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JUSTINIAN AND THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 140 out at Constantinople as it was doing in the West, but it was preserved in cold storage. Constantinople was not only to continue a center of art and learning, while the West sank deeper and deeper into barbarism and ignorance ; it was also to continue ~ . . Commerce to be a great emporium of trade. It was a city of Constan- of a million inhabitants, where the height of the tinople houses had to be regulated, at a time when town life had almost disappeared in the West and when even Rome had shrunk to a population of a few thousands. Justinian tried j to develop industry and commerce and to establish a trade J route to the Far East that would not need to pass through I the hostile Persian Kingdom. Toward the close of his reign j two missionaries introduced silkworms from the East. The i commerce of Merovingian Gaul was largely in the hands of Byzantines, who had trading stations at Marseilles, Bor- deaux, and Orleans. By way of Cartagena and Barcelona they traded with the interior of the Visigothic Kingdom. The coins of the emperors were copied by the Frankish kings into the seventh century, and the "byzant" was the standard coin of the Mediterranean world. Constantinople imported grain from Egypt for its populace, who also ate salted provisions a good deal — fish, ham, and cheese. The city had a good fresh vegetable market, however, and a large trade in wine. The chief articles of manufacture at Constantinople were its fine cloths, silks, or silver and gold brocades. But the finest fabrics, made in the imperial work- shops, were not allowed to be exported, and left the city only as gifts from the emperor to foreign potentates. The latter part of Justinian's reign was a rather gloomy period, when the old emperor, who came to care less and less for the things of this world, neglected the Weakness army and other departments of the government. ° f ^® tine A destructive plague, which prevailed for four Empire after years, and, according to Procopius, killed the J ustiman best and left the worst men, perhaps made the difference between the earlier period and the close of his reign. Under his successors things went from bad to worse. While the