bove. I shall now describe how they managed to take
away all the property of members of the Senate.

There was at Constantinople one Zeno, the grandson of that Anthemius
who formerly had been Emperor of the West. They sent this man to Egypt
as governor. He delayed his departure, while he loaded his ship with
precious valuables; for he had silver beyond any man's counting, and
gold plate set with pearls and emeralds, and with other like precious
stones. But Justinian and Theodora bribed some of those who passed for
his most faithful servants, to take everything out of the ship as fast
as they could, set it on fire in the hold, and then go and tell Zeno
that his ship had taken fire of its own accord, and that all his
property was lost. Some time after this Zeno died suddenly, and they
took possession of his property as his heirs, producing a will which,
it is currently reported, was never made by him.

In like manner they made themselves the heirs of Tatian, of
Demosthenes, and of Hilara, persons who at that time held the first
rank in the Roman Senate. They obtained other persons' fortunes by the
production, not of formal wills, but of counterfeit conveyances. This
was how they became the heirs of Dionysius, who dwelt in Libanus, and
of John the son of Basil, who was the leading man in Edessa, and had
been delivered up to the Persians as a hostage against his will by
Belisarius, as I have told already. Chosroes kept this John a
prisoner, and refused to let him go, declaring that the Romans had not
performed all the terms of the treaty for which John had been given in
pledge by Belisarius, but he was prepared to let him be ransomed as a
prisoner of war. His grandmother, who was still alive, got together
the money for his ransom, not less than two thousand pounds of silver,
and would have ransomed her grandson; but when this money arrived at
Dara, the Emperor heard of the transaction and forbade it, that the
wealth of Romans might not be conveyed to barbarians. Not long after
this John fell ill and died; whereupon the governor of the city forged
a letter which he said John had written to him as a friend not long
before, to the effect that he desired the Emperor to succeed to his
property.

I could not give the list of all the other people whose heirs
Justinian and Theodora became by the free will of the testators.
However, up to the time of the insurrection called Nika, they only
plundered rich men of their property one