I will now relate the manner in which he got possession of the
wealth of the world, after I have first mentioned a vision which was
seen in a dream by a person of distinction at the commencement of his
reign. He thought he was standing on the coast at Byzantium, opposite
Chalcedon, and saw Justinian standing in the midst of the channel. The
latter drank up all the water of the sea, so that it seemed as if he
were standing on dry land, since the water no longer filled the strait.
After this, other streams of water, full of filth and rubbish, flowing
in from the underground sewers on either side, covered the dry land.
Justinian again swallowed these, and the bed of the channel again
became dry. Such was the vision this person beheld in his dream.
This Justinian, when his uncle Justin succeeded to the throne, found
the treasury well filled, for Anastasius, the most provident and
economical of all the Emperors, fearing (what actually happened) that
his successor, if he found himself in want of money, would probably
plunder his subjects, filled the treasure-houses with vast stores of
gold before his death. Justinian exhausted all this wealth in a very
short time, partly by senseless buildings on the coast, partly by
presents to the barbarians, although one would have imagined that a
successor, however profligate and extravagant, would have been unable
to have spent it in a hundred years; for the superintendents of the
treasures and other royal possessions asserted that Anastasius, during
his reign of more than twenty-seven years, had without any difficulty
accumulated 320,000 centenars, of which absolutely nothing remained, it
having all been spent by this man during the lifetime of his uncle, as
I have related above. It is impossible to describe or estimate the vast
sums which he appropriated to himself during his lifetime by illegal
means and wasted in extravagance; for he swallowed up the fortunes of
his subjects like an ever-flowing river, daily absorbing them in order
to disgorge them amongst the barbarians. Having thus squandered the
wealth of the State, he cast his eyes upon his private subjects. Most
of them he immediately deprived of their possessions with unbounded
rapacity and violence, at the same time bringing against the wealthy
inhabitants of Byzantium, and those of other cities who were reputed to
be so, charges utterly without foundation. Some were accused of
polytheism, others of heresy; some of sodomy, others of amours with
holy women; some of unlawful intercourse, others of attempts at
sedition; some of favouring the Green faction, others of high treason,
or any other charge that could be brought against them. On his own
responsibility he made himself heir not only of the dead, but also of
the living, as opportunity offered. In such matters he showed himself
an accomplished diplomatist. I have already mentioned above how he
profited by the sedition named Nika which was directed against him, and
immediately made himself heir of all the members of the Senate, and
how, shortly before the sedition broke out, he obtained possession of
the fortunes of private individuals. On every occasion he bestowed
handsome presents upon all the barbarians alike, those of East and
West, and North and South, as far as the inhabitants of the British
Islands and of the whole world, nations of whom we had not even heard
before, and whose names we did not know, until we became acquainted
with them through their ambassadors. When these nations found out
Justinian's disposition, they flocked to Byzantium from all parts of
the world to present themselves to him. He, without any hesitation,
overjoyed at the occurrence, and regarding it as a great piece of good
luck to be able to drain the Roman treasury and fling its wealth to
barbarians or the waves of the sea, dismissed them every day loaded
with handsome presents. In this manner the barbarians became absolute
masters of the wealth of the Romans, either by the donations which they
received from the Emperor, their pillaging of the Empire, the ransom of
their prisoners, or their trafficking in truces. This was the
signification of the dream which I have mentioned above.