Justinian, however, took no notice of it, being unwilling to incur any expense for repairs, although a great crowd continually thronged round the fountains, and all the baths had been shut.

Nevertheless, he expended vast sums without any reason or sense upon buildings on the seashore, and also built everywhere throughout the suburbs, as if the palaces, in which their predecessors had always been content to live, were no longer suitable for himself and Theodora; so that it was not merely parsimony, but a desire for the destruction of human life, that prevented him from repairing the aqueduct, for no one, from most ancient times, had ever shown himself more eager than Justinian to amass wealth, and at the same time to spend it in a most wasteful and extravagant manner.

Thus this Emperor struck at the poorest and most miserable of his subjects through two most necessary articles of food--bread and water, by making the one difficult to procure, and the other too dear for them to buy.
It was not only the poor of Byzantium, however, that he harassed in this manner, but, as I will presently mention, the inhabitants of several other cities.

When Theodoric had made himself master of Italy, in order to preserve some trace of the old constitution, he permitted the praetorian guards to remain in the palace and continued their daily allowance.

These soldiers were very numerous.