Justinian and Theodora also dealt very harshly with the astrologers, so that the officers appointed to punish thieves proceeded against these men for no other cause than that they were astrologers, dealt many stripes on their backs, and paraded them on camels through the city; yet they were old and respectable men, against whom no reproach could be brought except that they dwelt in Byzantium and were learned about the stars.

There was a continual stream of emigration, not only to the lands of the barbarians, but also to the nations most remote from Rome; and one saw a very great number of foreigners both in the country and in each city of the Empire, for men lightly exchanged their native land for another, as though their own country had been captured by an enemy.

CHAPTER XII

Those who were considered the wealthiest persons in Byzantium and the other cities of the Empire, next after members of the Senate, were robbed of their wealth by Justinian and Theodora in the manner which I have described above.  I shall now describe how they managed to take away all the property of members of the Senate.

There was at Constantinople one Zeno, the grandson of that Anthemius who formerly had been Emperor of the West.  They sent this man to Egypt as governor.  He delayed his departure, while he loaded his ship with precious valuables; for he had silver beyond any man’s counting, and gold plate set with pearls and emeralds, and with other like precious stones.  But Justinian and Theodora bribed some of those who passed for his most faithful servants, to take everything out of the ship as fast as they could, set it on fire in the hold, and then go and tell Zeno that his ship had taken fire of its own accord, and that all his property was lost.  Some time after this Zeno died suddenly, and they took possession of his property as his heirs, producing a will which, it is currently reported, was never made by him.

In like manner they made themselves the heirs of Tatian, of Demosthenes, and of Hilara, persons who at that time held the first rank in the Roman Senate.  They obtained other persons’ fortunes by the production, not of formal wills, but of counterfeit conveyances.  This was how they became the heirs of Dionysius, who dwelt in Libanus, and of John the son of Basil, who was the leading man in Edessa, and had been delivered up to the Persians as a hostage against his will by Belisarius, as I have told already.  Chosroes kept this John a prisoner, and refused to let him go, declaring that the Romans had not performed all the terms of the treaty for which John had been given in pledge by Belisarius, but he was prepared to let him be ransomed as a prisoner of war.  His grandmother, who was still alive, got together the money for his ransom, not less than two thousand pounds of silver, and would have ransomed her grandson; but when this money arrived at Dara, the Emperor heard of the transaction and forbade it, that the wealth of Romans might not be conveyed to barbarians.  Not long after this John fell ill and died; whereupon the governor of the city forged a letter which he said John had written to him as a friend not long before, to the effect that he desired the Emperor to succeed to his property.