Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/326

 Latium became indigenous to this region; and, although the barbarians in their periodical inroads poured through the passes of Scardus on the north-west to spread themselves over Thrace and Macedonia, the Latinized stock still maintained its ground in the fifth century. Throughout the Empire it was a usual practice for sons of the free peasantry to abandon agricultural penury, and, without a change of clothing, provided only with a wallet containing a few days provisions, to betake themselves on foot to the capital, in the hope of chancing on better fortune. About the year 470, when Leo the Thracian occupied the throne, a young herdsman of Bederiana, bearing the classical name of Justin, resolved on this enterprise, and arrived at Constantinople with two companions whose lot had been similar to his own. There they presented themselves for enlistment in the army, and, as the three youths were distinguished by a fine physique, they were gladly accepted, and enrolled among the palace guards. Two of them are lost to our view for ever afterwards in the obscurity of a private soldier's life, but Justin, though wholly illiterate, entered on a successful military career. At the end of a score of years he reappears under Anastasius, with the rank of a general, and intrusted