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 Chap. XL] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 253 ficient to satisfy the demands of the treasury. To the cities which had suffered by hostile inroads, Anastasius promised a general exemption of seven years : the provinces of Justinian have been ravaged by the Persians and Arabs, the Huns and Sclavonians ; but his vain and ridiculous dispensations of a single year have been confined to those places which were actually taken by the enemy." Such is the language of the secret historian, who expressly denies that any indulgence was granted to Pales- tine after the revolt of the Samaritans : a false and odious charge, confuted by the authentic record, which attests a relief of thir- teen centenaries of gold (fifty-two thousand pounds) obtained for that desolate province by the intercession of St. Sabas. 86 III. Procopius has not condescended to explain the system of Taxes taxation, which fell like a hail-storm upon the land, like a de- vouring pestilence on its inhabitants; but we should become the accomplices of his malignity, if we imputed to Justinian alone the ancient though rigorous principle that a whole district should be condemned to sustain the partial loss of the persons or property of individuals. The Annona, or supply of corn for the use of the army and capital, was a grievous and arbitrary exaction, which exceeded, perhaps in a tenfold proportion, the ability of the farmer ; and his distress was aggravated by the partial injustice of weights and measures, and the expense and labour of distant carriage. In a time of scarcity an extraordin- ary requisition was made to the adjacent provinces of Thrace, Bithynia, and Phrygia; but the proprietors, after a wearisome journey and a perilous navigation, received so inadequate a compensation that they would have chosen the alternative of delivering both the corn and price at the doors of their granaries. These precautions might indicate a tender solicitude for the welfare of the capital; yet Constantinople did not escape the rapacious despotism of Justinian. Till his reign, the straits of the Bosphorus and Hellespont were open to the freedom of trade, and nothing was prohibited except the exportation of arms for the service of the Barbarians. At each of these gates 86 One to Scythopolis, capital of the second Palestine, and twelve for the rest of the province. Aleman. (p. 59) honestly produces this fact from a Ms. life of St. Sabas, by his disciple Cyril, in the Vatican library, and since published by Cotelerius. [Ecclesiae Graecae Monumenta (1677), vol. 3, pp. 220 sqq. ; pp. 400 and 416 in the ed. of Pomialovski, who has published the Greek text with an old Slavonic transla- tion, 1890.]