole city for many days, and did not subside until it had done
irreparable damage.
Earthquakes destroyed Antioch, the leading city of the East; Seleucia,
which is situated nearby; and Anazarbus, most renowned city in Cilicia.
Who could number those that perished in these metropoles? Yet one must
add also those who lived in Ibora; in Amasea, the chief city of Pontus;
in Polybotus in Phrygia, called Polymede by the Pisidians; in Lychnidus
in Epirus; and in Corinth: all thickly inhabited cities from of old. All
of these were destroyed by earthquakes during this time, with a loss of
almost all their inhabitants. And then came the plague, which I have
previously mentioned, killing half at least of those who had survived
the earthquakes. To so many men came their doom, when Justinian first
came to direct the Roman state and later possessed the throne of
autocracy.
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