These calamities, and those which were brought upon the Empire by the
Medes, the Saracens, the Sclavonians, the Antes, and other barbarians,
I have described in the previous books of my history; but, as I have
said at the beginning of this story, I was here obliged to explain the
causes which led thereto.

Justinian paid Chosroes many centenars in order to secure peace, and
then, with unreasonable arbitrariness, did more than anyone to break
the truce, by employing every effort to bring Alamundur and his Huns
over to his own side, as I have already set forth in plain terms in my
history.

While he was stirring up all this strife and war to plague the Romans,
he also endeavoured, by various devices, to drench the earth in human
blood, to carry off more riches for himself, and to murder many of his
subjects. He proceeded as follows. There prevail in the Roman Empire
many Christian doctrines which are known as heresies, such as those of
the Montanists and Sabbatians and all the others by which men's minds
are led astray. Justinian ordered all these beliefs to be abandoned in
favour of the old religion, and threatened the recusants with legal
disability to transmit their property to their wives and children by
will. The churches of these so-called heretics--especially those
belonging to the Arian heresy--were rich beyond belief. Neither the
whole of the Senate, or any other of the greatest corporations in the
Roman Empire, could be compared with these churches in wealth. They
had gold and silver plate and jewels more than any man could count or
describe; they owned many mansions and villages, and large estates
everywhere, and everything else which is reckoned and called wealth
among men.