l in this engagement, and the most fertile country on
the earth has ever since been without cultivators. This did great harm
to the Christian landowners in that country, for, although they
received nothing from their property, yet they were forced to pay
heavy taxes yearly to the Emperor for the rest of their lives, and no
abatement or relief from this burden was granted to them.

After this he began to persecute those who were called Gentiles,
torturing their persons and plundering their property. All of these
people, who decided to adopt the Christian faith nominally, saved
themselves for the time, but not long afterwards most of them were
caught offering libations and sacrifices and performing other unholy
rites. How he treated the Christians I will subsequently relate.

Next he forbade paederasty by law, and he made this law apply not only
to those who transgressed it after it had been passed, but even to
those who had practised this wickedness long before. The law was
applied to these persons in the loosest fashion, the testimony of one
man or boy, who possibly might be a slave unwilling to bear witness
against his master, was held to be sound evidence. Those who were
convicted were carried through the city, after having had their
genitals cut off. This cruelty was not at first practised against any
except those who belonged to the Green faction or were thought to be
very rich, or had otherwise offended.

Justinian and Theodora also dealt very harshly with the astrologers,
so that the officers appointed to punish thieves proceeded against
these men for no other cause than that they were astrologers, dealt
many stripes on their backs, and paraded them on camels through the
city; yet they were old and respectable men, against whom no reproach
could be brought except that they dwelt in Byzantium and were learned
about the stars.

There was a continual stream of emigration, not only to the lands of
the barbarians, but also to the nations most remote from Rome; and one
saw a very great number of foreigners both in the country and in each
city of the Empire, for men lightly exchanged their native land for
another, as though their own country had been captured by an enemy.

CHAPTER XII

Those who were considered the wealthiest persons in Byzantium and the
other cities of the Empire, next after members of the Senate, were
robbed of their wealth by Justinian and Theodora in the manner which I
have described a