Into a capital thus agitated by numberless grievances of its own, a varied crowd of fugitives from the provinces began to pour, in the autumn of 531. Their proper abodes had been made uninhabitable for them, and they fled in terror from the local tyrants to seek redress at the hands of the autocrator. Peasant farmers with their wives, priests, monks, and nuns, often accompanied by their lawyers, thronged the city as they pressed onwards to lay their appeals at the foot of the throne.[1] They clamoured incessantly in all the public places, so that to meet the emergency it became necessary to revive a number of forgotten magistracies, praetors and quaesitors,[2] who might hear complaints and appease the rising tumult. On all sides the populace reviled the bureaucracy who had brought about such an impass, and, as the old year went out, a general feeling prevailed that the existing order of things must come to an end.[3]
- [Footnote: case of Callinicus, governor of Cilicia, who was impaled for vindicating
the law by the execution of two murderers of the Blue Faction. Procopius (Anecd., 29) also recounts an émeute at Tarsus, in which the Blues were the principals. In both these cases the part of violent vengeance was played by Theodora. Evagrius lies under the suspicion of having read the Anecdotes of Procopius. If so, the fact that he makes no protest against the picture there given of the Empress proves his belief in its truth. In a parallel case he strongly defends Constantine against the strictures of Zosimus; iii, 40, 41. Zonaras also seems to be influenced by the work. Indeed it is difficult to see how he could have avoided knowing it since it was familiar to "Suidas" before his time.]
- ↑ Jn. Lydus, loc. cit., 70; cf. Nov. xxiv, 2; xxv, 3; xxx, 9; cxxviii, praef.; cxlv, praef. Most fully in Nov. lxxx, e.g., "We find that the provinces are being gradually despoiled of their inhabitants; our great city here is populous with crowds of diverse men, chiefly farmers who have left their townships and lands." Also specified as men, women, clerics, monks, nuns, and advocates of outlying places.
- ↑ Jn. Lydus, loc. cit., 70; cf. ii, 29, 30; Nov. xiii, lxxx.
- ↑ Jn. Lydus, loc. cit., 70; Zonaras, xiv, 6.
