He also caused physicians and professors of the liberal arts to be deprived of the necessaries of life.

He cut off from them all the supplies which former emperors had attached to these professions, and which were paid out of the State funds.

Further, he had no scruple about transferring to the public funds all the revenues which the inhabitants of the cities had devoted either to public purposes or for providing entertainments.

From that time no attention was paid to physicians or professors; no one ventured to trouble himself about the public buildings; there were no public lights in the cities, or any enjoyments for the inhabitants; the performances in the theatres and hippodromes and the combats of wild beasts, in which Theodora had been bred and brought up, were entirely discontinued.

He afterwards suppressed public exhibitions in Byzantium, to save the usual State contribution, to the ruin of an almost countless multitude who found their means of support in these entertainments.