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.

CHAPTER XX

Besides this, Justinian found other means of contriving to plunder his subjects, not en masse and at once, but by degrees and individually.  These methods I will now proceed to describe as well as I am able.  First of all he appointed a new magistrate, who had the right of conferring upon all those who kept shops the privilege of selling their wares at whatever price they pleased, on payment of a yearly rent to the Emperor.  The citizens were compelled to make their purchases in the market, where they paid three times as much as elsewhere; nor, although he suffered severe loss, was the purchaser allowed to claim damages from anyone, for part of the profit went to the Emperor, and part to increase the salary of these officials.  Purchasers were equally cheated