Page:Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian 1674.djvu/73

 those troubles began, he caused most of the Sena­tors Goods to be sold, and of all descending from Patrician Families, he took the greatest part, and appropriated it. to himself, leaving (as a false image of this clemency) the Tenths only to such as were in possession, and that only to continue them liable to his Taxes: For which, those poor people were used with great cruelty by his Offi­cers and Collectors, and much dejected at the sadness of their life, which was so unquiet to them, they would have chose to have been put to death, which would have delivered them from a thousand calamities.

Hence it is, that these unmerciful Princes do not fall into my thoughts (or any bodies else of my opinion) as Men, but as evil Spirits, and pernicious Plagues, acting by common consent towards the destruction of all people, and dri­ving on with uncontroulable fury, to ruine the whole World. In short, though of late ages, several persons have made themselves terrible, and were naturally of that humor, or brought to it by the consequence of affairs; as by the desolation of some Countrey, the destroying of some Town, or the depopulating some Pro­vince, yet there was never any went so near the subverting, not only the Government of the Empire, but the whole oeconomy of the World, and the species of mankind, as Justinian and Theodora. It is true, Fortune contributed to their designs, and added much to the miseries which were endured: For at the same time there hap­ned so many ill accidents as Earthquakes, Rh