Page:Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian 1674.djvu/144

 Empire, no certain time was kept for the Elec­tion of the said Consuls, the same persons be­ing continued several years, and no Assemblies allowed for the Creation of new, so that all people were fallen into extream Misery, the Emperor not only retained in his own hand what was wont to be distributed among his Subjects, but robb’d and dispossessed them of what they had of their own, in all places, and by all ways imaginable! I suppose I have said enough of the Violences which he used in his administration of the publick Moneys, as also when he sequestred the Estates of the whole Senate, and every particular Member therein, (with which he cramm’d his own Coffers, but could not satiate his Mind) as like wise in the descriptions of the Arts and. Calumnies which he used to get the Estates of all rich Men into his hands, his Tyranny, and the sad effects of it, upon the Emperors Guards, and other Dome­sticks; his cruelty to the Common Souldiers of his Army, and of his particular Guards; To the Inhabitants of the Country; To the Proprie­tors of the Land; To the Professors of Sciences, Merchants, Masters of Ships, Seamen, Car­ryers, Messengers, Mechanicks, Comedians, Lawyers, Officers of Justice of all sorts, and in a word to all those who were Expos’d and sensible of the misery above mentioned, and to those who could not be happy when the other were miserable. But now I must speak of his Inhumanity to the Poor, and inferiour sort of people, whom he reduc’d to the greatest gree