And what if he discovered (or thought that he discovered) that these prating coxcombs--who were actually living on government bounty, and had their daily bread, daily bath, daily oil, daily pork, daily wine, found for them at government expense, while they lounged from the theatre to the church, and the church to the theatre--were plotting with Justin the scoundrel and upstart Emperor at Constantinople, to restore forsooth the liberties of Rome? And that that was their answer to his three and thirty years of good government, respect, indulgence, which had raised them up again out of all the miseries of domestic anarchy and foreign invasion? And what if he discovered (or thought that he discovered) that the Catholic Clergy, with Pope John at their head, were in the very same plot for bringing in the Emperor of Constantinople, on the grounds of religion; because he was persecuting the Arian Goths at Constantinople, and therefore would help them to persecute them in Italy? And that that was their answer to his three and thirty years of unexampled religious liberty? Would not those two facts (even the belief that they were facts) have been enough to drive many a wise man mad? How far they were facts, we never shall exactly know. Almost all our information comes from Catholic historians--and he would be a rash man who would pin his faith on any statement of theirs concerning the actions of a heretic. But I think, even with no other help than theirs, we may see why Dietrich would have looked with horror on any intimacy between the Church of Rome and the Court of Constantinople. We must remember first what the Greek Empire was then, and who was the new Emperor. Anastasius the poor old Emperor, dying at eighty with his heart broken by monks and priests, had an ugly dream; and told it to Amantius the eunuch and lord chamberlain. Whereon Amantius said he had had a dream too;--how a great hog flew at him as he was in waiting in the very presence, and threw him down and eat him fairly up. Which came true--though not in the way Amantius expected. On the death of Anastasius he determined to set up as Emperor a creature of his own. For this purpose he must buy the guards; to which noble end he put a large sum of treasure into the hands of Justin, senator, and commander-in-chief of the said guards, who takes the money, and spends it on his own account; so that the miserable eunuch finds, not his man, but Justin himself, Emperor, and his hard-earned money spent against him. The mere rise of this unscrupulous swindler and his still more unscrupulous nephew, Justinian, would have been enough to rouse Dietrich's suspicion, if not fear.