Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/334

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consulship^[1] and, in order to consolidate his popularity, he determined to signalize the occasion by those lavish festivities which were recorded from time to time among the wonders of the age. But times had changed since the Roman public might be edified or disgraced by those spectacles in which human and animal combatants fought to the death, in mimic land and sea warfare or hunting encounters, to the number of many thousands; and the chronicler, in referring to a half-hundred of lions and pards, evolutions of mail-clad horses, and an increased largess of scattered coin, in addition to the usual races, bear-baiting, and theatrical shows, thinks he indicates sufficiently how far the Consul of the day surpassed the ordinary expectations of the Byzantine populace.^[2] Having finally won over the capital by these gratifications,

↑ Memorials of this consulate still exist, and samples of the diptychs are preserved at Paris and Milan; Corp. Insc. Lat., loc. cit. Unfortunately they are simple in design and do not attempt a likeness of Justinian. From them we learn that at this time he had assumed the names of Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Justinianus; for reproductions see Molinier, Hist. gen. des Arts, etc., Paris, 1896, and Diehl, op. cit. Perhaps the later diptych in Gori represents him; see p. 50. As to the adulatory attempts to fasten the name of Anicius on Justin and his nephew in order to connect them with the most distinguished Roman family of the age, see Ludewig and Isambert (op. cit.), who have discussed the question at length. Justinian and St. Benedict, a contemporary, are brought into relationship and presented as scions of the same race as the existing royal house of Hapsburg.
↑ Marcellinus Com., an. 521. Trajan, after his conquest of the Dacians, exhibited 10,000 gladiators and 11,000 animals in the Colosseum; Dion Cass., lxviii, 15. Under Claudius I a naval battle for sport on Lake Fucinus brought 100 ships, manned by 19,000 combatants, into play; Tacitus, Ann., xii, 56; Dion Cass., lx, 33. Real warfare among the Grecian states was often on a less extensive scale. Justinian's display cost about £150,000, his first considerable draught on the savings of Anastasius.

[1] Memorials of this consulate still exist, and samples of the diptychs are preserved at Paris and Milan; Corp. Insc. Lat., loc. cit. Unfortunately they are simple in design and do not attempt a likeness of Justinian. From them we learn that at this time he had assumed the names of Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Justinianus; for reproductions see Molinier, Hist. gen. des Arts, etc., Paris, 1896, and Diehl, op. cit. Perhaps the later diptych in Gori represents him; see p. 50. As to the adulatory attempts to fasten the name of Anicius on Justin and his nephew in order to connect them with the most distinguished Roman family of the age, see Ludewig and Isambert (op. cit.), who have discussed the question at length. Justinian and St. Benedict, a contemporary, are brought into relationship and presented as scions of the same race as the existing royal house of Hapsburg.

[2] Marcellinus Com., an. 521. Trajan, after his conquest of the Dacians, exhibited 10,000 gladiators and 11,000 animals in the Colosseum; Dion Cass., lxviii, 15. Under Claudius I a naval battle for sport on Lake Fucinus brought 100 ships, manned by 19,000 combatants, into play; Tacitus, Ann., xii, 56; Dion Cass., lx, 33. Real warfare among the Grecian states was often on a less extensive scale. Justinian's display cost about £150,000, his first considerable draught on the savings of Anastasius.

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