CHAP. symbol of their spiritual adoption by the pope; but the elder XLVIII. was alone exalted to the rank of Augustus and the assurance of the empire. Justinian After the decease of his father, the inheritance of the HI A. D. Roman world devolved to Justinian II.; and the name of 685, September. a triumphant lawgiver was dishonoured by the vices of a boy, who imitated his namesake only in the expensive luxury of building. His passions were strong; his understanding was feeble; and he was intoxicated with a foolish pride, that his birth had given him the command of millions, of whom the smallest community would not have chosen him for their local magistrate. His favourite ministers were two beings the least susceptible of human sympathy, an eunuch and a monk; to the one he abandoned the palace, to the other the finances; the former corrected the emperor's mother with a scourge, the latter suspended the insolvent tributaries, with their heads downwards, over a slow and smoaky fire. Since the days of Commodus and Caracalla, the cruelty of the Roman princes had most commonly been the effect of their fear; but Justinian, who possessed some vigour of character, enjoyed the sufferings, and braved the revenge, of his subjects about ten years, till the measure was full, of his crimes and of their patience. In a dark dungeon, Leontius, a general of reputation, had groaned above three years, with some of the noblest and most deserving of the patricians: he was suddenly drawn forth to assume the government of Greece; and this promotion of an injured man was a mark of the contempt rather than of the confidence of his prince. As he was followed to the port by the kind offices of his friends, Leontius observed with a sigh that he was a victim adorned for sacrifice, and that inevitable death would pursue his footsteps. They ventured to reply, that glory and empire might be the recompense of a gene a rous resolution; that every order of men abhorred the reign of a monster; and that the hands of two hundred thousand patriots expected only the voice of a leader. The night was a chosen for their deliverance; and in the first effort of the conspirators, the præfect was slain, and the prisons were forced open: the emissaries of Leontius proclaimed in every street, “ Christians, to St. Sophia;” and the seasonable , text of the patriarch, “this is the day of the Lord!" was A. D the prelude of an inflammatory sermon. From the church CHAP. the people adjourned to the hippodrome: Justinian, in whose XLVIII. cause not a sword had been drawn, was dragged before these tumultuary judges, and their clamours demanded the instant death of the tyrant. But Leontius, who was already clothed with the purple, cast an eye of pity on the prostrate : son of his own benefactor and of so many emperors. The life of Justinian was spared: the amputation of his nose, perhaps of his tongue, was imperfectly performed: the happy flexibility of the Greek language could impose the name of Rhinotmetus; and the mutilated tyrant was banished to Chersonæ in Crim Tartary, a lonely settlement, where corn, wine, and oil, were imported as foreign luxuries. On the edge of the Scythian wilderness, Justinian still His exile, cherished the pride of his birth and the hope of his resto- 695....705. ration. After three years exile, he received the pleasing intelligence that his injury was avenged by a second revolution, and that Leontius in his turn had been dethroned and mutilated by the rebel Apsimar, who assumed the more respectable name of Tiberius. But the claim of lineal succession was still formidable to a plebeian usurper; and his jealousy was stimulated by the complaints and charges of the Chersonites, who beheld the vices of the tyrant in the spirit of the exile. With a band of followers, attached to his person by common hope or common despair, Justinian fled from the inhospitable shore to the hord of the Chozars, who pitched their tents between the Tanais and Borysthenes. The khan entertained with pity and respect the royal suppliant: Phanagoria, once an opulent city, on the Asiatic side of the lake Mæotis, was assigned for his residence; and every Roman prejudice was stilled in his marriage with the sister of the Barbarian, who seems, however, from the name of Theodora, to have received the sacrament of baptism. But the faithless Chozar was soon tempted by the gold of Constantinople; and had not the design been revealed by the conjugal love of Theodora, her husband must have been assassinated, or betrayed into the power of his enemies. After strangling, with his own hands, the two emissaries of the khan, Justinian sent back his wife to her brother, and embarked on the Euxine in search of new and more faithful allies. His vessel was assaulted by a violent VOL. VI. N CHAP tempest; and one of his pious companions advised him to XLVill deserve the mercy of God by a vow of general forgiveness, if he should be restored to the throne. “Of forgiveness?" replied the intrepid tyrant: “may I perish this instant.... may the Almighty whelm me in the waves....if I consent “ to spare a single head of my enemies!" He survived this impious menace, sailed into the mouth of the Danube, trusted his person in the royal village of the Bulgarians, and purchased the aid of Terbelis, a Pagan conqueror, by the promise of his daughter and a fair partition of the treasures of the empire. The Bulgarian kingdom extended to the confines of Thrace; and the two princes besieged Constantinople at the head of fifteen thousand horse. Apsimar was dismayed by the sudden and hostile apparition of his rival, whose head had been promised by the Chozar, and of whose evasion he was yet ignorant. After an absence of ten years, the crimes of Justinian were faintly remembered, and the birth and misfortunes of their hereditary sovereign excited the pity of the multitude, ever discontented with the ruling powers; and by the active diligence of his adherents he was introduced into the city and palace of Constantine. His resto- In rewarding his allies and recalling his wife, Justinian ration and death, displayed some sense of honour and gratitude ; and TerbeA. D. 705 lis retired, after sweeping away an heap of gold coin, which ....711. he measured with his Scythian whip. But never was a vow more religiously performed than the sacred oath of revenge which he had sworn amidst the storms of the Euxine.... The two usurpers, for I must reserve the name of tyrant for the conqueror, were dragged into the hippodrome, the one from his prison, the other from his palace. Before their execution, Leontius and Apsimar were cast prostrate in chains beneath the throne of the emperor; and Justinian, planting a foot on each of their necks, contemplated above an hour the chariot-race, while the inconstant people shouted, in the words of the Psalmist, “ Thou shalt trample on “ “ the asp and basilisk, and on the lion and dragon shalt thou “ set thy foot!” The universal defection which he had once experienced might provoke him to repeat the wish of Caligula, that the Roman people had but one head. Yet I shall presume to observe, that such a wish is unworthy of an ingenious tyrant, since his revenge and cruelty would have been extinguished by a single blow, instead of the slow va- CHAP. riety of tortures which Justinian inflicted on the victims of XLVIII. his anger. His pleasures were inexhaustible: neither private virtue nor public service could expiate the guilt of active, or even passive, obedience to an established government; and during the six years of his new reign, he considered the axe, the cord, and the rack, as the only instruments of royalty. But his most implacable hatred was pointed against the Chersonites, who had insulted his exile and violated the laws of hospitality. Their remote situation afforded some means of defence, or at least of escape; and a grievous tax was imposed on Constantinople, to supply the preparations of a fleet and army. “ All are guilty, and all “ must perish,” was the mandate of Justinian; and the bloody execution was entrusted to his favourite Stephen, who was recommended by the epithet of the savage. Yet even the savage Stephen imperfectly accomplished the intentions of his sovereign. The slowness of his attack allowed the greater part of the inhabitants to withdraw into the country; and the minister of vengeance contented himself with reducing the youth of both sexes to a state of servitude, with roasting alive seven of the principal citizens, with drowning twenty in the sea, and with reserving forty-two in chains to receive their doom from the mouth of the emperor. In their return, the fleet was driven on the rocky shores of Anatolia ; and Justinian applauded the obedience of the Euxine, which had involved so many thousands of his subjects and enemies in a common shipwreck: but the tyrant was still insatiate of blood; and a second expedition was commanded to extirpate the remains of the proscribed colony. In the short interval, the Chersonites had returned to their city, and were prepared to die in arms; the khan of the Chozars had renounced the cause of his odious brother ; the exiles of every province were assembled in Tauris; and Bardanes, under the name of Philippicus, was invested with the purple. The Imperial troops, unwilling and unable to perpetrate the revenge of Justinian, escaped his displeasure by abjuring his allegiance: the fleet, under their new sovereign, steered back a more auspicious course to the harbours of Sinope and Constantinople ; and every tongue was prompt to pronounce, every hand to execute, the death of CHAP. the tyrant. Destitute of friends, he was deserted by his Bar- an act of patriotism and Roman virtue. His son Tiberius was extinguished after a reign of one hundred years. three reigns. Bardanes, or Philippicus, was hailed at Con- slumbering monarch was surprised, bound, blinded, and Anasta- deposed, before he was sensible of his danger. Yet the traiA. D. 713, tors were deprived of their reward; and the free voice of June 4. the senate and people promoted Artemius from the office of secretary to that of emperor: he assumed the title of Anas- sius II. |