As Procopius told it, the story of Justinian and Theodora’s rule was one of corruption, depravity, and decay. Most responsible for this state of affairs were the emperor and empress, whose personal immorality infected every aspect of Byzantine society and government. This was not, of course, how Justinian saw it. He was not blind to the shortcomings of his government, but in his view, the fault lay with other men. In this preface from the law known as Novella 8, Justinian outlines his reasons for banning the practice of selling government offices. Also included is an excerpt from the Secret History, which paints a very different picture of the context in which the law was passed. As you read the two documents, compare and contrast Justinian’s and Procopius’s explanations of provincial corruption. What weaknesses in Byzantine government did both acknowledge?

Justinian, Novella 8

[The emperor Justinian] to Ioannes, praetorian prefect for the second time, former consul and patrician:

Preface: We pass entire days and nights in reflecting on what may be agreeable to God and beneficial to Our subjects, and it is not in vain that We maintain these vigils but We employ them in attempting to deliver those who are subject to Our government from care and anxiety; and, undertaking this Ourselves, We attempt in every way to do what may render Our people happy and relieve them of all onerous charges and impositions, with the exception of duties and taxes. We have found that great injustice has been committed in many instances, and that this injustice is not ancient but recent, an oppression that has impoverished Our subjects to such an extent that they have been reduced to indigence, taxes cannot be collected, and the lawful and customary tribute cannot be obtained without the greatest difficulty; for, when the Emperors try to obtain money from magistrates by selling them their offices and the latter, in their turn, indemnify themselves by extortion, how can those subject to taxation endure these unjust impositions as well as the lawful contributions for which they are liable?

Hence We have thought that any changes which We make in Our provinces should be liberal and for the general welfare. We believe that this can be accomplished if the Governors invested with the civil administration of the provinces keep their hands clean and abstain from accepting anything, remaining content with the remuneration given them by the Treasury. This, however, cannot take place unless they obtain their offices without purchasing them and give nothing either to offices or to other persons in order to obtain their influence. Although the suppression of unlawful gains of this kind may cause the empire some financial loss, We nevertheless think that Our subjects will ultimately be benefited by it if they are not imposed on by magistrates, and that the government and the Treasury will obtain a great advantage in having wealthy subjects and that, under such circumstances, there will be a great increase of riches and extraordinary prosperity. For is it not clear to all that anyone who gives money to obtain an office does not merely disburse it for that purpose, but pays out still more to the persons who procure it for him, or promises to do so? Where money is thus corruptly used in the first place, many hands are required to aid him who made the donation and, if he does not make the payment out of his own property, he must borrow and in order to do so will appropriate that of the public, as he must obtain enough from his province to pay his debts, both principal and interest, and indemnify himself for what he has borrowed; and he will also, in the meantime, incur greater expense and the judges and subordinates attached to his office will do the same thing; and he will make secret acquisitions with a view to providing for the future when he will no longer be in authority. For which reason he collects three times the amount of what he has paid out, and sometimes more, or even ten times as much, if the truth be told, and the revenues of the Treasury are diminished to this extent, for what should have been paid into it if they had been entrusted to honest hands is collected for the private use of the official, which renders Our taxpayers poor, and their indigence which is caused by his conduct becomes a source of reproach to Us. How impious is such conduct and of how many thefts is it the immediate cause? Those who administer the affairs of the provinces, thinking incessantly of what their offices will cost them, discharge many criminals by selling them freedom from prosecution and convict many who are innocent, in order that they may profit thereby; and this not only occurs in pecuniary cases but also in prosecutions for crimes in which the death penalty is inflicted; and many persons in the provinces, including priests, city councilors, various officials, owners of property, citizens, and farmers, flock to this city with good cause, complaining of injustice, and accusing the magistrates of theft. Not only do these things occur, but also the seditions in cities and public disturbances which take place everywhere go unpunished in consideration of money paid. Corruption is undoubtedly the cause of these evils, it being the beginning and the end of all wickedness, confirming the truth of the sacred precept that avarice is the mother of all crime; especially when it is not confined to private persons, but even takes possession of the minds of magistrates. For who cannot steal without danger? Cannot anyone commit robbery with the certainty of appearing innocent in the eyes of the magistrate when he knows that he has purchased everything with gold and that no matter what illegal act he may commit, he can escape by the payment of the penalty? The result of this condition of affairs is homicide, adultery, violence, wounds, the rape of virgins, commercial difficulties, contempt of the laws and judges, all of which are attributable to venality, and the immunity sold to criminals in the same manner as a vile slave. We are unable to consider or enumerate the evils resulting from thefts committed by the governors of provinces, and still no one is courageous enough to accuse them of having corruptly purchased their offices.

