[1157] Procopius puts it as high as 300,000; De Bel. Pers., ii, 14.
[1158] Jn. Lydus, De Magistr., iii, 54.
[1159] Zachariah Mytil., viii, 4.
[1160] Nearly all these particulars are due to John Malala, who, from the amount of detail he supplies about his native city, may be called the historian of Antioch. From him we learn that the Olympic games continued to be celebrated at Antioch, but were finally suppressed in 521 by Justin, for reasons similar to those which about half a century ago led to the abolition of Donnybrook Fair.
[1161] Cedrenus, i, p. 641. Perhaps he is only speaking figuratively.
[1162] Jn. Lydus, loc. cit.
[1163] Evagrius, iv, 6. Jn. Malala (xviii, p. 443) puts the re-christening in 528. He adds that Justinian remitted three years’ taxes to several of the towns then damaged by earthquakes.
[1164] His death is said to have resulted from the recrudescence of an old wound in the foot at the age of seventy-five (Jn. Malala) or seventy-seven (Chron. Paschal.). The higher number is to be preferred, as Procopius says that at his accession he was τυμβογέρων, that is, an old man “with one foot in the grave”; Anecdot., 6; cf. Alemannus, p. 385.
[1165] The age of Justinian is not satisfactorily known, but Cedrenus and Zonaras give him forty-five years at his coronation. I need only allude to the reputed life of Justinian by his so-called tutor, Bogomil or Theophilus, quoted implicitly by Alemannus, a historical puzzle for nearly three centuries, but at last solved a few years ago; see Bryce, English Hist. Rev., 1887. It is little more than a MS. leaflet (in the Barberini library at Rome), and proves to be devoid of any sort of authenticity. The chief non-corroborated statement is that Justinian spent some time at Ravenna, as a hostage, with Theodoric the Goth. Justinian himself was, in fact, a barbarian of some tribe, and the bogus name given him, Uprauda, seems to have some affinity with “upright” and “Justinian.”
[1166] The characters of Helen, Andromache, and Penelope, as they appear in the Iliad and Odyssey, have taken a place permanently in modern literature.