d to domestic slavery, they maintained, with their
sword or dagger, the private quarrel of their masters; and it was found
expedient for the public tranquillity to prohibit the service of such
dangerous retainers. When their countryman Tarcalissaeus or Zeno ascended
the throne, he invited a faithful and formidable band of Isaurians, who
insulted the court and city, and were rewarded by an annual tribute of
five thousand pounds of gold. But the hopes of fortune depopulated the
mountains, luxury enervated the hardiness of their minds and bodies, and
in proportion as they mixed with mankind, they became less qualified for
the enjoyment of poor and solitary freedom. After the death of Zeno, his
successor Anastasius suppressed their pensions, exposed their persons
to the revenge of the people, banished them from Constantinople, and
prepared to sustain a war, which left only the alternative of victory or
servitude. A brother of the last emperor usurped the title of Augustus;
his cause was powerfully supported by the arms, the treasures, and the
magazines, collected by Zeno; and the native Isaurians must have formed
the smallest portion of the hundred and fifty thousand Barbarians under
his standard, which was sanctified, for the first time, by the presence
of a fighting bishop. Their disorderly numbers were vanquished in the
plains of Phrygia by the valor and discipline of the Goths; but a war
of six years almost exhausted the courage of the emperor. The Isaurians
retired to their mountains; their fortresses were successively besieged
and ruined; their communication with the sea was intercepted; the
bravest of their leaders died in arms; the surviving chiefs, before
their execution, were dragged in chains through the hippodrome; a colony
of their youth was transplanted into Thrace, and the remnant of the
people submitted to the Roman government. Yet some generations elapsed
before their minds were reduced to the level of slavery. The populous
villages of Mount Taurus were filled with horsemen and archers: they
resisted the imposition of tributes, but they recruited the armies of
Justinian; and his civil magistrates, the proconsul of Cappadocia, the
count of Isauria, and the praetors of Lycaonia and Pisidia, were invested
with military power to restrain the licentious practice of rapes and
assassinations.

Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.--Part V.

If we extend our view from the tropic to the mouth of the Tanais, we may