estitute of a harbor.]

[Footnote 86: The university, splendor, and ruin of Berytus are
celebrated by Heineccius (p. 351--356) as an essential part of the
history of the Roman law. It was overthrown in the xxvth year of
Justinian, A. D 551, July 9, (Theophanes, p. 192;) but Agathias (l.
ii. p. 51, 52) suspends the earthquake till he has achieved the Italian
war.]

III. Aethiopia and Egypt have been stigmatized, in every age, as
the original source and seminary of the plague. [87] In a damp, hot,
stagnating air, this African fever is generated from the putrefaction of
animal substances, and especially from the swarms of locusts, not less
destructive to mankind in their death than in their lives. The fatal
disease which depopulated the earth in the time of Justinian and his
successors, [88] first appeared in the neighborhood of Pelusium, between
the Serbonian bog and the eastern channel of the Nile. From thence,
tracing as it were a double path, it spread to the East, over Syria,
Persia, and the Indies, and penetrated to the West, along the coast of
Africa, and over the continent of Europe. In the spring of the second
year, Constantinople, during three or four months, was visited by the
pestilence; and Procopius, who observed its progress and symptoms with
the eyes of a physician, [89] has emulated the skill and diligence
of Thucydides in the description of the plague of Athens. [90] The
infection was sometimes announced by the visions of a distempered fancy,
and the victim despaired as soon as he had heard the menace and felt the
stroke of an invisible spectre. But the greater number, in their beds,
in the streets, in their usual occupation, were surprised by a slight
fever; so slight, indeed, that neither the pulse nor the color of the
patient gave any signs of the approaching danger. The same, the next,
or the succeeding day, it was declared by the swelling of the glands,
particularly those of the groin, of the armpits, and under the ear; and
when these buboes or tumors were opened, they were found to contain a
coal, or black substance, of the size of a lentil. If they came to a
just swelling and suppuration, the patient was saved by this kind and
natural discharge of the morbid humor. But if they continued hard and
dry, a mortification quickly ensued, and the fifth day was commonly
the term of his life. The fever was often accompanied with lethargy or
delirium; the bodies of the sick were covered with black pustules