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THE DECLINE AND FALL
the mouth of the river Sangarius, after he had infested more than half a century the seas of Constantinople.[1]
Fortifications of Europe The fortifications of Europe and Asia were multiplied by Justinian; but the repetition of those timid and fruitless precautions exposes to a philosophic eye the debility of the empire.[2] From Belgrade to the Euxine, from the conflux of the Save to the mouth of the Danube, a chain of above fourscore fortified places was extended along the banks of the great river. Single watch-towers were changed into spacious citadels; vacant walls, which the engineers contracted or enlarged according to the nature of the ground, were filled with colonies or garrisons; a strong fortress defended the ruins of Trajan's bridge,[3] and several military stations affected to spread beyond the Danube the pride of the Roman name. Rut that name was divested of its terrors; the Barbarians, in their annual inroads, passed, and contemptuously repassed, before these useless bulwarks; and the inhabitants of the frontier, instead of reposing under the shadow of the general defence, were compelled to guard, with incessant vigilance, their separate habitations. The solitude of ancient cities was replenished; the new foundations of Justinian acquired, perhaps too hastily, the epithets of impregnable and populous; and the auspicious place of his own nativity attracted the grateful reverence of the vainest of princes. Under the name of Justiniana prima, the obscure village of Tauresium became the seat of an archbishop and a præfect, whose jurisdiction extended over seven warlike provinces of Illyricum;[4] and the corrupt appel-- ↑ Procopius, l. viii. [leg. vii.] 29; most probably a stranger and wanderer, as the Mediterranean does not breed whales. Balænæ quoque in nostra maria penetrant (Plin. Hist. Natur. ix. 2). Between the polar circle and the tropic, the cetaceous animals of the ocean grow to the length of 50, 80, or 100 feet (Hist. des Voyages, tom. xv. p. 289. Pennant's British Zoology, vol. iii. p. 35).
- ↑ Montesquieu observes (tom. iii. p. 503, Considérations sur la Grandeur et la Décadence des Romains, c. xx.) that Justinian's empire was like France in the time of the Norman inroads — never so weak as when every village was fortified. [The author does scant justice to the fortifications of Justinian's time. The best study on the admirable "Byzantine system of defence" (with plans) will be found in Diehl's L'Afrique byzantine, p. 138-225.]
- ↑ Procopius affirms (l. iv. c. 6) that the Danube was stopped by the ruins of the bridge. Had Apollodorus the architect left a description of his own work, the fabulous wonders of Dion Cassius (l. lxviii. p. 1129 [c. 13]) would have been corrected by the genuine picture. Trajan's bridge consisted of twenty or twenty-two stone piles with wooden arches; the river is shallow, the current gentle, and the whole interval no more than 443 (Reimar ad Dion., from Marsigli) or 515 toises (d'Anville Géographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 305).
- ↑ Of the two Dacias, Mediterranea and Ripensis, Dardania, Prævalitana, the second Mæsia, and the second Macedonia [and, 7th, part of the Second Pannonia]. See Justinian (Novell. xi. [xix. ed. Zach.]), who speaks of his castles beyond the Danube, and of homines semper bellicis sudoribus inhnærentes.
