Istanbul

All of these he utterly depopulated. For those who did not die in battle perished of disease and famine, which as usual followed in the train of war. Illyria and all of Thrace, that...

For Libya, vast as it is, he so devastated that you would have to go a long way to find a single man, and he would be remarkable. Yet eighty thousand Vandals capable of...

Saturninus, lying down finally to pleasant dreams with his new bride, discovered she was already unmaidened; and later told one of his friends that his new-found mate came to him not imperforate. When this...

And in what manner the poor lad was removed from the world, I cannot say, for no one has ever seen him since, not even after the Queen died. The ladies of the court...

Fearing this repulsive fate, the sisters fled to the Church of St. Sophia, and running to the holy water, clung tightly to the font. Yet such privations and ill treatment did the Empress inflict...

So the Empress locked up Theodorus, one of Diogenes’s friends, in one of her private dungeons; and there first with flattery, then with flogging, tried to overwhelm him.When he still resisted, she ordered a...

No other tyrant since mankind began ever inspired such fear, since not a word could be spoken against her without her hearing of it: her multitude of spies brought her the news of whatever...

So she forthwith persuaded Justinian to send Peter, alone, to Italy as ambassador to Theodatus. When he set out the Emperor gave him the instructions I described in the chapter on that event: where,...

“Highness, it is hard for a patrician to ask for money. For what in other men brings sympathy and pity, in one of my rank is considered disgraceful. Any other man suffering hardships from...

But to the Queen’s presence even the highest officials could not enter without great delay and trouble; like slaves they had to wait all day in a small and stuffy antechamber, for to absent...