ovoked--Exorbitant subsidies to the chiefs of the Huns and
Chosroes King of Persia, followed by disturbances and violation of
truce--Saracens, Slavs, Antes, and other barbarous peoples--Desolation
of the provinces--Religious persecutions and confiscation of Church
property--Montanists, Sabbatians, Arians, and Samaritans--Pretended
conversions--Manicheans and Polytheists--Caesarea, the author's
birthplace--Revolt of the peasants under Julian--Hellenism--Law
against paederasty--Persecution of astrologers--Continuous emigration.

CHAPTER XII

Downfall and death of Zeno, grandson of Anthemius, Emperor of the
West--Robbery of Tatian, Demosthenes, the wealthy Hilara, Dionysus of
Libanus and John of Edessa--Forged wills--Theodora and Justinian evil
spirits, not simple human beings--Justinian the putative son of
Sabbatius--His mother's intimate relations with a spirit--The
adventure of a monk--Justinian's temperate manner of living--His
fondness for women--Theodora's intercourse with a spirit--Reputation
of Macedonia during Justin's time--Her prediction to Theodora--Dream
of her marriage with the Prince of the Demons.

CHAPTER XIII

Justinian's qualities--His accessibility--His partiality for the
clergy--His gifts to the churches--His passion for blood and money,
shared by him with Theodora--Flattery of Tribonianus--Justinian's
fickleness and ill-faith--Venality of justice--Corruption of
officials--Justinian's fasting and temperate mode of life.

CHAPTER XIV

Abolition of various old customs--The attributes of the quaestor and
imperial secretaries--The senate a mere cipher--Corruption of the
"Referendaries"--Guilty conduct of Zeno, the Cilician.

CHAPTER XV

Cruelty of Theodora--Her voluptuous life--Her ambition--Her character
and Justinian's compared--Her harshness towards persons of rank--Their
servility--Pretended mildness of Justinian--Theodora's eagerness for
vengeance--Her partiality--The insult offered by her to a
patrician--Her stay at Heraeum, on the sea-shore.

CHAPTER XVI

Assassination of Amalasunta, Queen of the Goths, by Peter, Theodora's
agent--The secretary, Priscus, obliged to enter a
cloister--Justinian's hypocrisy--Disgrace of Areobindus, Theodora's
lover--Her way of getting rid of persons of rank--Punishment of
Basianus--False accusation against Diogenes, a member of the municipal
council--Suborning of witnesses--Theodora's courage.

CHAPTER XVII