stantine Koliades, or some
malicious wit under this name, has written a tall folio to prove Ulysses
to be Homer, and himself the descendant, the heir (?), of the Eumaeus of
the Odyssey.--M]

[Footnote 411: St. Martin questions the fact in both cases. The
ignorance of Justin rests on the secret history of Procopius, vol. viii.
p. 8. St. Martin's notes on Le Beau.--M]

[Footnote 5: His virtues are praised by Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c.
11.) The quaestor Proclus was the friend of Justinian, and the enemy of
every other adoption.]

Since the eunuch Amantius had been defrauded of his money, it became
necessary to deprive him of his life. The task was easily accomplished
by the charge of a real or fictitious conspiracy; and the judges were
informed, as an accumulation of guilt, that he was secretly addicted
to the Manichaean heresy. [6] Amantius lost his head; three of his
companions, the first domestics of the palace, were punished either with
death or exile; and their unfortunate candidate for the purple was cast
into a deep dungeon, overwhelmed with stones, and ignominiously thrown,
without burial, into the sea. The ruin of Vitalian was a work of more
difficulty and danger. That Gothic chief had rendered himself popular by
the civil war which he boldly waged against Anastasius for the defence
of the orthodox faith, and after the conclusion of an advantageous
treaty, he still remained in the neighborhood of Constantinople at the
head of a formidable and victorious army of Barbarians. By the frail
security of oaths, he was tempted to relinquish this advantageous
situation, and to trust his person within the walls of a city, whose
inhabitants, particularly the blue faction, were artfully incensed
against him by the remembrance even of his pious hostilities. The
emperor and his nephew embraced him as the faithful and worthy champion
of the church and state; and gratefully adorned their favorite with
the titles of consul and general; but in the seventh month of his
consulship, Vitalian was stabbed with seventeen wounds at the royal
banquet; [7] and Justinian, who inherited the spoil, was accused as the
assassin of a spiritual brother, to whom he had recently pledged his
faith in the participation of the Christian mysteries. [8] After the
fall of his rival, he was promoted, without any claim of military
service, to the office of master-general of the Eastern armies, whom it
was his duty to lead into the field against the pub