Page:Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian 1674.djvu/92

 his, which he had left behind him. Theodora had a suspition of one of her Servants called Areo­binde, who was a stranger, but from his very youth had given great marks of an excellent disposition, and had been made Master of her Wardrobe. To punish a crime, of which she imagined he was guilty, she caused him to be beaten with Rods with extraordinary cruelty, though (as was reported) she had a great kind­ness for him; but what became of him after­wards, I cannot tell, nor I believe, any body else. For when Theodora designed to have any thing kept secret, to conceal it from the know­ledge and memory of man, she so threatned and frightned the instruments in the action (which never any Tyrant had done before) that they never durst mention it to the very nearest of their Relations: On the other side, there was nothing done by those, for whom she had a pre­judice, but she knew it immediately; for there was not a considerable Family, but she had her spies in it, who told her not only the discourse but the very words which every man spoke; and when she had a mind to punish any one, and no body know it, if he were a Patrician, she sent for him privately, and dilivered him up to some single person of her Confidents, whom she had selected to be the instrument of her vengeance, with instruction to carry him to the remotest part of the Empire. Having received her commands, the Officer bound the poor man, muffled his face, and then putting his a Shipboard in a dark night, he conveyed his accord-