Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/84

 it could scarcely be expected that his mind would be less warped by his restricted studies than that of the Pagan philosopher, nor that he would display a tolerant disposition on finding himself in the seat of power. It became his settled conviction that profane learning was an idle pursuit, and he decided to enrich his treasury by forfeiting the grants which still continued to be paid to physicians and professors of liberal education. As the result of this policy a general illiteracy began to pervade the Empire, but ultimately Justinian was induced to restore the stipends.

When the philosophers of the day found themselves reduced to silence by an Imperial prohibition they took counsel together and resolved to desert an empire in which their only prospect for the future was isolation. As they glanced around them in search of a new sphere of activity, the West, almost relapsed into barbarism, presented no aspect hospitable to philosophy. From the East, however, a ray of illumination had recently penetrated to their classic retreat and warmed them with the hope of being received as welcome immigrants at the court of the Persian monarch. In that kingdom, it was rumoured, the posture of affairs was one of such ideal felicity that the dream of Plato, as to the occupant of a throne being at once a prince and a philo-*