.
He also had contrived other ways of plundering his subjects (which I
will now describe as well as I can) by which he robbed them, not all at
once, but little by little of their entire fortunes. First he appointed a
new municipal magistrate, with the power to license shopkeepers to sell
their wares at whatever prices they desired: for which privilege they
paid an annual tax. Accordingly, people buying their provisions in these
shops had to pay three times what the stuff was worth, and complainants
had no redress, though great harm was thus done; for the magistrates
saw to it that the imperial tax was fattened accordingly, which was to
their advantage. Thus the government officials shared in this
disgraceful business, while the shopkeepers, empowered to act illegally,
cheated unbearably those who had to buy from them, not only by raising
their prices many times over, as I have said, but by defrauding
customers in other unheard-of ways.
Again he licensed many monopolies, as they -are called; selling the
freedom of his subjects to those who were willing to undertake this
reprehensible traffic, after he had exacted his price for the privilege.
To those who made this arrangement with him, he gave the power to
manage the business however they pleased; and he sold this privilege
openly, even to all the other magistrates. And since the Emperor always
got his little share of the plundering, these officials and their
subordinates in charge of the work, did their robbing with small
anxiety.
As if the formerly appointed magistrates were not enough for this
purpose, he created two new ones; though the municipal Prefect had
formerly been able to look after all criminal charges. His real reason
for the change was, of course, so that he could have additional
informers, and thus misuse the innocent with more celerity. Of the two
new officials, one, nominally appointed to punish thieves, was called
Praetor of the People; the other was charged with the punishment of
cases of pederasty, illegal intercourse with women, blasphemy, and
heresy; and his official name was Quaestor.
Now the Praetor, whenever he found anything very valuable among the
stolen goods that came to his notice, was supposed to give it to the
Emperor and say that no owner had appeared to claim it. In this way the
Emperor continually got possession of priceless goods. And the Quaestor,
when he condemned persons coming before him, confiscated as much as he
pleased of their properties, and the Emperor shared with him each time
in the lawlessly gained riches of other people. For the subordinates of
these magistrates neither produced accusers nor offered witnesses when
these cases came to trial, but during all this time the accused were put
to death, and their properties seized without due trial and
examination.
Later, this murdering devil ordered these officials and the municipal
Prefect to deal with all criminal charges on equal terms: telling them
to vie with each other to see which of them could destroy the most
people in the shortest time. And one of them asked him at once, they
say, "If somebody is sometime denounced before all three of us, which of
us shall have jurisdiction over the case?" Whereupon he replied,
"Whichever of you acts faster than the rest."
Thus shamelessly he debased the Quaestor's office, which former emperors
almost without exception had held in high regard, taking care that the
men they appointed to it were experienced and wise, law-abiding, and
uncorruptible by bribes; since otherwise it would be a calamity to the
state, if men holding this high office were ignorant or avaricious.
But the first man that this Emperor appointed to the office was
Tribonian, whose actions I have fully related elsewhere. And when
Tribonian departed from this world, Justinian seized a portion of his
estate, though a son and many other children were left destitute when
the fellow ended the final day of his life. Junilus, a Libyan, was next
appointed to this office: a man who had never even heard the law, for he
was not a rhetorician; he knew the Latin letters, but as far as Greek
went, he had never even gone to school, and was unable to speak the
language. Frequently when he tried to say a Greek word, he was laughed
at by his servants. And he was so damned greedy for base gain, that he
thought nothing of publicly selling the Emperor's decrees. For one gold
coin he would hold out his palm to anybody without hesitation. And for
not less than seven years' time the State shared the ridicule earned by
this petty grafter.
When Junilus completed the measure of his life, Constantine was
appointed Quaestor: a man not unacquainted with law, but exceeding
young, and without actual experience in court; and the most thievish
bully among men. Of this person Justinian was very fond, and became his
bosom friend, since through him the Emperor saw he could steal and run
the office as he wished. Consequently, Constantine had great wealth in a
short time, and assumed an air of prodigious pomp, with his nose in the
clouds despising all men; and even those who wanted to offer him large
bribes had to entrust them to those who were in his special confidence,
to offer him together with their requests; for it was never possible to
meet or talk with him, except when he was running to the Emperor or had
just left him, and even then he trotted by in a great hurry, lest his
time be wasted by somebody who had no money to give him. This is what
the Emperor did to the quaestorship.
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