Page:Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian 1674.djvu/132

 less then it ought to have been, whilst in the mean time the Commissaries conveyed to Justi­nian all the Money that they purloind from the Army, which suffered besides that, a thousand other injustices, in recompence of the dangers they had run, and the Wounds they had recei­ved in their almost daily Rencounters and En­gagements. For example, some were despised for being Greeks, as if Greece never had produced any one person that was worthy of the Name of a Souldier: some were cashierd, as being in service without the Emperors Order; The Cer­tificates of others were with great difficulty allow’d, and others disbanded for having been absent some small time from their Quarters. After all this, certain of the Pretorian Bands were chosen to take an exact: review, quite through the Roman Empire, of all the Souldi­ers which were capable of bearing Armes. Some who had been a long time in the Service, were cashiered, as unfit for the War, and were to be seen begging about the Streets, as having no­thing to sustain them but the Charity of the peo­ple, which to good Men, was a sad object, and well worthy of Compassion. Others to defend themselves against those Extremities, gave great sums of Money to the Commissa­ries by way of Redemption: So that the Ar­my being grown feeble and weak, by a hun­dred such practices, and destitute of necessa­ries, began to conceive such a hatred against the service, that the affairs of the Empire went ve­ry ill on all sides, and especially in Italy: For Alexander