of Rome was accused of conspiring with the vilest informers
against the lives of senators whom he suspected of a secret and
treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court. ^87 After
the death of Anastasius, the diadem had been placed on the head
of a feeble old man; but the powers of government were assumed by
his nephew Justinian, who already meditated the extirpation of
heresy, and the conquest of Italy and Africa. A rigorous law,
which was published at Constantinople, to reduce the Arians by
the dread of punishment within the pale of the church, awakened
the just resentment of Theodoric, who claimed for his distressed
brethren of the East the same indulgence which he had so long
granted to the Catholics of his dominions. ^! At his stern
command, the Roman pontiff, with four illustrious senators,
embarked on an embassy, of which he must have alike dreaded the
failure or the success. The singular veneration shown to the
first pope who had visited Constantinople was punished as a crime
by his jealous monarch; the artful or peremptory refusal of the
Byzantine court might excuse an equal, and would provoke a
larger, measure of retaliation; and a mandate was prepared in
Italy, to prohibit, after a stated day, the exercise of the
Catholic worship. By the bigotry of his subjects and enemies,
the most tolerant of princes was driven to the brink of
persecution; and the life of Theodoric was too long, since he
lived to condemn the virtue of Boethius and Symmachus. ^88
[Footnote 86: The Jews were settled at Naples, (Procopius, Goth.
l. i. c. 8,) at Genoa, (Var. ii. 28, iv. 33,) Milan, (v. 37,)
Rome, (iv. 43.) See likewise Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii.
c. 7, p. 254.]

[Footnote *: See History of the Jews vol. iii. p. 217. - M.]