ir utter poverty at home,
determined to enlist in the army. They made their way to Byzantium on
foot, with knapsacks of goat's-hair on their shoulders, containing
nothing but a few biscuits which they had brought from home. On their
arrival they were enrolled in the army, and chosen by the Emperor
amongst the palace guards, being all three very handsome young men.

Afterwards, when Anastasius succeeded to the throne, war broke out
with the Isaurians who had rebelled against him. He sent a
considerable army against them, under the command of John, surnamed
"The Hunchback." This John arrested Justin for some offence and
imprisoned him, and on the following day would have put him to death,
had not a vision which he beheld in his sleep prevented him. He said
that, in his dream, a man of great stature, and in every way more than
human, bade him release the man whom he had that day cast into prison.
When he awoke, he made light of this vision; and, although he saw
again the same vision and heard the same words on the following night,
not even then would he obey the command. But the vision appeared for
the third time, and threatened him terribly if he did not do what he
was commanded, and warned him that he would thereafter stand in great
need of this man and his family when his wrath should fall upon him.
Thus did Justin escape death.

As time went on, this Justin rose to great power. The Emperor
Anastasius appointed him commander of the palace guard, and when that
prince died, he, by the influence of his position, seized the throne.
He was by this time an old man with one foot in the grave, so utterly
ignorant of letters, that one may say that he did not know the
alphabet--a thing which had never happened before amongst the Romans.
It had been customary for the Emperor to sign the decrees which were
issued by him with his own hand, whereas he neither made decrees, nor
was capable of conducting affairs; but Proclus, who acted as his
quaestor and colleague, arranged everything at his own pleasure.
However, in order that the Emperor's signature might appear in public
documents, his officers invented the following device. They had the
shapes of four Latin letters cut in a thin piece of wood, and then,
having dipped the pen in the imperial ink used by the Emperors in
writing, they put it in the Emperor's hand, and laying the piece of
wood on the paper to be signed, they guided the Emperor's hand and pen
round the outline of the