Procopius’s Assessment of Novella 8

In fact, Justinian implemented the following policies everywhere in the Roman Empire. He picked out the most villainous characters and sold to them, at a high price, the offices that they were to corrupt. For no man who was decent or who had a trace of good sense would ever dream of handing over his own money for the privilege of plundering those who had done no wrong. So pocketing the gold from his contractors, he would elevate them to positions of absolute power over his subjects. The inevitable consequence of this was that they ruined all the lands under their jurisdiction, including the people in them, so as to spend the rest of their own life rich. They would purchase offices that governed the cities by borrowing from the bank at hefty rates of interest and then paying it over to the one selling the position; and when they arrived in their cities they would invariably put every form of evil governance on display having no other concern than how to pay back their creditors and gain for themselves entry into the ranks of the superrich. These tactics carried for them no risk of danger or ill repute; quite the contrary, they stood to gain glory proportional to the number of people who fell into their hands and whom they managed to rob and kill for no good reason. The labels of “murderer” and “thief” were translated for them into a reputation for brisk efficiency. Of course, when he perceived that any of his officeholders was growing wealthy, he would immediately snare him with some charge or another and separate him from his money all at once.

He then issued a law by which those seeking office had to swear an oath that they would keep themselves pure of all theft and would neither give nor receive anything in connection with their duties. And upon any who would deviate from these instructions he laid down all the curses that have been known since the most ancient times. Yet not a year had passed since this law was enacted before he himself violated his own curse-protected instructions and disregarded the shame in so doing. He began to bargain over the price of offices with even less hesitation than before and not behind closed doors either but in full public view. And these “magistrates under oath” who had bought their offices now plundered everything even more than before.

Later he devised an additional scheme, shocking beyond belief. He decided that he would no longer, as before, sell those offices which he thought were highest in rank in Byzantion and all the other cities but would appoint to them some hirelings that he had sought out, bidding them, in return for some salary or another, to hand over all the loot to him. Pocketing their wages, with even greater impunity they stacked up and carried away everything from all the width and breadth of the land. And so these mercenary officials would go around plundering their subjects in the name of lawful authority. Thus the emperor carefully scrutinized each man’s credentials so as to always place in charge of affairs the most abominable men in the world—to call things by their proper names—and he could always sniff out the most loathsome man for the job. In fact, when the first such scoundrels were appointed to positions of authority and the exercise of power brought their evil characters into the light, we were astonished that human nature could accommodate such wickedness. But when those who, in time, succeeded them in these offices managed to far outstrip them, people wondered among themselves how such a great paradox had come to pass, namely that their predecessors, who had then seemed to be so villainous, were now so outdone by their successors that they were regarded in retrospect as perfect gentlemen in the performance of their official duties. And the third batch, in turn, set the bar even lower than the second for all-around malfeasance while, after them, the next group invented such bizarre grounds on which to put people on trial that they imparted on their predecessors a reputation for virtue. As this evil state of affairs dragged on, everyone finally learned through hard experience that the wickedness of human nature has no limits, especially when it is nourished by the example set by predecessors and when the license granted by absolute power incites it to injure and punish anyone who crosses its path. Then this evil seems always to attain such proportions that the minds of its victims can scarcely comprehend it.

Source: Prokopius, The Secret History with Related Texts, ed. Anthony Kaldellis (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company: 2010), pp. 152–154, 94–96.

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