It was not long before the Empress had an opportunity of repaying her friend for her dexterous service. Belisarius and Antonina had adopted a youth named Theodosius, for whom Antonina conceived an ungovernable passion. Their guilty intrigue was discovered by Belisarius in Sicily (A.D. 535-536), and he sent some of his retainers to slay the paramour, who, however, escaped to Ephesus.159 But Antonina persuaded her uxorious husband that she was not guilty, regained his affection, and induced him to hand over to her the servants who had betrayed her amour. It was reported that having cut out their tongues she chopped their bodies in small pieces and threw them into the sea. Her desire for Theodosius was not cooled by an absence of five years, and while she was preparing her intrigue against John the Cappadocian she was planning to recall her lover to her side when Belisarius departed for the East. But her son Photius, who had always been jealous of the favourite preferred to himself, penetrated her design and revealed the matter to his stepfather, and they bound themselves by solemn oaths to punish Theodosius. They decided, however, that nothing could be done immediately; they must wait till Antonia followed her husband to the East. Photius accompanied Belisarius in the campaign, and for some months Antonina enjoyed the society of her paramour at Constantinople. When, in the summer of the year, she set out for Persia, Theodosius returned to Ephesus. The general met his wife, showed his anger, but had not the heart to slay her. Photius hastened to Ephesus, seized Theodosius, and sent him under a guard of retainers to be imprisoned in a secret place in Cilicia. He proceeded himself to Constantinople, in possession of the wealth which Theodosius had been allowed to appropriate from the spoils of Carthage.160 But the danger of her favourite had come to the ears of Theodora. She caused Belisarius and his wife to be summoned to the capital and she forced a reconciliation upon the reluctant husband. Then she seized Photius and sought by torture to make him reveal the place where he had concealed Theodosius. The secret was disclosed, however, through another channel and Theodosius was rescued; the Empress concealed him in the Palace, and presented him to Antonina as a delightful surprise.
The unhappy Photius, who showed greater force of character than Belisarius, was kept a captive in the dungeons of Theodora. He escaped twice, but was dragged back from the sanctuaries in which he had sought refuge. His third attempt at the end of three years was successful; he reached Jerusalem, became a monk, and escaped the vengeance of the Empress. He survived Justinian, and in the following reign was appointed, notwithstanding his religious quality, to suppress a revolt of the Samaritans, a task which he carried out, we are told, with the utmost cruelty, taking advantage of his powers to extort money from all the Syrian provinces.161
§ 8. The Great Pestilence (A.D. 542-543)
Justinian had been fourteen years on the throne when the Empire was visited by one of those immense but rare calamities in the presence of which human beings could only succumb helpless and resourceless until the science of the nineteenth century began to probe the causes and supply the means of preventing and checking them. The devastating plague, which began its course in the summer of A.D. 542 and seems to have invaded and ransacked nearly every corner of the Empire, was, if not more malignant, far more destructive, through the vast range of its ravages, than the pestilences which visited ancient Athens in the days of Pericles and London in the reign of Charles II; and perhaps even than the plague which travelled from the East to Rome in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. It probably caused as large a mortality in the Empire as the Black Death of the fourteenth century in the same countries.162
The infection first attacked Pelusium, on the borders of Egypt, with deadly effect, and spread thence to Alexandria and throughout Egypt, and northward to Palestine and Syria. In the following year it reached Constantinople, in the middle of spring,163 and spread over Asia Minor and through Mesopotamia into the kingdom of Persia.164 Travelling by sea, whether from Africa or across the Adriatic, it invaded Italy and Sicily.165
It was observed that the infection always started from the coast and went up to the interior, and that those who survived it had become immune. The historian Procopius, who witnessed its course at Constantinople, as Thucydides had studied the plague at Athens, has detailed the nature and effects of the bubonic disease, as it might be called, for the most striking feature was a swelling in the groin or in the armpit, sometimes behind the ear or on the thighs. Hallucinations occasionally preceded the attack. The victims were seized by a sudden fever, which did not affect the colour of the skin nor make it as hot as might be expected.
The fever was of such a languid sort from its commencement and up till evening that neither to the sick themselves nor a physician who touched them would it afford any suspicion of danger… . But on the same day in some cases, in others on the following day, and in the rest not many days later a bubonic swelling developed… . Up to this point everything went in about the same way with all who had taken the disease. But from then on very marked differences developed… . There ensued with some a deep coma, with others a violent delirium, and in either case they suffered the characteristic symptoms of the disease. For those who were under the spell of the coma forgot all those who were familiar to them and seemed to be sleeping constantly. And if any one cared for them, they would eat without waking, but some also were neglected and these would die directly through lack of sustenance. But those who were seized with delirium suffered from insomnia and were victims of a distorted imagination; for they suspected that men were coming upon them to destroy them, and they would become excited and rush off in flight, crying out at the top of their voices. And those who were attending them were in a state of constant exhaustion and had a most difficult time… . Neither the physicians nor other persons were found to contract this malady through contact with the sick or with the dead, for many who were constantly engaged either in burying or in attending those in no way connected with them held out in the performance of this service beyond all expectation… . [The patients] had great difficulty in the matter of eating, for they could not easily take food. And many perished through lack of any man to care for them, for they were either overcome with hunger, or threw themselves from a height. And in those cases where neither coma nor delirium came on, the bubonic swelling became mortified and the sufferer, no longer able to endure the pain, died. And we would suppose that in all cases the same thing would have been true, but since they were not at all in their senses, some were quite unable to feel the pain; for owing to the troubled condition of their minds they lost all sense of feeling. Now some of the physicians who were at a loss because the symptoms were not understood, supposing that the disease centred in the bubonic swellings, decided to investigate the bodies of the dead. And upon opening some of the swellings they found a strange sort of carbuncle [ἄνθραξ] that had grown inside them. Death came in some cases immediately, in others after many days; and with some the body broke out with black pustules about as large as a lentil, and these did not survive even one day, but all succumbed immediately. With many also a vomiting of blood ensued without visible cause and straightway brought death. Moreover I am able to declare this, that the most illustrious physicians predicted that many would die, who unexpectedly escaped entirely from suffering shortly afterwards, and that they declared that many would be saved who were destined to be carried off almost immediately… . While some were helped by bathing others were harmed in no less degree. And of those who received no care many died, but others, contrary to reason, were saved. And again, methods of treatment showed different results with different patients… . And in the case of women who were pregnant death could be certainly foreseen if they were taken with the disease. For some died through miscarriage, but others perished immediately at the time of birth with the infants they bore. However they say that three women survived though their children perished, and that one woman died at the very time of child-birth