The reproaches of impiety and avarice have stained the virtues or the
reputation of Tribonian. In a bigoted and persecuting court the
principal minister was accused of a secret aversion to the Christian
faith, and was supposed to entertain the sentiments of an atheist and a
pagan, which have been imputed, inconsistently enough, to the last
philosophers of Greece. His avarice was more clearly proved and more
sensibly felt. If he were swayed by gifts in the administration of
justice, the example of Bacon will again occur: nor can the merit of
Tribonian atone for his baseness, if he degraded the sanctity of his
profession; and if laws were every day enacted, modified, or repealed,
for the base consideration of his private emolument. In the sedition of
Constantinople his removal was granted to the clamors, perhaps to the
just indignation, of the people; but the quaestor was speedily restored,
and, till the hour of his death, he possessed above twenty years the
favor and confidence of the Emperor. His passive and dutiful submission
has been honored with the praise of Justinian himself, whose vanity was
incapable of discerning how often that submission degenerated into the
grossest adulation.
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