ose poor wretches were obliged to support themselves upon bread
full of dust, for the Emperor did not blush to carry his avarice to
this extent. Seizing upon this as an excuse, the superintendents of
the markets, eager to fill their own pockets, in a short time acquired
great wealth, and, in spite of the cheapness of food, reduced the poor
to a state of artificial and unexpected famine; for they were not
allowed to import corn from any other parts, but were obliged to eat
bread purchased in the city.

One of the city aqueducts had broken, and a considerable portion of
the water destined for the use of the inhabitants was lost. Justinian,
however, took no notice of it, being unwilling to incur any expense
for repairs, although a great crowd continually thronged round the
fountains, and all the baths had been shut. Nevertheless, he expended
vast sums without any reason or sense upon buildings on the seashore,
and also built everywhere throughout the suburbs, as if the palaces,
in which their predecessors had always been content to live, were no
longer suitable for himself and Theodora; so that it was not merely
parsimony, but a desire for the destruction of human life, that
prevented him from repairing the aqueduct, for no one, from most
ancient times, had ever shown himself more eager than Justinian to
amass wealth, and at the same time to spend it in a most wasteful and
extravagant manner. Thus this Emperor struck at the poorest and most
miserable of his subjects through two most necessary articles of
food--bread and water, by making the one difficult to procure, and the
other too dear for them to buy.

It was not only the poor of Byzantium, however, that he harassed in
this manner, but, as I will presently mention, the inhabitants of
several other cities. When Theodoric had made himself master of Italy,
in order to preserve some trace of the old constitution, he permitted
the praetorian guards to remain in the palace and continued their
daily allowance. These soldiers were very numerous. There were the
Silentiarii, the Domestici, and the Scholares, about whom there was
nothing military except the name, and their salary was hardly
sufficient to live upon. Theodoric also ordered that their children
and descendants should have the reversion of this. To the poor, who
lived near the church of Peter the Apostle, he distributed every year
3,000 bushels of corn out of the public stores. All continued to
receive these donatio