4. Both these substantives are in the plural, the patriarch as well as the king taking the pluralis majestatis.
5. This was the paragau~dij , for which cf. Du Cange Glos. sub Paragauda.
6. The palace of Hormisdas was originally a mere house, the use of which was granted to Hormisdas, when he fled to Constantinople for refuge from the cruelty of his brother, Sapor, king of Persia: but when subsequently Justinian dwelt there, before he attained to the empire, he conceived so great an attachment for it, that he rebuilt it magnificently, and added it to the palace by a covered way.
7. The monastery of Dalmatus (for so we ought to read, the mark of the plural both here and constantly in the case of the monastery of Eubulus being an error of the copyist, who mistook the waw, which represents the genitive case, tou~ Dalma&tou , for a plural termination) was the highest in rank and most ancient and celebrated of all the religious houses at Constantinople. It was founded in the reign of Theodosius the younger, and an account of it will be found in Du Fresne Const. Christ. ii. 154.
8. Comes Privati, ko&mhj tw~n priba&twn , is defined by Philostorgius as, o( th~j basilikh~j oi0ki/aj proestw&j .
9. Theodora bore Justinian an only daughter, of whose son, Anastasius, Procopius gives an account in his Hist. Arc. c. iv. calling him 'Anastasi/w| tw~| th~j basili/doj qugatridw~| , and detailing the particulars of the scheme for marrying him to Belisarius' daughter Joannina; but of another son, John, he knows nothing.
10. The diptychs here spoken of were of two kinds — one for the dead, and one for the living; and on them were inscribed the names of those who were to be mentioned at the eucharist. The omission therefore of their names was equivalent to condemning them as heretics; and Evagrius mentions that Anastasius' own name was similarly removed 'because of heresy.'
11. Syncellus signifies literally, 'one who shares the same cell,' whence it became the title of a high ecclesiastical dignity, the person invested with it being at once the prime minister and privy councillor of the bishop. Occasionally the syncellus was nominated by the emperor, to watch and control the actions of a dangerous prelate.
12. These diaconates were also hospitals; but the sick in them were tended by deacons and laymen.
13. Beth-Babula was built at Constantinople by S. Rabula, bishop of Emesa, in the reign of Anastasius, who provided him with the funds. An account of its erection will be found in the Menologies, under Feb. 19.
14. The cellarius was the house-steward of a bishop, or monastery, and the immense revenues of the patriarchates rendered the office one of great responsibility. Lanfranc, in the 8th chapter of his Decrees to regulate the monks of the order of S. Benedict, thus describes his duties: 'Ad cellarii ministerium pertinet omnia quae in pane et potu et diversis ciborum generibus patribus sunt necessaria procurare,' etc.
15. For these diaconates, conf. Du Cange, Glos. sub Diaconia.
16. There was a very famous temple of the Virgin at Blachernae, but she is so universally styled Deipara, both by our author and by all who have described this church, that I feel far from certain of the correctness of the translation.
So beautiful was this edifice, that Nicephorus Callistus describes it as 'the great house of the Mother of God, which vies in beauty with the very heavens:' and its foundation is so illustrative of the times, that I cannot forbear giving it from the Greek Liturgies, where it will be found in the Menologies, or Services for the Saints' days, under July 2. 'Two Patrician youths, we are there told, named Galbius and Candidus, went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and passing through Galilee, they lodged for the night with a pious woman, who had in her possession a robe which had once belonged to the holy Virgin. This treasure she shewed to the devout travellers, who, eager to gain so precious a relic, offered her large sums of money: but being unable to induce her to part with it, they finally proceeded on their way to Jerusalem. There, while visiting the holy places, the pious thought suggested itself of engaging the services of a carpenter to make a chest exactly similar to that in which the robe was deposited in the widow's house: and so exact was the counterfeit, that the brothers returned full of holy joly to Galilee; and being again hospitably entertained, they succeeded easily in effecting the substitution, as the true chest miraculously aided in the exchange. On returning to Constantinople, the youths endeavoured to conceal their pious theft, but the miraculous virtues of the robe quickly manifested themselves, and being noised abroad, they were constrained to acknowledge their possession of it to the Emperor, who hastened with all humility to kiss and do homage to the saintly relic, and built a splendid church for its reception, wherein the blessed chest remains even to this day, the palladium of the city against danger, and its best protection against pestilence and war.'
17. This Khosrun is the famous Nushirwan, whose eulogy has been written by Gibbon, and to whose many excellent qualities our historian himself bears witness in the sixth book of his history.
18. The title of Marzban is exactly equivalent to the German Markgraf, and English Marquis, and signifies Lord or Warden of the Marches, or border lands. Adelung, in his Krit. Wörterbuch, enumerates an endless number of dialects in which Marz or Mark has this meaning, and we retain it exactly in landmark, which signifies the edge, border, limit of the land, not a sign to mark the boundary. Ban the Germans retain as the title of the Warden of Croatia; and Adelung says, Ban, Pen, in Goth. Fan, signifies high, the summit, the chief lord. As regards the title King of kings, which occurs a few lines below, it is perhaps hardly necessary to say that Khosrun is meant by it, as it was the regular title of the Persian monarchs.
