(95)
the best and richest part of the Countrey. This Emperor, who could not contain himself in one and the same state, and seemed to be born to put all things in confusion, forbid the Arians the exercise of their Religion, and deferred always to send supplies to his Army; till at length they began to mutiny, and so many Seditions were ready to break out, as would certainly have indangered the peace and tranquility of the whole Government.
He dispeopled Italy of its Inhabitants, much more then he had done the Coast of Africa, which was three times of greater extent; from whence a probable computation may be made of the numbers which he occasionally ruined; for I have elswhere spoke of the original of his Wars in Italy.
The same exactions that he used in Africk, he used likewise in Italy, having ravaged all by the means of certain receivers which he called Logothetes: Before the Wars in Italy, the Empire of the Goths extended from Gaule or France, as far as the confines of Dacia, or the City of Sirmium; and when the Roman Troops were in Italy, the Germans possessed the best part of Gallia Cisalpina, and the Countrey belonging to Venice. Sirmium and the Countrey adjacent, were in the hands of the Gepides: All this vast tract of Ground was depopulated in the Raign of the Emperor Justinian, partly by War, partly by Famine, partly by the Plague, and by other evils that are inseparably concomitant with War. Illyrium, Thrace, Greece, the Chersoness, and all
