h; but they who have reigned should never survive
the loss of dignity and dominion. I implore Heaven, that I may never
be seen, not a day, without my diadem and purple; that I may no longer
behold the light, when I cease to be saluted with the name of queen. If
you resolve, O Caesar! to fly, you have treasures; behold the sea, you
have ships; but tremble lest the desire of life should expose you to
wretched exile and ignominious death. For my own part, I adhere to
the maxim of antiquity, that the throne is a glorious sepulchre." The
firmness of a woman restored the courage to deliberate and act, and
courage soon discovers the resources of the most desperate situation.
It was an easy and a decisive measure to revive the animosity of the
factions; the blues were astonished at their own guilt and folly, that
a trifling injury should provoke them to conspire with their implacable
enemies against a gracious and liberal benefactor; they again proclaimed
the majesty of Justinian; and the greens, with their upstart emperor,
were left alone in the hippodrome. The fidelity of the guards was
doubtful; but the military force of Justinian consisted in three
thousand veterans, who had been trained to valor and discipline in the
Persian and Illyrian wars. Under the command of Belisarius and Mundus,
they silently marched in two divisions from the palace, forced their
obscure way through narrow passages, expiring flames, and falling
edifices, and burst open at the same moment the two opposite gates of
the hippodrome. In this narrow space, the disorderly and affrighted
crowd was incapable of resisting on either side a firm and regular
attack; the blues signalized the fury of their repentance; and it is
computed, that above thirty thousand persons were slain in the merciless
and promiscuous carnage of the day. Hypatius was dragged from his
throne, and conducted, with his brother Pompey, to the feet of the
emperor: they implored his clemency; but their crime was manifest,
their innocence uncertain, and Justinian had been too much terrified to
forgive. The next morning the two nephews of Anastasius, with eighteen
_illustrious_ accomplices, of patrician or consular rank, were privately
executed by the soldiers; their bodies were thrown into the sea, their
palaces razed, and their fortunes confiscated. The hippodrome itself
was condemned, during several years, to a mournful silence: with the
restoration of the games, the same disorders revived;