ts." All that the Roman
See had gained was that the orthodox bishops and many conspicuous easterns
attached themselves to it, and the formulary binding them to obedience to
the decisions of the Roman See found very many subscribers. The empire was
in the greatest confusion when Anastasius died suddenly in the year 518,
hated by the majority of his people, as perjured, heretical, and rapacious.
Just before him died the heretical patriarchs, John II. of Alexandria and
Timotheus of Constantinople.

Then suddenly,[100] as in the third century the Illyrian emperors saved the
dissolving empire, another peasant, who in long and honourable service had
risen to the rank of general, and was respected by all men as a virtuous
man and a good Catholic, was called to take up that eastern crown of
Constantine, which Zeno and Anastasius had soiled with the iniquities and
perfidies of forty years.

At Bederiana, on the borders of Thrace and Illyria, there had lived three
young men, Zimarchus, Ditybiotus, and Justin. Under pressure of misfortune
they deserted the plough, and sought a livelihood elsewhere. They started
on foot, their clothes packed on their backs, no money in their purses,
with a loaf in their knapsacks. They came to Byzantium and enlisted. Twenty
years of age and well grown, they attracted the notice of the emperor Leo
I.: he enrolled them among his life-guards. Justin served as captain in the
Isaurian war. For some unknown fault he was condemned to death by his
general, and the next day was to be executed. The general, says Procopius,
was changed by a vision which he saw that night. Under Anastasius, Justin
rose to the rank of senator, patrician, and commander of the imperial
guard. On the death of Anastasius, the eunuch Amantius, who was lord
chamberlain, and had been up to that time all powerful, sent for Justin,
and gave him great sums of money to get the voice of the soldiers and the
people, for a creature of his own, named Theocritus, in whose name he
intended to rule. Justin distributed the money in his own name, and on the
9th July was proclaimed emperor by army and people. He was sixty-eight
years old, and, if Procopius may be believed, could not even write his own
name, at least in Latin. But he was of long experience, and admirable in
the management of affairs. His wife was named Lupicina, of barbarian birth.
Justin, in the first year of his service, had bought her as a slave, and
married her. When he became e