Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

88 4. the successors of justinian
widespread reputation for avarice. His cautious attitude is evident from the
inaugural speech credited to him in Corippus: ‘Let no one seize what
belongs to the treasury. Know that the treasury has the position of the
stomach, by which all the limbs are fed. If the stomach should be empty,
everything fails . . . Let the benefits of the holy treasury be enough for all
. . . Let the treasury be protected without any of the just suffering harm: let
it take what is its own, and leave alone what belongs to private individuals.’ 4
Justin stressed the weakened position of state finances under his predecessor,
and this official rhetoric underlies assessments that Justinian
bequeathed his successors an empire that was internally exhausted and
completely ruined financially and economically. 5 But by the end of Justin’s
reign the position had been reversed, and a considerable surplus was available
to Tiberius for charitable distributions, which might suggest that
Justinian’s difficulties had been cyclical rather than structural.
Precisely how Justin achieved this is unclear: a short-term reduction in
external payments would have helped, but Justin did have to send 90,000
solidi to the Persians in 568, and payments were made to the Avars from the
early 570s, perhaps as much as 80,000 solidi each year, and to the Persians
again from 574 after warfare in the east had restarted. Another area where
expenditure may have been reduced is buildings: Justin showed concern for
the state of urban defences in the east, and attempted to impose a new
imperial image on Constantinople through various family monuments; 6 but
even cumulatively these and his various religious benefactions will not have
matched the costly repair works that Justinian had to undertake in his last
decade after earthquake damage in Constantinople and tribal invasions in
the Balkans.
One factor in the empire’s apparent financial recovery may have been
that the personal wealth of Justin, and of his relations as they died
(Germanus’ sons Justin in 566, for example, and Justinian in 577) or were
disgraced (Marcian, 573; Baduarius, 575), was incorporated into the imperial
treasuries: this seems to have happened in the case of Justin’s brother
Marcellus, whose considerable wealth was subsequently available for
Maurice to bestow on his father and brother, and Justin’s personal wealth
had been sufficient to repay public debts, admittedly of unknown size, at
his inauguration. In this way some of the considerable benefactions of
Justinian’s reign to his own and Theodora’s relatives will have returned to
the state. Another factor may have been a gradual recovery in the prosperity
of important provinces, and hence of imperial revenues: the great
plague was now a generation in the past, and rural life might not have been
particularly affected by subsequent recurrences of the disease, which will
4 Nov. 148; Theophanes 242.21–7; Cor. In laudem ii.249–57 with Cameron, Corippus 70.
5 Ostrogorsky (1956) 78. 6 Menander fr. 9.16–19; Cameron (1980).
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