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• List of Illustrations
• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• Chapter Xl
• Chapter Xli
• Chapter Xlii
• Chapter Xliii
• Chapter Xliv
• Appendix Additional Notes By the Editor
• 1.: Justinian’s Position In Justin’s Reign — ( P. 4 , 5 )
• 2.: The Demes of Constantinople — ( P. 20 )
• 3.: The Nika Riot
• 4.: Routes and Commerce Between the Empire and China — ( P. 33 Sqq. )
• 5.: Justinian’s Coinage — ( P. 44 )
• 6.: Oracles In Procopius — ( P. 131 )
• 7.: Kotrigurs, Uturgurs, Tetraxite Goths — ( P. 180 , 282 )
• 8.: The Turks — ( P. 185 )
• 9.: The Axumites and Himyarites — ( P. 230 Sqq. )
• 10.: The War In Africa After the Death of Solomon — ( P. 238 Sqq. )
• 11.: The Exarchs — ( P. 110 , 238 , 280 )
• 12.: The Comet of 531 — ( P. 292-3 )
• 13.: Roman Law In the East — ( C. Xliv .)

6.

ORACLES IN PROCOPIUS — (P. 131)

Two Latin oracles, quoted and translated by Procopius in Bell. Got. Bk. i., have perplexed interpreters. The Latin words, copied by Greek scribes ignorant of Latin, underwent corruption. One general principle of the corruption is clear. Those Latin letters which have a different form from the corresponding Greek were assimilated to Greek letters of similar form but different sound. Thus P was taken for Rô, C for Sigma, F was assimilated to E. Thus expedita would appear as ὲχρεδίτα (as we actually find it in the Oxford MS. of John Malalas, p. 427, ed. Bonn). Africa capta would be set down in the form ἀερισα σαρτα.

(1) The oracle concerning Mundus, to which Gibbon refers as obscure, appears thus in the best MS. (ed. Comparetti, i. p. 47): —

(other MSS. give ἀερίσας ἄρτα and ρεριστασι or τζεριστασι).

The interpretation of the first five words is clear: —

but the last seven (eight ?) characters can hardly represent peribit or peribunt, though some part of perire (Procop. gives ἀπολεɩ̂ται) seems to lurk in them.

(2) The Sibylline prophecy with which the besieged Romans consoled themselves in the spring of 537, that in the month of July a king would arise for the Romans and deliver them from fear of the Goths, is recorded in bk. i. c. 24 (Comparetti, p. 177), and is more difficult. The best MSS. give the Latin in peculiar characters which cannot be here reproduced (see Comparetti); the rest give a Greek transliteration: —

The interpretation of Procopius is: χρη̂ναι γὰρ τότε βασιλέα Ῥωμαίοις καταστη̂ναί τινα ἐξ οὒ δὴ Γετικὸν οὐδὲν Ῥώμη τὸ λοιπὸν δείσειε.

Comparetti gives as the original: —

But the words sub novo Romanus rege are not there. By a careful examination of the characters it may, I think, be shown that the oracle ran: —

The last word reads almet (possibly, by an anagrammatic mistake, metuat).