Justinian's qualities--His accessibility--His partiality for the clergy--His gifts to the churches--His passion for blood and money, shared by him with Theodora--Flattery of Tribonianus--Justinian's fickleness and ill-faith--Venality of justice--Corruption of officials--Justinian's fasting and temperate mode of life.
Abolition of various old customs--The attributes of the quaestor and imperial secretaries--The senate a mere cipher--Corruption of the "Referendaries"--Guilty conduct of Zeno, the Cilician.
Cruelty of Theodora--Her voluptuous life--Her ambition--Her character and Justinian's compared--Her harshness towards persons of rank--Their servility--Pretended mildness of Justinian--Theodora's eagerness for vengeance--Her partiality--The insult offered by her to a patrician--Her stay at Heraeum, on the sea-shore.
Assassination of Amalasunta, Queen of the Goths, by Peter, Theodora's agent--The secretary, Priscus, obliged to enter a cloister--Justinian's hypocrisy--Disgrace of Areobindus, Theodora's lover--Her way of getting rid of persons of rank--Punishment of Basianus--False accusation against Diogenes, a member of the municipal council--Suborning of witnesses--Theodora's courage.
Murder of Callinicus, governor of Cilicia--His property confiscated by Justinian--Theodora's severe measures against prostitutes--She compels two girls of noble birth to marry--Her frequent abortions--Disappearance of her natural son, John--Corrupt morals of the ladies of the capital--Theodora disposes of ecclesiastical dignities--Takes upon herself the general superintendence of marriages--Adventure of Saturninus--Persecution of John of Cappadocia.
Justinian, a devil in the form of a man, causes the destruction of millions of men--His policy towards the Vandals, Goths, and other barbarians--Chosroes and the Persians--Invasion of the Huns, Saracens, and others--Justinian's theological studies--Religious persecution--Divine anger--Inundations, earthquakes, and the plague.
A dream relating to Justinian's avarice--The vast treasures of Anastasius squandered by Justinian--He makes himself master of the fortunes of private individuals by false accusations, and squanders them in presents of money to the barbarians, who plunder the Empire--Fulfilment of the dream.