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 four letters, making it follow all the convolutions cut in the wood, and then retired with the result as the Emperor’s signature.  This was how the affairs of the Empire were managed under Justin.  His wife was named Lupicina; she was a slave and a barbarian, whom he had bought for his mistress, and at the close of his life she ascended the throne with him.  Justin was not strong enough to do his subjects either good or harm; he was utterly simple, a very poor speaker, and a complete boor.  Justinian was his sister’s son, who, when quite a young man, practically governed the State, and brought more woe upon the Romans than anyone we have ever heard of before.  He was ever ready to commit unrighteous murders and rob men of their estates, and thought nothing of making away with tens of thousands of men who had given him no cause for doing so.  He had no respect for established