Page:Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian 1674.djvu/133

 Alexander who was sent thither in the Quality of Commissarie, brought a thousand Mischiefs and Incommodities upon the Souldiers, reproa­ching them impudently by the smalness of their Numbers, (which was not their fault, but the Emperors) and causing large sums of Money to be payd to the Italians, under pretence of vindicating the Emp. from the violences of Theodoric and his Goths. Nay, this business was carryed on yet farther, for the ravenous Commissaries having ruined the Common Souldiers, reduced the Officers to the greatest poverty imaginable, in­somuch, as they had nothing left to subsist up­on, though their Services had been extraordi­nary, and the Laurels where with they had been Crowned a long time, ought to have sheltred them against so unreasonable a Storm: And see­ing I am speaking of the Army, I shall add, That formerly the Roman Emperors, had a Custom to maintain several small Armies upon the Frontiers of the Empire, to secure them against Incursions, and particularly in the Ea­stern Provinces, to resist the Inroads of the Per­sians, and Sarazins, and these Troops were called the Troops of the Frontiers. In the first place Justinian took so little care of these Ar­mies, that he deferred the payment of them from four years to four years, and sometimes to five; and when the Truce was concluded betwixt the Romans and the Persians, suppo­sing it would drain his Coffers unnecessarily, to maintain those poor Troops in time of Peace, he disbanded them all in one day, and leaving the