Page:Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian 1674.djvu/141

 vast Summes of Money for the Emperor, be­sides his own ships, which he kept very pri­vate, and were supposed as considerable as the other, and this trade he drives to this day, with prohibition to every body else: For this cause the Merchants both in Constantinople and other Citys resented highly their usage, and the loss which they sustained by the ruin of their Workmen: And for as much as in Tyre, and Beryte most of the popular subsisted by that sort of Manufactory, they were brought to a necessity of begging the charity of good people, or starving with hunger and misery. And those few who escaped, quitted their own Countrey, and fled among the Parthians, for (as I said before) none but the Treasurer-Ge­neral of the Empire was permitted to meddle in that commodity, and he returning a small part of his gains to the Emperor, kept the greatest to himself, raising a prodigious estate out of the ruins of the people, and his happi­ness, out of the Calamities of the State, but enough of this, I shall now proceed, and give an account how he despoild Constantinople, and the other Towns of all their Ornaments. His first designe was against the Lawyers, whom he resolved utterly to undo, lessening their fees, and forbiding gratuities, though after the Cause was determined, which were commonly very considerable: In all Suits that were de­pending he caused decision to be made by oath, which rendred the Lawyers useless and contem­ptible, to their great prejudice and displeasure: Rh