inistration of justice was in the hands of provincial judges, whom the
bishops and the nobility chose from the ranks of the latter. It was then
the bishops began to take part in the courts of justice of their own
cities, as well in the choice and nomination of the officers as in their
supervision.[149] The words Roman commonwealth, Roman emperor, Roman army,
were heard again. But no word was said of restoring a western emperor. Rome
retained only an ideal precedence; Constantinople was the seat of empire.
Rome received a permanent garrison, and had to share with Ravenna, where
the heads of the Italian government soon permanently resided. Justinian's
constitution found existing the mere shadow of a senate. The prefect of the
city governed at Rome. There is mention made of a salary given to
professors of Grammar and Rhetoric,[150] to physicians and lawyers; but it
is doubtful whether this ever came into effect. The Gothic war[151] seems
to have destroyed the great public libraries of Rome, the Palatine and
Ulpian, as well as the private libraries of princely palaces, such as
Boethius and Symmachus possessed. And in all Italy the war of extermination
between Goths and Greeks swallowed up the costly treasures of ancient
literature, save such remnant as the Benedictine monasteries were able to
collect and preserve.[152] No building of Justinian's in Rome is known.
All his work of this kind was given to Ravenna. From this time forth every
new building in Rome is due to the Popes.

Small reason had the Popes to rejoice that the rule of an orthodox emperor
had followed at Rome that of an Arian king. Three months after the death of
Vigilius at Syracuse Justinian caused the deacon Pelagius to be elected: he
had difficulty in obtaining his recognition until he had cleared himself by
oath in St. Peter's of an accusation that he had hastened his predecessor's
death. The confirmation of the Pope's election remained with the emperor.
This permanent fetter came upon the Popes from the interference of Odoacer
the Herule in 484. After Justinian's death, the Romans sent an embassy to
his successor complaining that their lot had been more endurable under the
dominion of barbarians than under the Greeks.

When Narses,[153] re-entering Rome, celebrated a triple triumph over the
expulsion of barbarians from Italy, the reunion of the empire, and the
Church's victory over the Arians, a contemporary historian writes that the
mind of man had not p