19. Theodosiopolis is better known by its other name of Resaina, by which it is frequently spoken of afterwards, and was situated in Mesopotamia. The patrician Justinian was the grand nephew of the Emperor of that name, and in the latter part of Justin's reign conducted the war against Khosrun with considerable ability. Evagrius (Eccles. Hist. V. 7-15.) gives a brief account of these transactions confirmatory of the more stirring narrative of John.
20. The real date was A. D. 571, consequently [Syriac] has probably been omitted from the text.
21. A more full, but still piecemeal, account of these events will be found in the sixth book.
22. Before completely dismissing the subject, it may he interesting to add a translation of Saint Martin's account of this seven years' war, in his Mémoires sur 1'Arménie, vol. i. p. 330, and which is as follows:—'In spite of the treaty made between Vahan Mamigonean and king Balasch, the Persian sovereigns frequently persecuted the Christians in Armenia, in the hope of making them abjure their faith. Nevertheless during most of the reign of king Khosrou, Armenia was tranquil, and enjoyed as much prosperity as was possible for a land which was necessarily the battle field for the incessant struggle waged between the Greek and the Persian empires. Towards the end however of his reign a war broke out, which for many years spread devastation and slaughter through every part of the land. For Vartan Mamigonean, irritated by the persecutions which his Christian countrymen had to endure, raised in A. D. 571 the standard of revolt, marched upon Tovin, the capital, of which he made himself master, defeated and slew beneath its walls the Marzban Souren Jihrveschnasbean, and with the support of the emperor of Constantinople, assumed the reins of government as an independent prince. And at first success seemed likely to crown his enterprise: for the army which Khosrou sent to suppress the rebellion was defeated by Vartan in the plains of Khaghamakha, on the shores of the Ourmiah lake. But this reverse served only to rouse the aged king to greater efforts, and upon the approach of his most famous general Bahrain Tchoubin, with a numerous army, the insurgents, weakened by intestine discords, did not dare to meet him in the field, and some even fled to Constantinople. The Greek emperors in vain endeavoured to prop up Vartan's tottering rule, and after a seven years' struggle, the Armenians, in A. D. 578, wearied with the ravages of war, made voluntary offers of submission, which were accepted by the Persian king, and Mihram Jihrvegon appointed to be their Marzban.'
This summary of the seven years' war is gathered by Saint Martin from the writings of the Armenians themselves; and should it interest any one in the brave endeavours of this people to maintain their faith in spite of the incessant persecutions of the Zoroastrian priests, he will find a stirring recital of a more successful struggle waged a hundred years before, in the translation (into French) of the history, which Elisée Vartabed wrote at the request of the hero of the war, Vahan Mamigonean, the ancestor of the Vartan mentioned above, by the abbé Gregory Karabagy Garabed: other available sources of information are, the translation of Moses Chorenus, an Armenian bishop of the fifth century, by Le Vaillant de Florival; Avdall's translation of Michael Chamich's History of Armenia, Calcutta, 1827; and the recent translations of Dulaurier.
23. The deposition of this prelate had been one of the last acts of Justinian's reign, who, in his eagerness to unite all parties within the church, had adopted as his standard the tenets of a subdivision of the Monophysite party, who held that the body of Christ was not subject to corruption. The head of this party was Julianus, and a Syriac translation of the great work of Severus of Antioch in opposition to his views is extant among the manuscripts of the British Museum. Eutychius, to his honour, opposed the Emperor's scheme of elevating this doctrine to the rank of orthodoxy: and by a stretch of the imperial prerogative, by no means uncommon in those days, was at once deposed, and went into retirement. It follows therefore that John's elevation was entirely uncanonical, and hence the treatment of his pictures, &c. regarded by our historian as part of his retribution.
24. The opinion of Baronius concerning John is by no means a favourable one: for speaking of Eutychius's deposition, he says, 'his successor was John Scholasticus, apocrisiarius of the church of Antioch, a man plainly the slave of glory, and a trafficker in holy things, and who purchased his high rank by flattery.' (Eccles. Hist. sub A. D. 564.) Raderus is even less complimentary: for referring to the fact that the Greek church celebrates him as a saint, he says, 'I find no traces of sanctity in him: away with him therefore from the sacred Fasti.' (Conf. Morcellus in Kal. Eccl. Const. ii. 229.)
25. The carvin, or kara&bion , is explained by Isidore as a vessel made of osiers and hides: its Ar. equivalent [Arabic] is the small vessel used in disembarking from a larger one. In modern languages it still exists in the Portuguese, Caravela; Italian, Caravella, &c.
26. Evagrius, Eccles. Hist. v. 3, applies the same epithet of exsecrable, or accursed ( alith&rioj ) to Aetherius, and describes him as a man whose sole delight was in calumniating and bringing evil upon others. He was put to death by Justin, on a charge of conspiracy against his life.