Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/97

 The infamy of the Cappadocian, as an officer of state, was almost surpassed by his mode of life as a private citizen. He rapidly accumulated wealth, and at once applied himself to spend it in gastronomical and libidinous excesses of the most unbridled description. His first care was to erect a palace of such vastness and magnificence that, in the hyperbolical language of an official of the period, it could only be characterized by the epithets which writers on the wonders of Egypt had applied to the architectural piles reared by Sesostris and the Pharaohs. In the halls of this resplendent edifice he passed his time in a continuous round of feasting and sensuality, only terminating his orgies with the rise of Lucifer, whilst his attention to business was deferred until the appearance of Hesperus. Surrounded by a throng of courtesans and debauched youths, he gorged himself with the most costly delicacies until his overloaded stomach ejected its contents over the marble pavements or the persons of those who sat next to him. To glut his appetite the woods of the Euxine were depopulated of their pheasants, whilst the sea was raided for luscious fish to such an extent that, according to the conceit of the same author, the molluscs, expanding their shells to serve as wings, fled through the air instead of through the water, to escape the voracious Cappadocian. As for his religion he made no account of Christianity, but pinned his faith to sorceries