Page:1909historyofdec04gibbuoft.djvu/261

 Chap. XL] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 225 but, although he respectfully laid them at the foot of the throne, the pride of Justinian must have been wounded by the praise of an hero, who perpetually eclipses the glory of his inactive sove- reign. The conscious dignity of independence was subdued by the hopes and fears of a slave ; and the secretary of Belisarius laboured for pardon and reward in the six books of the Imperial edifices. He had dexterously chosen a subject of apparent splendour, in which he could loudly celebrate the genius, the magnificence, and the piety of a prince who, both as a con- queror and legislator, had surpassed the puerile virtues of The- mistocles and Cyrus. 16 Disappointment might urge the flatterer to secret revenge ; and the first glance of favour might again tempt him to suspend and suppress a libel, 17 in which the Eoman Cyrus is degraded into an odious and contemptible tyrant, in which both the emperor and his consort Theodora are seriously represented as two daemons, who had assumed an human form for the destruction of mankind. 18 Such base inconsistency must doubtless sully the reputation, and detract from the credit, of Procopius ; yet, after the venom of his malignity has been suffered to exhale, the residue of the anecdotes, even the most were mutilated by the first Latin translators, Christopher Persona (Giornale, torn, xix. p. 340-348) and Raphael de Volaterra (Huet, de Claris Interpretibus, p. 166), who did not even consult the Ms. of the Vatican library, of which they were prse- fects (Aleman. in Praefat. Anecdot.). 3. The Greek text was not printed till 1607, by Hoeschelius of Augsburg (Dictionnaire de Bayle, torn. ii. p. 782). 4. The Paris edition was imperfectly executed by Claude Maltret, a Jesuit of Toulouse (in 1663), far distant from the Louvre press and the Vatican Ms. from which, however, he obtained some supplements. His promised commentaries, &c. have never ap- peared. The Agathias of Leyden (1594) has been wisely reprinted by the Paris editor, with the Latin version of Bonaventura Vulcanius, a learned interpreter (Huet, p. 176). 15 Agathias in Praefat. p. 7, 8, 1. iv. p. 137 [leg. 136 ; c. 26]. Evagrius, 1. iv. c. 12. See likewise Photius, cod. lxiii. p. 65. 16 Kvpov naiSeia (says he, Praefat. ad 1. de ^dificiis, irepi Kria^aruv) is no more than Kvpov iraiSia — a pun ! In these five books, Procopius affects a Christian as well as a courtly style. [It is highly probable that the task of writing the Edifices was set the historian by the Emperor. Cp. Appendix 1.] 17 Procopius discloses himself (Praefat. ad Anecdot. c. 1, 2, 5), and the anecdotes are reckoned as the ixth book by Suidas (torn. iii. p. 186, edit. Kuster). The silence of Evagrius is a poor objection. Baronius (a.d. 548, No. 24) regrets the loss of this secret history : it was then in the Vatican library, in his own custody, and was first published sixteen years after his death, with the learned, but partial, notes of Nicholas Alemannus (Lugd. 1623). [Cp. Appendix 1.] 18 Justinian an ass — the perfect likeness of Domitian (Anecdot. c. 8) — Theo- dora's lovers driven from her bed by rival daemons — her marriage foretold with a great daemon — a monk saw the prince of the daemons instead of JuBtinian, on the throne — the servants who watched beheld a face without features, a body walking without an head, <fec. &c. Procopius declares his own and his friends' belief in these diabolical stories (c. 12). VOL. IV. — 15