[3] Marcellinus[n] says in general terms: _Innumeris populis in circo trucidatis_. Procopius numbers 30,000 victims; and the 35,000 of Theophanes are swelled to 40,000 by the more recent Zonaras. Such is the usual progress of exaggeration. [4] The six books of the _Edifices_ of Procopius[g] are thus distributed. The first is confined to Constantinople; the second includes Mesopotamia and Syria; the third, Armenia and the Euxine; the fourth, Europe; the fifth, Asia Minor and Palestine; the sixth, Egypt and Africa. Italy is forgotten by the emperor or the historian, who published this work of adulation before the date (555 A.D.) of its final conquest. [5] Agathias[c] relates this curious story. Chosroes ascended the throne in the year 531, and made his first peace with the Romans in the beginning of 533. [6] [Theodoric himself, according to Cassiodorus,[j] claimed to model his policy on the Roman, and said to Anastasius, “Our kingdom is an imitation of yours.”] [7] [Procopius[f] says he was born in a district of Thrace called Germania. According to Von Hammer[k] his name is a Slavonic word, “Belitzar,” meaning “white prince.” Bury[l] also thinks it Slavonic, but translates it “white dawn.”] [8] [Bury[l] calls this an “amiable imprudence.”] [9] The army of Belisarius was chiefly composed of barbarian mercenaries, whom he had trained to Roman discipline and strategy. But the inferiority of the Vandals, whose ancestors had conquered hosts still better drilled, proceeded from the degeneracy which was already commencing, after a residence of only thirty years in Africa. Now that they had been for a century masters of the country, the cause, which was shown then to have enervated them, had operated with progressive effect, and reduced them to a state almost as helpless and hopeless as that of the people whom they had subjugated. [10] [“When he beheld the splendour of the imperial court,” Bury[l] says of Gelimer, “he merely said ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,’ a remark which, as Ranke[m] notices, had a sort of historical signification. For along with Gelimer, Belisarius brought to Constantinople those vessels of gold, of which Gaiseric (or Genseric) had robbed Rome, and of which Titus had despoiled Jerusalem. They were part of the riches of the king to whom the words ‘Vanity of vanities’ are traditionally attributed.” As Gibbon states, the vessels were later returned to the Christian church of Jerusalem.] [11] Agathias[c] states that the military establishment of the empire once consisted of 645,000 men. It probably included the local militia and the garrisons. [12] According to Procopius[f] Belisarius told his troops that the Persians excelled them in discipline. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV THE LATER YEARS OF JUSTINIAN’S REIGN [535-565 A.D.] BYZANTIUM RIDS ROME OF THE GOTHS