himself firmly seated on the throne of Constantinople, should
make an attempt to retrieve these disasters. The principles which led
him to his scheme of legislation; to the promotion of manufacturing
interests by the fabrication of silk; to the reopening of the ancient
routes to India, so as to avoid transit through the Persian dominions;
to his attempt at securing the carrying trade of Europe for the Greeks,
also suggested the recovery of Africa. To this important step he was
urged by the Catholic clergy. In a sinister but suitable manner, his
reign was illustrated by his closing the schools of philosophy at
Athens, ostensibly because of their affiliation to paganism, but in
reality on account of his detestation of the doctrines of Aristotle and
Plato; by the abolition of the consulate of Rome; by the extinction of
the Roman senate, A.D. 552; by the capture and recapture five times of
the Eternal City. The vanishing of the Roman race was thus marked by an
extinction of the instruments of ancient philosophy and power.

[Sidenote: His reconquest of Africa.]

The indignation of the Catholics was doubtless justly provoked by the
atrocities practised in the Arian behalf by the Vandal kings of Africa,
who, among other cruelties, had attempted to silence some bishops by
cutting out their tongues. To carry out Justinian's intention of the
recovery of Africa, his general Belisarius sailed at midsummer, A.D.
533, and in November he had completed the reconquest of the country.

[Sidenote: Dreadful calamities produced by him.]

This was speedy work, but it was followed by fearful calamities; for in
this, and the Italian wars of Justinian, likewise undertaken at the
instance of the orthodox clergy, the human race visibly diminished. It
is affirmed that in the African campaign five millions of the people of
that country were consumed; that during the twenty years of the Gothic
War Italy lost fifteen millions; and that the wars, famines, and
pestilences of the reign of Justinian diminished the human species by
the almost incredible number of one hundred millions.

[Sidenote: The Persian attack.]

[Sidenote: Fall and pillage of Jerusalem.]

[Sidenote: Triumphs of Chosroes.]

It is therefore not at all surprising that in such a deplorable
condition men longed for a deliverer, in their despair totally
regardless who he might be or from what quarter he might come.
Ecclesiastical partisanship had done its work. When Chosroes II.,