Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/121

 the vulgar outcry were soon displaced, and Tribonian and John returned to their seats at the heads of their respective departments, where they reverted to their old methods of statecraft and extortion. The infamous Cappadocian resumed his sway over the Emperor and the Empire, and during the next decade almost all public Acts were headed with the superscription, "To John, the Most Glorious Praefect of the Sacred Praetorium of the Orient, ex-Consul and Patrician."

Theodora, on her side, to express her sense of assured supremacy, made a triumphal progress through the country to the hot-baths of Pythia, in Bithynia. A crowd of patricians, illustrious officials, eunuchs, and officers of rank attended her, constituting a retinue amounting in all to over four thousand persons. At every halting place she made munificent donations to the public institutions of the vicinity; and churches, monasteries, and hospitals benefited largely by her ostentatious liberality.

We should certainly do Justinian less than justice if we asserted that his regard for the welfare of his subjects was limited to a desire that no one should plunder them but himself. That statement, however, might not be an unfair definition of his objective attitude towards them. Three years after the rebellion he began the issue of a series of enactments intended to work a complete administrative reform throughout the Empire. He had in the meantime