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 272 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xl The populous villages of Mount Taurus were rilled with horsemen and archers ; they resisted the imposition of tributes, but they recruited the armies of Justinian ; and his civil magistrates, the proconsul of Cappadocia, the count of Isauria, and the praetors of Lycaonia and Pisidia, were invested with military power to restrain the licentious practice of rapes and assassinations. 124 Fortifl- If we extend our view from the tropic to the mouth of the cations of. * the empire Tanais, we may observe, on one hand, the precautions of Justin- Euxineto ian to curb the savages of ^Ethiopia, 126 and, on the other, the the Persian. .., . . , _ . %T. ' . ' frontier long walls which he constructed m Crimea for the protection of his friendly Goths, a colony of three thousand shepherds and warriors. 126 From that peninsula to Trebizond, the eastern curve of the Euxine was secured by forts, by alliance, or by religion ; and the possession of Lazica, the Colchos of ancient, the Mingrelia of modern, geography, soon became the object of an important war. Trebizond, in after-times the seat of a romantic empire, was indebted to the liberality of Justinian for a church, an aqueduct, and a castle, whose ditches are hewn in the solid rock. From that maritime city, a frontier-line of five hundred miles may be drawn to the fortress of Circesium, the last Roman station on the Euphrates. 127 Above Trebizond immediately, and five days' journey to the south, the country rises into dark forests and craggy mountains, as savage though not so lofty as the Alps and the Pyrenees. In this rigorous climate, 128 where the snows seldom melt, the fruits are tardy 124 Fortes ea regio (says Justinian) viros habet, nee in ullo differt ab Isauria, though Procopius (Persic. Li. o. 18) marks an essential difference between their mili- tary character ; yet informer times the Lyoaonians and Pisidians had defended their liberty against the great king (Xenophon, Anabasis, 1. iii. c. 2). Justinian intro- duces some false and ridiculous erudition of the ancient empire of the Pisidians, and of Lycaon, who, after visiting Rome (long before ..Eneas), gave a name and people to Lyoaonia (Novell. 24, 25, 27, 30, [23, 24, 26, 44, ed. Zacharia]). 125 See Procopius, Persic. 1. i. c. 19. The altar of national concord, of annual sacrifice and oaths, which Diocletian had erected in the isle of Elephantine, was demolished by Justinian with less policy than zeal. 126 Procopius de Aedificiis, 1. iii. c. 7. Hist. 1. viii. c. 3, 4. These unambitious Goths had refused to follow the standard of Theodoric, As late a6 the xvth and xvith century, the name and nation might be discovered between Caffa and the straits of Azov (d'Anville, Memoires de l'Academie, torn. xxx. p. 240). They well deserved the curiosity of Busbequius (p. 321-326), but seem to have vanished in the more recent account of the Missions du Levant (torn. L), Tott, Peys6onel, <fec. 127 For the geography and architecture of this Armenian border, see the Persian Wars and Edifices (1. ii. c. 4-7 ; 1. iii. c. 2-7) of Procopius. 128 The country is described by Tournefort (Voyage au Levant, torn. iii. lettre xvii. xviii.). That skilful botanist soon discovered the plant that infects the honey (Plin. xxi. 44, 45) ; he observes that the soldiers of Lucullus might indeed be