Tribunianus and John were thus deprived of office, but at a later time they were both restored to the same positions.  And Tribunianus lived on in office many years and died of disease, suffering no further harm from anyone.  For he was a smooth fellow and agreeable in every way and well able by the excellence of his education to throw into the shade his affliction of avarice.  But John was oppressive and severe alike with all men, inflicting blows upon those whom he met and plundering without respect absolutely all their money; consequently in the tenth year of his office he rightly and justly atoned for his lawless conduct in the following manner.

The Empress Theodora hated him above all others.  And while he gave offence to the woman by the wrongs he committed, he was not of a mind to win her by flattery or by kindness in any way, but he openly set himself in opposition to her and kept slandering her to the emperor, neither blushing before her high station nor feeling shame because of the extraordinary love which the emperor felt for her.  When the queen perceived what was being done, she purposed to slay the man, but in no way could she do this, since the Emperor Justinian set great store by him.  And when John learned of the purpose of the queen regarding him, he was greatly terrified.  And whenever he went into his chamber to sleep, he expected every night that some one of the barbarians would fall upon him to slay him; and he kept peeping out of the room and looking about the entrances and remained sleepless, although he had attached to himself many thousands of spearmen and guards, a thing which had been granted to no prefect before that time.  But at daybreak, forgetting all his fears of things divine and human, he would become again a plague to all the Romans both in public and in private.  And he conversed commonly with sorcerers, and constantly listened to profane oracles which portended for him the imperial office, so that he was plainly walking on air and lifted up by his hopes of the royal power.  But in his rascality and the lawlessness of his conduct there was no moderation or abatement.  And there was in him absolutely no regard for God, and even when he went to a sanctuary to pray and to pass the night, he did not do at all as the Christians are wont to do, but he clothed himself in a coarse garment appropriate to a priest of the old faith which they are now accustomed to call Hellenic, and throughout that whole night mumbled out some unholy words which he had practised, praying that the mind of the emperor might be still more under his control, and that he himself might be free from harm at the hands of all men.