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 savings 252 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap. XL a lover of truth will peruse with a suspicious eye the instructive anecdotes of Procopius. The secret historian represents only the vices of Justinian, and those vices are darkened by his malevolent pencil. Ambiguous actions are imputed to the worst motives ; error is confounded with guilt, accident with design, and laws with abuses ; the partial injustice of a moment is dexterously applied as the general maxim of a reign of thirty- two years ; the emperor alone is made responsible for the faults of his officers, the disorders of the times, and the corruption of his subjects ; and even the calamities of nature, plagues, earth- quakes, and inundations, are imputed to the prince of the demons, who had mischievously assumed the form of Jus- tinian. 85 Pernicious After this precaution I shall briefly relate the anecdotes of avarice and rapine, under the following heads : I. Justinian was so profuse that he could not be liberal. The civil and military officers, when they were admitted into the service of the palace, obtained an humble rank and a moderate stipend ; they as- cended by seniority to a station of affluence and repose ; the annual pensions, of which the most honourable class was abo- lished by Justinian, amounted to four hundred thousand pounds ; and this domestic economy was deplored by the venal or indi- gent courtiers as the last outrage on the majesty of the empire. The posts, the salaries of physicians, and the nocturnal illumi- nations were objects of more general concern ; and the cities might justly complain that he usurped the municipal revenues which had been appropriated to these useful institutions. Even the soldiers were injured ; and such was the decay of military spirit that they were injured with impunity. The emperor re- fused, at the return of each fifth year, the customary donative of five pieces of gold, reduced his veterans to beg their bread, and suffered unpaid armies to melt away in the wars of Italy Remit- and Persia. II. The humanity of his predecessors had always remitted, in some auspicious circumstance of their reign, the arrears of the public tribute ; and they dexterously assumed the merit of resigning those claims which it was impracticable to enforce. (( Justinian in the space of thirty-two years has never granted a similar indulgence; and many of his subjects have renounced the possession of those lands whose value is insuf- 88 The Anecdotes (o. 11-14, 18, 20-30) supply many facts and more complaints. tances