some protection to the
peasants and cattle of the neighboring villages. Yet these military
works, which exhausted the public treasure, could not remove the just
apprehensions of Justinian and his European subjects. The warm baths of
Anchialus in Thrace were rendered as safe as they were salutary; but the
rich pastures of Thessalonica were foraged by the Scythian cavalry;
the delicious vale of Tempe, three hundred miles from the Danube,
was continually alarmed by the sound of war; and no unfortified spot,
however distant or solitary, could securely enjoy the blessings of
peace. The Straits of Thermopylae, which seemed to protect, but which had
so often betrayed, the safety of Greece, were diligently strengthened
by the labors of Justinian. From the edge of the sea-shore, through
the forests and valleys, and as far as the summit of the Thessalian
mountains, a strong wall was continued, which occupied every practicable
entrance. Instead of a hasty crowd of peasants, a garrison of two
thousand soldiers was stationed along the rampart; granaries of corn
and reservoirs of water were provided for their use; and by a precaution
that inspired the cowardice which it foresaw, convenient fortresses
were erected for their retreat. The walls of Corinth, overthrown by
an earthquake, and the mouldering bulwarks of Athens and Plataea, were
carefully restored; the Barbarians were discouraged by the prospect of
successive and painful sieges: and the naked cities of Peloponnesus
were covered by the fortifications of the Isthmus of Corinth. At the
extremity of Europe, another peninsula, the Thracian Chersonesus, runs
three days' journey into the sea, to form, with the adjacent shores
of Asia, the Straits of the Hellespont. The intervals between eleven
populous towns were filled by lofty woods, fair pastures, and arable
lands; and the isthmus, of thirty seven stadia or furlongs, had been
fortified by a Spartan general nine hundred years before the reign of
Justinian. In an age of freedom and valor, the slightest rampart may
prevent a surprise; and Procopius appears insensible of the superiority
of ancient times, while he praises the solid construction and double
parapet of a wall, whose long arms stretched on either side into
the sea; but whose strength was deemed insufficient to guard the
Chersonesus, if each city, and particularly Gallipoli and Sestus, had
not been secured by their peculiar fortifications. The _long_ wall, as
it was emphati