The Secret History

by

Procopius of Caesarea

translated by Richard Atwater

(Chicago: P. Covici, 1927 New York Covici Friede 1927)

Reprinted, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1961, with indication
that copyright had expired on the text of the translation.

20. DEBASING OF THE QUAESTORSHIP

He also had contrived other ways of plundering his subjects (which I will now
describe as well as I can) by which he robbed them, not all at once, but little
by little of their entire fortunes. First he appointed a new municipal magistrate,
with the power to license shopkeepers to sell their wares at whatever prices they
desired: for which privilege they paid an annual tax. Accordingly, people buying
their provisions in these shops had to pay three times what the stuff was worth,
and complainants had no redress, though great harm was thus done; for the magistrates
saw to it that the imperial tax was fattened accordingly, which was to their advantage.
Thus the government officials shared in this disgraceful business, while the shopkeepers,
empowered to act illegally, cheated unbearably those who had to buy from them, not
only by raising their prices many times over, as I have said, but by defrauding
customers in other unheard-of ways.

Again he licensed many monopolies, as they -are called; selling the freedom of
his subjects to those who were willing to undertake this reprehensible traffic,
after he had exacted his price for the privilege. To those who made this arrangement
with him, he gave the power to manage the business however they pleased; and he
sold this privilege openly, even to all the other magistrates. And since the Emperor
always got his little share of the plundering, these officials and their subordinates
in charge of the work, did their robbing with small anxiety.

As if the formerly appointed magistrates were not enough for this purpose, he
created two new ones; though the municipal Prefect had formerly been able to look
after all criminal charges. His real reason for the change was, of course, so that
he could have additional informers, and thus misuse the innocent with more celerity.
Of the two new officials, one, nominally appointed to punish thieves, was called
Praetor of the People; the other was charged with the punishment of cases of pederasty,
illegal intercourse with women, blasphemy, and heresy; and his official name was
Quaestor.

Now the Praetor, whenever he found anything very valuable among the stolen goods
that came to his notice, was supposed to give it to the Emperor and say that no
owner had appeared to claim it. In this way the Emperor continually got possession
of priceless goods. And the Quaestor, when he condemned persons coming before him,
confiscated as much as he pleased of their properties, and the Emperor shared with
him each time in the lawlessly gained riches of other people. For the subordinates
of these magistrates neither produced accusers nor offered witnesses when these
cases came to trial, but during all this time the accused were put to death, and
their properties seized without due trial and examination.

Later, this murdering devil ordered these officials and the municipal Prefect
to deal with all criminal charges on equal terms: telling them to vie with each
other to see which of them could destroy the most people in the shortest time. And
one of them asked him at once, they say, “If somebody is sometime denounced before
all three of us, which of us shall have jurisdiction over the case?” Whereupon he
replied, “Whichever of you acts faster than the rest.”

Thus shamelessly he debased the Quaestor’s office, which former emperors almost
without exception had held in high regard, taking care that the men they appointed
to it were experienced and wise, law-abiding, and uncorruptible by bribes; since
otherwise it would be a calamity to the state, if men holding this high office were
ignorant or avaricious.

But the first man that this Emperor appointed to the office was Tribonian, whose
actions I have fully related elsewhere. And when Tribonian departed from this world,
Justinian seized a portion of his estate, though a son and many other children were
left destitute when the fellow ended the final day of his life. Junilus, a Libyan,
was next appointed to this office: a man who had never even heard the law, for he
was not a rhetorician; he knew the Latin letters, but as far as Greek went, he had
never even gone to school, and was unable to speak the language. Frequently when
he tried to say a Greek word, he was laughed at by his servants. And he was so damned
greedy for base gain, that he thought nothing of publicly selling the Emperor’s
decrees. For one gold coin he would hold out his palm to anybody without hesitation.
And for not less than seven years’ time the State shared the ridicule earned by
this petty grafter.

When Junilus completed the measure of his life, Constantine was appointed Quaestor:
a man not unacquainted with law, but exceeding young, and without actual experience
in court; and the most thievish bully among men. Of this person Justinian was very
fond, and became his bosom friend, since through him the Emperor saw he could steal
and run the office as he wished. Consequently, Constantine had great wealth in a
short time, and assumed an air of prodigious pomp, with his nose in the clouds despising
all men; and even those who wanted to offer him large bribes had to entrust them
to those who were in his special confidence, to offer him together with their requests;
for it was never possible to meet or talk with him, except when he was running to
the Emperor or had just left him, and even then he trotted by in a great hurry,
lest his time be wasted by somebody who had no money to give him. This is what the
Emperor did to the quaestorship.