Such scenes became familiar to the people as the years of victory rolled on. They saw, too, Belisarius, drawn through the streets in his chariot by the captives of his wars, when he received the dignity of Patrician. The empire of Justinian, based upon the old laws which he collected and enlarged, cherishing the traditions of old Rome, was eager to revive every glory of former days. "And then," says Procopius, who himself the bitterest of satirists of the present, looked not unkindly on the past, "men saw things long forgotten thus renewed by time." But the picture, brilliant though it was, was not unclouded. The city of the Cæsars was again and again threatened by barbarians and struck by the visitation of God. In 542 Constantinople was devastated by a terrible pestilence, the bubonic plague, that has lost none of its terrors in fifteen hundred years. For four months it raged, and at its height Procopius declares that as many as ten thousand perished in a day. It spared no constitution and no age, and God alone could be the cause of it. Justinian, who was one of the few who recovered, was assiduous in charitable aid; but the loss to the city could hardly be conceived--no trades, no shops, says the recorder of many horrors, remained, and "many for fear leaving their bad courses, consecrated themselves to God, and many when the danger was passed fell to their old despising of God again." After plagues came famines and earthquakes, and in the last year of the reign, the dread army of the Huns, under Zabergan, drew nigh even to the walls of Constantinople, murdering and ravaging as they came. Hastily the treasures of the church northwards of the city were brought for safety within the walls, and Belisarius in old age again came forward to save the empire. It was his last victory, and seven years later he passed away, honoured and beloved. The Emperor himself died but a few weeks later in November 565. The glories of the reign had passed away before the aged ruler laid down his power; but he left a reconquered Empire and a capital that was the wonder of the world. He left too a memory as a theologian, which the church for some centuries continued specially to honour in her most solemn service. Justinian, the legislator, the builder and the organizer of victory, seemed to the vision of Dante to dwell like the sun in perpetual light. _Sì come'l sol, che si cela egli stessi Per troppa luce, quando il caldo ha rose Le temperanze de' vapori spessi; Per più letizia sì mi si nascose Dento al suo raggio la figura santa._