The Emperor Justinian was born in our time,[1] and succeeding to the throne when the state was decayed, added greatly to its extent and glory by driving out from it the barbarians, who for so long a time had forced their way into it, as I have briefly narrated in my ‘History of the Wars.’ They say that Themistocles, the son of Neocles, prided himself on his power of making a small state great, but our Emperor has the power of adding other states to his own, for he has annexed to the Roman Empire many other states which at his accession were independent, and has founded innumerable cities which had no previous existence. As for religion, which he found uncertain and torn by various heresies, he destroyed everything which could lead to error, and securely established the true faith upon one solid foundation. Moreover, finding the laws obscure through their unnecessary multitude, and confused by their conflict with one another, he firmly established them by reducing the number of those which were unnecessary, and in the case of those that were contradictory, by confirming the better ones. He forgave of his own accord those who plotted against him, and, by loading with wealth those who were in want, and relieving them from the misfortunes which had afflicted them, he rendered the empire stable and its members happy. By increasing his armies he strengthened the Roman Empire, which lay everywhere exposed to the attacks of barbarians, and fortified its entire frontier by building strong places. Of his other acts the greater part have been described by me in other works, but his great achievements in building are set forth in this book. We learn from tradition that Cyrus the Persian was a great king, and the chief founder of the empire of his countrymen; but whether he had any resemblance to that Cyrus who is described by Xenophon the Athenian in his Cyropædia, I have no means of telling, for possibly the art of the writer has given some embellishments to his achievements; while as for our present Emperor Justinian (whom I think one may rightly call a king by nature, since, as Homer says, he is as gentle as a father), if one accurately considers his empire, one will regard that of Cyrus as mere child’s play.[2] The proof of this will be that the empire, as I just now said, has been more than doubled by him, both in extent and in power; whilst his royal clemency is proved by the fact that those who wickedly plotted against his life, although they were clearly convicted, not only are alive and in possession of their property at the present day, but even command Roman armies, and have been promoted to the consular dignity. Now, as I said before, we must turn our attention to the buildings of this monarch, lest posterity, beholding the enormous size and number of them, should deny their being the work of one man; for the works of many men of former times, not being confirmed by history, have been disbelieved through their own excessive greatness.