are attested by the
confession (Anecdot. c. 8, 13) still more than by the praises (Gothic.
l. iii. c. 31, de Edific. l. i. Proem. c. 7) of Procopius. Consult the
copious index of Alemannus, and read the life of Justinian by Ludewig,
(p. 135--142.)]

[Footnote 73: See in the C. P. Christiana of Ducange (l. i. c. 24,
No. 1) a chain of original testimonies, from Procopius in the vith, to
Gyllius in the xvith century.]

I shall conclude this chapter with the comets, the earthquakes, and the
plague, which astonished or afflicted the age of Justinian. I. In the
fifth year of his reign, and in the month of September, a comet [74] was
seen during twenty days in the western quarter of the heavens, and which
shot its rays into the north. Eight years afterwards, while the sun was
in Capricorn, another comet appeared to follow in the Sagittary; the
size was gradually increasing; the head was in the east, the tail in the
west, and it remained visible above forty days. The nations, who gazed
with astonishment, expected wars and calamities from their baleful
influence; and these expectations were abundantly fulfilled. The
astronomers dissembled their ignorance of the nature of these blazing
stars, which they affected to represent as the floating meteors of the
air; and few among them embraced the simple notion of Seneca and the
Chaldeans, that they are only planets of a longer period and more
eccentric motion. [75] Time and science have justified the conjectures
and predictions of the Roman sage: the telescope has opened new worlds
to the eyes of astronomers; [76] and, in the narrow space of history
and fable, one and the same comet is already found to have revisited the
earth in seven equal revolutions of five hundred and seventy-five years.
The first, [77] which ascends beyond the Christian aera one thousand
seven hundred and sixty-seven years, is coeval with Ogyges, the father
of Grecian antiquity. And this appearance explains the tradition which
Varro has preserved, that under his reign the planet Venus changed her
color, size, figure, and course; a prodigy without example either in
past or succeeding ages. [78] The second visit, in the year eleven
hundred and ninety-three, is darkly implied in the fable of Electra, the
seventh of the Pleiads, who have been reduced to six since the time of
the Trojan war. That nymph, the wife of Dardanus, was unable to support
the ruin of her country: she abandoned the dances of her sister
orbs