Page:Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian 1674.djvu/95

 This was the cruelty which she exercised up­on these people, for I have spoke before of the manner in which she treated Bellisarius, Photius, and Busez. There were two Cilicians of the faction of the Venetes, who in a mutiny attempt­ed the person of Callinicus, Governor of the second Cilicia, and killed the Master of his Horse (who endeavored to defend him) in his presence, and before all the people; being con­victed of this, and several other murders, he caused them to be apprehended, and their heads cut off as they deserved. Which piece of Justice coming to the ears of Theodora, to show her pas­sion for the party of the Venetes, she caused the Governor to be crucified in the same place where the Malefactors had been executed, though he was innocent, and had that office. The Emperor pretended to be much concerned, pitied his misfortune, and with tears in his eyes, complained heavily of Theodora, and gave out a thousand threats against the instruments in that action; yet he made no scruple to seise up­on his estate, and appropriate it to himself. Theo­dora likewise caused all the common Women to be punished, banishing Five hundred of them at one time, for prostituting themselves at a certain place on the other side of the Bosphorus; and having clapped them into several Nunneries, she constrained them to an honester course of life in spight of their teeths; but some of them threw themselves down a Rock, and preferred a voluntary death, before a life so contrary to their inclinations.

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