529. A.D. tivated with ardour; and in fact, with the exception of the judicial works completed under his own inspection, the age of Justinian can boast but few monuments of learned industry, or literary genius. In these grand undertakings, his efficient agent was Tribonian, of Side, in Pamphylia, a poet, a courtier, a lawyer, and a scholar, on whom devolved the task of collecting and collating all the codes from Hadrian to his own times, which, with the aid of ten associates, he accomplished in fourteen months, and published A. D. 529, under the title of The Justinian Code. To this succeeded, in a. D. 533, his Pandects, or digest of all the decisions of previous jurisconsults, as they existed in upwards of two thousand heterogeneous volumes: a labour which occupied him and his colleagues for three years, during which they boasted to have compressed the contents of three millions of lines or sentences into the more compendious compass of one hundred and fifty thousand. At the same time, the Elements, or Institutes of Roman Law, were compiled in four books by Tribonian, Theophilus, and Dorotheus; and these, together with the Novels and Edicts, remain as the most distinguished memorials of the age of Justinian.* During the residue of his administration, however, these labours of Gibbon, c. xliv. Schoell, 1. vi. c. xcvii. 529. his distinguished agents were undergoing per- A.D. petual alterations, arising from the caprices, the despotism, or the venality of the prince; and, according to Procopius, each day of the tedious reign of this eminent legislator was marked by some glaring infringement or innovation of his own enactments.* As historians, the names of Procopius and Agathias alone occupy a prominent place in the period of which I speak. The former was born at Cæsarea, in Palestine, in the early part of the sixth century, and after serving under Belisarius in Africa and Italy, became a senator and prefect of Constantinople, an office of which he was deprived by Justinian. His History of his own Times, as far as relates to the foreign policy of the age, must be regarded as a work of accuracy and elegance, but its authority is invariably questionable as often as the Emperor, his voluptuous consort Theodora, or the renowned Belisarius, appear upon the scene. Here his pen betrays all the cautious. timidity of one who writes under the surveillance of those whose exploits he is narrating; but in a subsequent volume of Anecdotes or Secret Memoirs, he does ample justice to the truth, which he had been compelled to outrage in his former production, and represents * Rizo, Cours, p. 17. 559. A.D. Justinian in his true character as a hypocrite and charlatan, Theodora as a vindictive voluptuary, and Belisarius the hero of the embattled field, but the slave of an imperious and abandoned wife.* His history was continued by Agathias from A. D. 553 to 559. The author, who was passionately devoted to poetry,‡ has evinced this partiality by the laboured and flowing decorations of his style; but the work abounds in facts and illustrations of the early manners of the Franks, the Goths, and Persians, which render it valuable and highly interesting.§ Besides these, the names of Paulus Silentiarius, an obscure versifier;|| of Quintus of Smyrna, or, as he is more usually styled, the Calabrian,¶ a Fabricius, 1. v. c. v. 3. Schoell, 1. vi. c. lxxxiii. Harles, sec. v. p. 529. + A third work of Procopius, περὶ τῶν τοῦ δεσπότου Ιουστινιανοῦ κτισμάτων, treats of the numerous and costly edifces of Justinian. He wrote some Epigrams, of which about one hundred are extant, but devoid of all terseness or point; and compiled an Anthology, which is now unfortunately lost. § Harles, sec. v. p. 533. Berington, app. i. p. 530. Fabricius, l. v. c. v. 4. Schoell, 1. vi. c. lxxii. c. lxxxvi. Paulus composed in the reign of Justinian several epigrams of indifferent merit, and poems descriptive of the Pythian Baths in Bithynia, (see Gibbon, c. xl. sec. i.) the Cathedral of St. Sophia, &c. Harles, sec. v. p. 527. Schoell, 1. vi. c. lxxii. c. lxxiii. c. lxxxvii. Fabricius, 1. v. c. v. 5. ¶ So called erroneously by Bessarion, from finding a copy 559. poet of contemptible powers, who attempted to A.D. write a continuation of the Iliad; and of Priscian, whose birth and productions scarcely entitle him to rank among the Greek literati,* are alone worthy of mention in this age of vitiated taste and fanatical corruption.† The death of Justinian produced a pause in the theological warfare that had so long disturbed the tranquillity of the nation; and during the reign of his successors from Justin to Phocas, the church enjoyed an interval of comparative repose. It was, however, but the enervating and sultry calm which precedes the fresh out-bursting of the storm, as the accession of A.D. Heraclius in the tenth year of the seventh century, was the signal for the re-commencement of hostilities. It is at this epoch that of his works in the monastery of St. Nicolas at Otranto. Schoell, 1. vi. c. lxxiii. Harles, sec. v. p. 520.. * Priscian was born at Cæsarea, and his treatise De arte Grammatica was adapted to the Latin, not to the Greek tongue. Berington, app. i. p. 580. + The Anthology of Stobæus, an author whose life and era are unknown, has been generally attributed to the sixth century. See Gibbon, c. liii. Schoell, 1. vi. c. xciv. Berington, app. i. p. 570. During this interval, the Emperor Maurice, a Roman by birth, (Gib. c. xlv.) was distinguished, amongst other estimable qualities, by a love for letters. But his exertions could. neither recall the faded genius of the age, nor retard the advance of still darker ruin. Menander, surnamed the Pro 610. 610. AD the period usually denominated "the Middle Ages" is supposed to commence; a melancholy era in the annals of the world, when genius was extinguished, taste polluted, and learning, numbed into a wintry torpor, had retired into cells and seclusion, to await the reviving beams of a more genial sun.* Scarcely had Heraclius escaped from a menacing struggle with the Persians, when he awoke in his own dominions the smouldering fires of religious controversy, by espousing, through a mistaken policy, the monothelite faction of the Church. A new impetus was thus communicated to the fury of contending parties, whose discussions continued almost to the commencement of the following century to rend the empire, and engross the attention of all classes of the people. The unwonted ardour with which this controversy was espoused by all ranks, may in some degree be accounted for, by the late suppression of the schools of philosophy by Justinian; and the favourite passion of the Greeks, thus checked in its accustomed course, tector, a soldier of the guard, who has left some poetry, and a continuation of the History of Agathias, was one of the objects of his bounty. This period is likewise considered to be from the fall of the Western to the fall of the Eastern Empire. For an account of this controversy, see Gib. c. xlvii. |