of Byzantium.

In all the cities throughout the Empire, Justinian selected for the
highest offices the most abandoned persons he could find, and sold to
them for vast sums the positions which they degraded. In fact, no
honest man, possessed of the least common sense, would ever have
thought of risking his own fortune in order to plunder those who had
committed no offence. When Justinian had received the money from those
with whom he made the bargain, he gave them full authority to deal
with their subjects as they pleased, so that, by the destruction of
provinces and populations, they might enrich themselves in the future;
for, since they had borrowed large sums from the bankers at heavy
rates of interest to purchase their magistracies, and had paid the sum
due to him who sold them, when they arrived in the cities, they
treated their subjects with every kind of tyranny, paying heed to
nothing save how they might fulfil their engagements with their
creditors and lay up great wealth for themselves. They had no
apprehension that their conduct would bring upon them the risk of
punishment; on the contrary, they expected that the greater number of
those whom they plundered put to death without cause, the greater the
reputation they would attain, for the name of murderer and robber was
regarded as a proof of activity. But when Justinian learned that they
had amassed considerable wealth during office, he entangled them in
his net, and on some pretence or other deprived them of all their
riches in a moment.

He had published an edict that candidates for offices should swear
that they would keep themselves free from extortion, that they would
neither give nor receive anything for their offices, and uttered
against those who transgressed the law the most violent curses of
ancient times. The law had not been in force a year when, forgetting
its terms and the malediction which had been pronounced, he
shamelessly put up these offices for sale, not secretly, but publicly
in the market-place, and those who purchased them, in spite of their
oaths to the contrary plundered and ravaged with greater audacity than
before.

He afterwards thought of another contrivance, which may seem
incredible. He resolved no longer to put up for sale, as before, the
offices which he believed to be of greatest repute in Byzantium and
other cities, but sought out a number of hired persons, whom he
appointed at a fixed salary, and ordered to bring all the