The Historians' History of the World 07

[3] Marcellinusn says in general terms: Innumeris populis in circo trucidatis. Procopius numbers 30,000 victims; and the 35,000 of Theophanes are swelled to 40,000 by the more recent Zonaras. Such is the usual progress of exaggeration.

[4] The six books of the Edifices of Procopiusg are thus distributed. The first is confined to Constantinople; the second includes Mesopotamia and Syria; the third, Armenia and the Euxine; the fourth, Europe; the fifth, Asia Minor and Palestine; the sixth, Egypt and Africa. Italy is forgotten by the emperor or the historian, who published this work of adulation before the date (555 A.D.) of its final conquest.

[5] Agathiasc relates this curious story. Chosroes ascended the throne in the year 531, and made his first peace with the Romans in the beginning of 533.

[6] [Theodoric himself, according to Cassiodorus,j claimed to model his policy on the Roman, and said to Anastasius, “Our kingdom is an imitation of yours.”]

[7] [Procopiusf says he was born in a district of Thrace called Germania. According to Von Hammerk his name is a Slavonic word, “Belitzar,” meaning “white prince.” Buryl also thinks it Slavonic, but translates it “white dawn.”]

[8] [Buryl calls this an “amiable imprudence.”]

[9] The army of Belisarius was chiefly composed of barbarian mercenaries, whom he had trained to Roman discipline and strategy. But the inferiority of the Vandals, whose ancestors had conquered hosts still better drilled, proceeded from the degeneracy which was already commencing, after a residence of only thirty years in Africa. Now that they had been for a century masters of the country, the cause, which was shown then to have enervated them, had operated with progressive effect, and reduced them to a state almost as helpless and hopeless as that of the people whom they had subjugated.

[10] [“When he beheld the splendour of the imperial court,” Buryl says of Gelimer, “he merely said ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,’ a remark which, as Rankem notices, had a sort of historical signification. For along with Gelimer, Belisarius brought to Constantinople those vessels of gold, of which Gaiseric (or Genseric) had robbed Rome, and of which Titus had despoiled Jerusalem. They were part of the riches of the king to whom the words ‘Vanity of vanities’ are traditionally attributed.” As Gibbon states, the vessels were later returned to the Christian church of Jerusalem.]

[11] Agathiasc states that the military establishment of the empire once consisted of 645,000 men. It probably included the local militia and the garrisons.

[12] According to Procopiusf Belisarius told his troops that the Persians excelled them in discipline.

CHAPTER IV

THE LATER YEARS OF JUSTINIAN’S REIGN

[535-565 A.D.]

BYZANTIUM RIDS ROME OF THE GOTHS

The empire of the Ostrogoths, though established on principles of a just administration by the wisdom of the great Theodoric, soon began to suffer as complete a national demoralisation as that of the Vandals, though the Goths themselves, from being more civilised and living more directly under the restraint of laws which protected the property of their Roman subjects, had not become individually so corrupted by the possession of wealth.

The conquest of Italy[13] had not produced any very great revolution in the state of the country. The Romans had long been accustomed to be defended in name, but in fact to be ruled, by the commanders of the mercenary troops in the emperor’s service. The Goths, even after the conquest, allowed them to retain two-thirds of their landed estates, with all their movable property; and as they had really been as completely excluded from military service under their own emperors, their social condition underwent but little change. Policy induced Theodoric to treat the inhabitants of Italy with mildness. The permanent maintenance of his conquests required a considerable revenue, and that revenue could only be supplied by the industry and civilisation of his Italian subjects. His sagacity told him that it was wiser to tax the Romans than to plunder them, and that it was necessary, in order to secure the fruits of a regular system of taxation, to leave them in the possession of those laws and privileges which enabled them to defend their civilisation.

[535-537 A.D.]