Page:Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian 1674.djvu/136

 he took so little care to continue it, it is almost forgot that ever there was such a Custom. But let us now pass to his practices upon the poor Subject.

Those who are received into Office in the Emperors Houshold, or admitted to any degree of Magistracy in Constantinople, take their pla­ces lowest and are afterwards advanced, as any of those above them dye, or retire, and that course they continue till they come at the highest. For such persons, by antient Institution there was established a Fund of above 10000 Livers of Gold every year, to the end that having a comfortable and honorable subsistance for them­selves when they grow aged, they might be able in some measure to give reliefe to other people: which indeed was a very good thing, to oblige the Officers, and incourage them to accquit themselves handsomly of their imploy­ments in the administration of publick affairs. But this unmerciful Prince having retrenched all their pensions, and taken from them all means to subsist, ruined not only them, but many others besides: for as we cannot but be the better for some peoples plenty, so we must needs suffer dammage when they are undone, in whose plenty we shared. In short, he that will compute the retrenchments which he upon them and other people during the thirty two years of his Reign, will find the summs to be vast which he brought into his Exchequer. And this was the Course this great Tyrant observed to ruin and vex the Souldiers