Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but allother spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
The Errata and Additional Corrections have been incorporated, apartfrom those indicated by {} which could not be unambiguously identified.
The cover was prepared by the transcriber and is placed in the publicdomain.
THE AGE OF JUSTINIAN AND
THEODORA
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS
PORTUGAL ST. LINCOLN’S INN, W.C.
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & CO.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY: A. H. WHEELER & CO.
A HISTORY OF THE SIXTH CENTURY A.D.
BY
WILLIAM GORDON HOLMES
VOL. I
SECOND EDITION
LONDON
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
1912
CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
v
Although the age of Justinian is the most interestingand important in the whole series of the Byzantineannals, no comprehensive work has hitherto been devoted tothe subject. The valuable and erudite “Vita Justiniani” ofLudewig is more of a law book than of a biography, and lessof a circumstantial history than of either. The somewhatstrange medley published by Isambert under the title “Viede Justinien” is scarcely a complete chronology of the events,and might be called a manual of the sources rather than ahistory of the times.[1] Excellent accounts, however, of Justinianare to be found in some general histories of the ByzantineEmpire as well as in several biographical dictionaries, whilstmonographs of greater or lesser extent exist under the namesof Perrinus, Invernizi, and Padovani, etc., but any studentof the period would decide that it deserves to be treated atmuch greater length than has been devoted to it in any ofthese books. In the present work the design has been toplace before the reader not only a record of events, but apresentment of the people amongst whom, and of the stageupon which those events occurred. I have also attemptedto correlate the aspects of the ancient and the modernworld in relation to science and progress.
W. G. H.
London,
February, 1905.
vi
This work has now been carefully revised and slightlyenlarged. I am indebted to suggestions from variousreviewers of the first edition for several of the improvementsintroduced. Occasionally, however, they are in error and atvariance among themselves on some of the points noted. Afew of my critics have accused me of being too discursive,especially in my notes, an impression which is the naturalresult of my not having expressed it definitely anywhere thatmy object was to present not merely the sociology and eventsof a particular period, but also to illustrate, in an abridgedsense, the history of all time.
W. G. H.
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