Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/174

 i 3 8 THE MEDIEVAL HISTORY OF EUROPE Sicily, parts of southern Italy, and other scattered points on the coast like Venice, on into the tenth and eleventh centuries. A considerable strip of southeastern Spain was also seized by Justinian, when a usurper appealed to him for aid against the Arian king, who was persecuting his recoiquest Catholic subjects. In the course of time, how- of Spain eyer ^ this terr i tory gradually reverted to the Visigoths. But Justinian had almost succeeded in bringing the coasts of the Mediterranean within the Empire, and he assumed by virtue of his generals' conquests a series of titles such as Africanus, Vandalicus, Gothicus, Alamannicus, Francicus, Germanicus. Nominally the Balkan peninsula east of Dalmatia and Pannonia had formed a part of the Empire at Justinian's accession, but barbarians had been plundering and the" • it almost at will. He now filled the entire region; barbarians from the Danube to the Sea of Marmora with; lines of forts, and here, as on all his frontiers, he revived thei old Roman system of entrusting the defense of the border to troops levied from that province and settled upon lands granted to them upon the very frontier. The armies of Belisarius and Narses, on the other hand, were largely re- cruited from -barbarians outside the Empire. Justinian also! relied upon a very ingenious and complicated diplomacy in dealing with the barbarians. We have already seen his skill in making friends in the royal houses of Afrit .aiy, and Spain, and then in discovering plausible pretexts k con- quest. He dazzled the simple ambassadors of the savage tribes upon his borders by the splendor of his court when they came to Constantinople, and gratified their kings with presents, favors, and titles. But he was also constantly set- ting them upon one another and thus keeping them occupied so that they might not invade his territory. His alliances extended to ^Ethiopia, Abyssinia, and the Upper Nile. This policy was expensive, however, since the barbarians would not do his bidding without subsidies. But what especially hampered Justinian in his schemes for extending