votaries of Islam. If the Vandal kingdom had been left undisturbed, there is no reason to suppose that it could have withstood the conquering fanatics who were inspired by the Apostle of Mecca; although the existence of a flourishing Western civilization for more than seven hundred years between the Red Sea and the Atlantic proves that states of the highest European type might be permanently established in those latitudes. The subject need not be pursued into further detail; the samples given illustrate sufficiently how the Græco-Roman power became progressively dilapidated, with occasional intervals of better fortune, until in the fifteenth century the Byzantine Empire became synonymous with the area circumscribed by the walls of Constantinople. In 1453 the city was taken by the Turks, and the fact announced to Christendom that civilization and progress in the modern sense had become extinct in three-fourths of the countries which lie around the basin of the Mediterranean.[1]
Shortly after his accession we find Justin II reprobating in the old strain the rapacity of the Rectors,[2] deploring the fact that they buy instead of earning their appointments as
- ↑ The history of the Empire up to the fall of Constantinople, has been narrated by Gibbon, and at greater length by Finlay. The fullest account of the siege is that of Pears, Lond., 1896.
- ↑ Nov. clxi. At all times and places the Byzantine system was so oppressive, that even the Abasgi and Tzani, who were supposed to have found salvation in Christianity (pp. 700, 702), revolted to the Persians and had to be reconquered; Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iv, 9; Agathias, v, 1. Notwithstanding his Roman experience, his having retrieved his character at Petra, and his age, Bessas at once entered on another campaign of fiscal extortion in Pontus and Armenia; Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iv, 13. Justin also, the son of Germanus, countenanced a subordinate in harrying the farmers for military stores which they could not supply, in lieu of which they had to buy off their liability for an exorbitant sum; Agathias, iv, 22.
