This extraordinary man, the object of so much praise and censure, was a
native of Side in Pamphylia; and his genius, like that of Bacon,
embraced as his own all the business and knowledge of the age. Tribonian
composed, both in prose and verse, on a strange diversity of curious and
abstruse subjects; a double panegyric of Justinian and the life of the
philosopher Theodotus; the nature of happiness and the duties of
government; Homer's catalogue and the four-and-twenty sorts of metre;
the astronomical canon of Ptolemy; the changes of the months; the houses
of the planets; and the harmonic system of the world. To the literature
of Greece he added the use of the Latin tongue; the Roman civilians were
deposited in his library and in his mind; and he most assiduously
cultivated those arts which opened the road of wealth and preferment.
From the bar of the praetorian prefects he raised himself to the honors
of quaestor, of consul, and of master of the offices: the council of
Justinian listened to his eloquence and wisdom, and envy was mitigated
by the gentleness and affability of his manners.
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