Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/99

 domestic animals, he abolished with very happy effect; and we may suppose, with Mr. Finlay, that some of the triumphs of Justinian's reign were due in part to these reforms of Anastasius. With a state revenue which he had increased by judicious economies, he executed several public works, thereby no doubt greatly adding to the general wealth of the empire. Hitherto the suburbs of Constantinople had been exposed to every barbarian invader, and had been plundered and burnt by Goths and by Huns. The great wall, forty-two miles in length, stretching, in the form of an arc, from the Sea of Marmora to the Black Sea, was the work of Anastasius. It may, as Gibbon says, "have proclaimed the impotence of his arms," but it probably was the means of long preserving some sort of civilization for the capital of the East, and, we may add, for the world. And it is fair to the memory of Anastasius to remember that his arms were occasionally successful, and that a rebellion in the wild and difficult country of Isauria was thoroughly quelled, his successor in empire, Justin, distinguishing himself in the war. It is true, indeed, that he had in the year 505 to buy a very costly peace from the Persians, who were laying waste Mesopotamia. He was then an old man, but he lived on to ninety years of age, bequeathing the empire, after a reign of twenty-seven years, to a man of humble birth, and also a soldier, Justin. "Reign as you have lived," is said to have been the people's prayer on the accession of Anastasius, and he seems not to have disappointed their hopes, or to have been unworthy of his elevation.